US Sailing  1.x - Rule 60.4(a)(2) is changed as follows: (2) if it alleges a breach of a rule of Part 2 or rule 31 and is from a boat that was not involved in, and did not see, the incident, or.
Aren't the two apostrophes  (after "in" and "see")  redundant (or could be open to further debate as to whether the two criterion are co-joined or separate)? 

Ben, that was also exactly my first thought.  I can't think of another instance where a Case is going to tell us how to read the English language. 

I'd love to understand why they don't just put in the US sailing correction directly in an RRS 2026 corrections doc. 

Thanks Ant, for pointing out my typo (yes,' commas' of course - 'less haste and more speed' on my part needed :)). Yes, your above preferred language would be clearer and more proper. 

Gordon re:"I would prefer to avoid a 'neither' 'nor' wording for the sake of the many non-native English speakers"

.. and for us English speakers too!!.  The use of the double-negative logic is mind-numbing.  

I'm getting a bit lost here (and with the original thread that spawned this thread) on the above-suggested wording of "2) If it is from a boat that was involved in or saw the incident alleging a breach of Part 2 or rule 31;": are we not back to the original matter of 'OR' (meaning that if a boat was not directly involved in the incident but did in fact see or 'saw' the incident, then the boat in question can legitimately protest (valid) - and then the next thing is: if the incident was, sometime after, seen on a video, but raised the protest before the expiry of that time to protest', it is also a legitimate protest (if not, I would further suggest that 'at the time' be included)?

John,

The double-negatives issue (the error after the 2025 rewrite of Part 5) is not the same issue as the question whether watching a video of an incident counts.

Let's keep that video-seeing issue to the other thread.

This thread is only about the boolean logic error. It was '' spawned'' about 10 months ago when the error was noticed and we discussed it intensely. 

For the pedants among me, neither..nor isn't a double negative, it's two negative states.
However, I'm happy to accept that the construction may be unfamiliar to many. I do like the simplicity of Gordon's suggestion. Although... to avoid an 'is it one or the other, or both' debate, I would suggest finishing 1) with a 'comma and' and remove the 'If it' from the start of 2).

Ant,

Neither nor is not the issue.

The double negative being discussed s the 'Invalid' (think not valid) / not' involved or not saw.

The not valid with either of the two not conditions evaluates to true.  eg IsNotValid(true) This is created by the 'or'between the two conditions.  Thus, currently a protest is invalid if any one of those is true. (Wasnt involved  or Didn't See.) This invalidates a protest by a third party who was not involved but did see the incident. 

Whereas the rule intent is that the protest is only invalid if both are true. (Wasn't involved and Didnt See). 

The fix is to change the or to an 'and' to keep the intended meaning. 

(Pretty simple really.) 

I would agree with Ant's proposal using 'and'. I would include some 'at the time' wording

) A protest is valid
1) if it complies with the definition Protest or rule 60.2 or 60.3; and
2) If it is from a boat alleging a breach of Part 2 or rule 31 that was involved in or saw the incident at the time it took place.

There is an issue within World Sailing in that there is no agreed style guide to be used when drafting documents. This unfortunate situation arises following the update to the Constitution. Previously the Constitution imposed the use of English English (in part because WS is based in UK) and the use of 'Plain English'.
The Plain English Campaign provides much useful guidance. See for example the guide to punctuating bulleted list', to which I referred when writing the wording above.

What happens when we have agreed on a wording to change a rule? Now that WS has created a 'Propsal Portal' could we use this to feed out ideas into the Racing Rules Committee discussions. Perhaps RRS.org could designate a suitably qualified person (an international race official, for instance) to present proposals on the Portal. By appending a list of contributors who support the proposal this would effectively become a petition. There seems to be nothing to prevent this use of the Proposal Portal.

Gordon re: "Perhaps RRS.org could designate a suitably qualified person (an international race official, for instance) to present proposals on the Portal. By appending a list of contributors who support the proposal this would effectively become a petition. There seems to be nothing to prevent this use of the Proposal Portal."

FWIW ... I've worked with a few different IJ's and IRO's to submit stuff that is inspired by RRoS threads.

I've also taken items to the USS-RC and tried to get buy-in on ideas for additions/changes to the RRS, Cases and US Appeals.

I know that some members of both the USS-RC and the USS-AppealsComm are frequent readers and occasional contributors to the forum.  I've been told privately that they feel they derive a benefit from seeing how judges, RO's and racers perceive the rules and use that to help them find areas for improvement. 

We can point to a few successes in that regard. 

So ... yea ... that's been happening behind the scenes.  It's usually me finding a "champion" privately ... an IRO/IJ or working through my MNA in the US RulesComm or US-AppealsComm.

If any IJ/IRO would like to take some of these balls a run with them .. please let it be known you would like to be part of it.  

Gordon, if the idea/thread isn't already being driven by a IJ/IRO, or a member of MNA Rules:Appeal Comnitee, would you like to take a first go at it and see how it works?