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[Haddock]

There is trivially and objectively more than one possible interpretation, as this entire debate is about which interpretation is correct.

I agree.

Awaclus, however, insists that his interpretation is the only one which is consistent with the existing rules and the way that existing cards play.

Obviously I disagree with Awaclus, I'm fairly certain that my interpretation is also consistent.

By what logic "this turn" starts when you play the card? Obviously it had been "this turn" before you played the card, you can't play cards when it's not your turn and playing a card doesn't change whose turn it is.

The effect begins when you play the card - this is your foundational assumption about how Dominion cards work, is it not?  The start time for the effect is "When you play this".  Thus "this turn" written on a card is only used to dictate when the effect will end, because we know when it starts.

No, I don't see how your conclusion could be drawn from the premises that we have.

I think I've explained my viewpoint every way I know how.  I'm still certain that it's valid.
I'm grateful to you Awaclus for making me question myself, I really think I've thought this through much more than I ever would have otherwise, and I've come to an understanding that I'm going to stick to. 

Shall we just finally agree to disagree here?

[GendoIkari]

Can we all at least agree that this ranks high in the list of the most ridiculous debates to ever have spent time on?

[Haddock]

Awa I just read your edit about Gendo.  Now I'm hyper confused cos I really thought that Gendo and I agreed here.

Though I guess Gendo has been saying that it's semantically fine (which I agree with), whereas I'm going further and saying that it's also technically consistent.  Fair enough.

Can we all at least agree that this ranks high in the list of the most ridiculous debates to ever have spent time on?

YES.  Please YES.

But it spawned "Frob the Snatz", so I don't regret it. 

[Awaclus]

"This turn" is shorthand for "from now until the end of turn". "Now" being when you played the card. Otherwise playing bridge would retroactively reduce card costs for the whole turn.

No, the reason why Bridge doesn't retroactively reduce costs is that the "this turn" effect doesn't exist before you play the card since it's set up when you play the card. "This turn" does mean the entire turn, otherwise there would be no way to ever play an activated Conspirator.

By what logic "this turn" starts when you play the card? Obviously it had been "this turn" before you played the card, you can't play cards when it's not your turn and playing a card doesn't change whose turn it is.

The effect begins when you play the card - this is your foundational assumption about how Dominion cards work, is it not?  The start time for the effect is "When you play this".  Thus "this turn" written on a card is only used to dictate when the effect will end, because we know when it starts.

The effect begins at the start of your turn, it just didn't exist at the start of your turn so it didn't do anything.

I think I've explained my viewpoint every way I know how.  I'm still certain that it's valid.
I'm grateful to you Awaclus for making me question myself, I really think I've thought this through much more than I ever would have otherwise, and I've come to an understanding that I'm going to stick to. 

Shall we just finally agree to disagree here?

I think there's more stuff that you would have to consider before sticking to your understanding, but it's not like I can force you to continue the argument further.

Awa I just read your edit about Gendo.  Now I'm hyper confused cos I really thought that Gendo and I agreed here.

Though I guess Gendo has been saying that it's semantically fine (which I agree with), whereas I'm going further and saying that it's also technically consistent.  Fair enough.

The part of Gendo's viewpoint that I understand is that the game needs to work how it's intended to work, regardless of how it should technically work, and that there's no way a card could ever be intended to work the way I'm arguing Altered Highway works. The thing is, a card that is never going to be a real Dominion card does not need to work how it's "intended" to work.

[markusin]

Awa I just read your edit about Gendo.  Now I'm hyper confused cos I really thought that Gendo and I agreed here.

Though I guess Gendo has been saying that it's semantically fine (which I agree with), whereas I'm going further and saying that it's also technically consistent.  Fair enough.

Can we all at least agree that this ranks high in the list of the most ridiculous debates to ever have spent time on?

YES.  Please YES.

But it spawned "Frob the Snatz", so I don't regret it. 

Know that I have been following this entire discussion.

[markusin]

Awa I just read your edit about Gendo.  Now I'm hyper confused cos I really thought that Gendo and I agreed here.

Though I guess Gendo has been saying that it's semantically fine (which I agree with), whereas I'm going further and saying that it's also technically consistent.  Fair enough.

The part of Gendo's viewpoint that I understand is that the game needs to work how it's intended to work, regardless of how it should technically work, and that there's no way a card could ever be intended to work the way I'm arguing Altered Highway works. The thing is, a card that is never going to be a real Dominion card does not need to work how it's "intended" to work.

Mystic Highway - $5 - Action
+1 Card
+1 Action
While this is in play, cards cost $1 less.

-------
If this card physically exists, this card's cost reduction effect does not stack from multiple plays of it. Otherwise, it does.


Deep stuff man.

[Donald X.]

Can we all at least agree that this ranks high in the list of the most ridiculous debates to ever have spent time on?

I have personally participated in a 100+ page thread about whether or not point nine repeating decimal equals one.

The guy who wouldn't believe it? We never convinced him.

[GendoIkari]

Can we all at least agree that this ranks high in the list of the most ridiculous debates to ever have spent time on?

I have personally participated in a 100+ page thread about whether or not point nine repeating decimal equals one.

The guy who wouldn't believe it? We never convinced him.

Oh gosh... I've had this one as well; though not for that many pages.

[SCSN]

Highroad

While this is in play, you may leave the discussion, agreeing to disagree.

[eHalcyon]

Highroad

While this is in play, you may leave the discussion, agreeing to disagree.

Low Road

While this is in play, when you play another card, treat all of its text as if it were under a line.

[ConMan]

Can we all at least agree that this ranks high in the list of the most ridiculous debates to ever have spent time on?

I have personally participated in a 100+ page thread about whether or not point nine repeating decimal equals one.

The guy who wouldn't believe it? We never convinced him.

Oh, that's a fun one. I remember getting in that discussion with someone who used "phd" as an insult.

[Jeebus]

I read this whole thread now, and I agreed with Awaclus from the start. Altered Highway would in practice be confusing, but there's only one interpretation consistent with other cards and rules, barring a special rule. There are other cards that are confusing but that have no special rule and just need an explanation, like Tournament. Tournament is consistent with other cards and rules, but for many (most?) people just using their intuitive understanding of English, is too confusing to just get without reading the explanation.

The clearest demonstration for me was Squeegee.

Squeegee: While any Gold is in play, cards cost $1 less, but not less than $0.

Altered Highway: While this is in play, cards cost $1 less, but not less than $0.

Both cards activate this ability on-play. Neither card has a scope for that ability, so it's unlimited. Squeegee doesn't cause a cost reduction just by being played, and neither does Altered Highway. Theoretically Altered Highway could be played from the trash for instance, like a Throned Feast is. Both just activate the ability that when a card ("this" or "any Gold") is in play, there's a cost reduction. And both cards have "while x is in play" above the line, so I don't get Haddock's argument about this being a new keyword, since he agreed with how Squeegee would work. Yes, Altered Highway refers to itself, which makes it more confusing, but that in itself doesn't mean any other interpretation is consistent. These two example cards should and must be consistent with each other, or we're making up special rules.

More about the unlimited scope: As Awaclus has said Real Highway's below-line ability doesn't have a scope either, it functions right from the beginning of the game. Altered Highway's ability doesn't. If it was just put into play by some effect (without being played before), it wouldn't do anything. This shows you that Real Highway has unlimited scope, in fact all 10 of them do, from the start. After an Altered Highway is played, it does the exact same thing as a Real Highway. And why the hell wouldn't it, it has the exact same wording. And just like a Real Highway, it has unlimited scope. From now on, every time that Altered Highway is in play, it causes a cost reduction. (Because of tracking this is unplayable in practice, but that's what it says.)

[pacovf]

Hydrad... what have you done?

[eHalcyon]

Both cards activate this ability on-play. Neither card has a scope for that ability, so it's unlimited.

I think this is the source of the disagreement.  You just assume that there is no scope, but that's all it is, an assumption.  It is equally valid to say that "while this is in play" has a scope that applies while that card is in play.  It is consistent with official cards because there aren't any official cards with "while this is in play" above the line to contradict it.  It's also a valid interpretation of how "while this is in play" works when it is below the line.

Even for regular effects, it's valid to say that the scope of all cards ends at the end of the turn the card is played unless otherwise specified.  Bridge is explicit about it, but it doesn't need to be.

Most importantly, this is the natural interpretation that would be assumed by your average player, and that's a major core of the design philosophy for Dominion.  Your regular player is not going to assume that a "while this is in play" effect exists forever and stacks as that card gets played again and again.  Because that would be silly.

So you have two possible interpretations of the hypothetical, obviously terrible text that are both valid (and arguing that either interpretation is invalid probably means that you haven't recognized your assumptions as merely assumptions).  One interpretation is impractical, untrackable, and unintuitive to the regular player.  The other isn't.

In conclusion, I hate that I ended up making a serious post in this ridiculous discussion.

[scott_pilgrim]

Let's say that in his next expansion, Donald gives us the following card:

Cartographer Jr.
Action -
Reveal the top five cards of your deck, frob the snatz, and put the rest back on top in any order.

With none of us knowing what "frob the snatz" means, we look it up in the rulebook, and the FAQ clarifies that Cartographer Jr's effect is to reveal the top five cards of your deck, discard the revealed Copper, and put the rest back on top in any order.  From this, we conclude that "frob the snatz" probably means "discard the revealed Copper".  In a later expansion, we get another card:

Super Cutpurse
Action-Attack -
Each other player reveals his hand and frobs the snatz.

Most of us would assume that this card makes each other player reveal his hand and discard the revealed Copper.  But maybe Donald would come along and say that no, in this case, because "frob the snatz" is referring to cards in players' hands rather than the top of their deck, "frob the snatz" actually means to discard the revealed silver.  We would have a definition like "frob the snatz" means "discard any Copper revealed from the top of the deck and any Silver revealed from a player's hand".

This would be a valid and consistent definition, that works for both Cartographer Jr. and Super Cutpurse.  But it's not a satisfying definition; we expect the much simpler definition to be the correct one, so that we don't have to learn what the words means in all the different possible cases.

This, I think, is the issue that Awaclus has with Haddock's interpretation.  Haddock's interpretation of the word "while" means something different for self-referential effects than for non-self-referential effects.  It is inherently more complex than the alternative definition, so we would want the simpler definition to be the default unless otherwise specified.  You can say that "while this is in play" should default to have a scope that applies "while that card is in play", but why should it?  No other cards behave that way; all other cards that set up effects above a line have their scope limited either by their text or other rules, and if they don't, we would assume that the scope is not limited because it is not specified anywhere.

It is not necessarily inconsistent to interpret it that way, but you would need to define "while" with a piecewise definition, so that it does something different depending on the context.  The simpler definition should be the default, unless there is a ruling that says otherwise.

So you have two possible interpretations of the hypothetical, obviously terrible text that are both valid (and arguing that either interpretation is invalid probably means that you haven't recognized your assumptions as merely assumptions).  One interpretation is impractical, untrackable, and unintuitive to the regular player.  The other isn't.

I think we all agree that this is not a pragmatic argument, since the text is certainly never going to appear on an actual card.  That it is impractical, untrackable, and unintuitive are all irrelevant to this discussion.  The argument is about what we know about the language of Dominion as far as it has been defined up to this point.

[Jeebus]

I think this is the source of the disagreement.  You just assume that there is no scope, but that's all it is, an assumption.  It is equally valid to say that "while this is in play" has a scope that applies while that card is in play.  It is consistent with official cards because there aren't any official cards with "while this is in play" above the line to contradict it.  It's also a valid interpretation of how "while this is in play" works when it is below the line.

Please remember that we're talking about two different effects here. The cost reduction obviously has the scope of "while this is in play". But you're claiming that "while this is in play" has the recursive scope of "while this is in play".

It's ridiculous to say that an effect that says "while this is in play" below the line, has a scope of "while this is in play". It's redundant. We don't check that it's in play before we check that it's in play. Compare with Hireling. As long as nobody played Hireling, it has no effect. More specifically, "at the start of each of your turns for the rest of the game" is not in effect. When you play it, it is in effect, for the rest of the game. It means that every start-of-turn, we do the next bit ("+1 Card"). By contrast Highway's "while this is in play" is in effect from the start. We don't have to play it or do anything else to activate it. Every time it's in play, we do the next bit (the cost reduction). This is what it means that Highway's "while this is in play" scope is from the beginning of the game (until the end). Playing the Hireling changes the scope of "at the start of each of your turns for the rest of the game". Contrast also Highway with Altered Highway. An effect that puts a card into play (without playing it) would activate Highway's cost reduction, but not so with Altered Highway. I'm sure you agree with that. That's because of the difference in scope (Highway from the start of the game; Altered Highway from you play it).

So you're saying that Altered Highway activates an effect on-play that has the scope of while "this" (this Altered Highway) is in play as a result of this playing of it. If it's played again later (even this turn) after having left play, that effect is no longer active. By the same token then Squeegee should activate an effect on-play that has the scope of while any Gold is in play as a result of... what exactly? Since Squeegee doesn't play any Golds, which Golds is it that Squeegee talks about? You could define it as the Golds this turn (assuming "this turn" is implicit somehow). Okay, then it works. But then that has to be the explanation of Altered Highway too. They have to be consistent, I hope you agree. So then it's not as you say: the scope is not "while this card is in play"; the scope is "this turn". That's the only way to make the two example cards consistent with each other.

So then it's the matter of the implicit "this turn" as the scope on all cards. This is very much against how we've been used to talking about Dominion. Donald has talked about limiting scope before. I'm not going to look for examples now, except for one: Lost Arts. "When you play a card from that pile..." According to you it has an implicit "this turn", which is wrong. It just says "when".
EDIT: All cards that need to, say "this turn". Coppersmith doesn't say just "Copper produces an extra $1" for a reason. Donald chose that all cards that activate abilities lasting for the rest of the turn, explicitly state so. This is the premise for the discussion: consistency with other cards. So of course we assume that Altered Highway does not have an implicit "this turn", since no other card does.

[GendoIkari]

I think this is the source of the disagreement.  You just assume that there is no scope, but that's all it is, an assumption.  It is equally valid to say that "while this is in play" has a scope that applies while that card is in play.  It is consistent with official cards because there aren't any official cards with "while this is in play" above the line to contradict it.  It's also a valid interpretation of how "while this is in play" works when it is below the line.

Please remember that we're talking about two different effects here. The cost reduction obviously has the scope of "while this is in play". But you're claiming that "while this is in play" has the recursive scope of "while this is in play".

I'm not sure if that's what he's claiming, but it's definitely not been my position. My position has been that to a casual reader of English, there's not 2 different effects. The only effect that will be thought about, the only effect that makes sense to think about while playing Dominion, is that while the card is in play, costs are reduced.

An effect that puts a card into play (without playing it) would activate Highway's cost reduction, but not so with Altered Highway. I'm sure you agree with that. That's because of the difference in scope (Highway from the start of the game; Altered Highway from you play it).

Again, I don't know about the others, but I wouldn't agree with that. I'm pretty sure the entire argument rests on the opinion that if a card has a "while this is in play" above the line, then it means that a casual reading of that card would be that the normal "only do stuff on this card when you play it" isn't used. Instead, a "do this stuff when this card is in play" is used. And for me, it stems from the fact that "When you play this, while this is in play, do stuff" is an awkward and confusing English sentence. Thus a reasonable interpretation of that card is to NOT have the normal implicit "when you play this" part. In other words, to treat that text as though it were below a line.

[Awaclus]

Again, I don't know about the others, but I wouldn't agree with that. I'm pretty sure the entire argument rests on the opinion that if a card has a "while this is in play" above the line, then it means that a casual reading of that card would be that the normal "only do stuff on this card when you play it" isn't used. Instead, a "do this stuff when this card is in play" is used. And for me, it stems from the fact that "When you play this, while this is in play, do stuff" is an awkward and confusing English sentence. Thus a reasonable interpretation of that card is to NOT have the normal implicit "when you play this" part. In other words, to treat that text as though it were below a line.

I think we all agree that this is not a pragmatic argument, since the text is certainly never going to appear on an actual card.  That it is impractical, untrackable, and unintuitive are all irrelevant to this discussion.  The argument is about what we know about the language of Dominion as far as it has been defined up to this point.

[Haddock]

Haddock's interpretation of the word "while" means something different for self-referential effects than for non-self-referential effects.

This is not a good argument at all. Of course cards should behave differently if they refer to different things. If a card says "trash this" it means something very different to "trash a copper from your hand". That doesn't mean that the meaning of "trash" is being interpreted differently each time.

It is not necessarily inconsistent to interpret it that way.

glad you agree. That's my only point. All else is subjective.

[eHalcyon]

I think we all agree that this is not a pragmatic argument, since the text is certainly never going to appear on an actual card.  That it is impractical, untrackable, and unintuitive are all irrelevant to this discussion.  The argument is about what we know about the language of Dominion as far as it has been defined up to this point.

But the point is that the language of Dominion, as far as it has been defined up to this point, has been intended to align with what the average player expects.  I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I know that there are cards with less-than-precise wording because the most precise version would be confusing to the average player, whereas the less precise version gets the intended point across almost every time.  Donald said as much earlier in this thread.

So, pursuant to this, the fact that your interpretation is impractical, untrackable and unintuitive are all relevant to the discussion.

So then it's the matter of the implicit "this turn" as the scope on all cards. This is very much against how we've been used to talking about Dominion. Donald has talked about limiting scope before. I'm not going to look for examples now, except for one: Lost Arts. "When you play a card from that pile..." According to you it has an implicit "this turn", which is wrong. It just says "when".

Lost Arts is an event that you never play and the phrase you're talking about is in parentheses, a whole other can of worms.  It's not applicable here.  If you really want to go there, an argument similar to the "continuous stacking" argument could apply to Lost Arts.  When you buy it, it sets up this free +1 Action effect for whichever card you moved your token to!  But it says "from that pile", not "the pile with your +1 Action token", which means you could move your token again and still get +1 action from the first card you chose!  But that's wrong.

You could also consider Embargo, which uses a similar "when" phrasing as Lost Arts.  If you don't follow the common sense approach, the proper interpretation is that (just like Highway) the scope is unlimited on all 10 copies of Embargo, which means that a single Embargo token should cause the unfortunate victim to gain 10 Curses total, one for each unlimited scope effect.  But that's wrong.

EDIT: All cards that need to, say "this turn". Coppersmith doesn't say just "Copper produces an extra $1" for a reason. Donald chose that all cards that activate abilities lasting for the rest of the turn, explicitly state so. This is the premise for the discussion: consistency with other cards. So of course we assume that Altered Highway does not have an implicit "this turn", since no other card does.

There are no official cards with "while this is in play" above the line.  Therefore every interpretation we come up with is consistent (or inconsistent, depending on your point of view) with official cards, since there are no official cards to contradict, nor official cards with which to be consistent.

Or to come at it from a different approach -- you are saying that the lack of a specific scope means that it is unlimited.  But there are no official cards with unlimited scope effects above the line.  The closest thing is Hireling, which you yourself brought up.  But note -- Hireling specifies scope!  It actually says "for the rest of the game".  Neither Squeegee nor Highway say this, so it is inconsistent to assume that their effect is unlimited in scope and applies for the rest of the game.



I'm skipping the other parts because man, these arguments have already been repeated so many times in this thread.

[scott_pilgrim]

I think we all agree that this is not a pragmatic argument, since the text is certainly never going to appear on an actual card.  That it is impractical, untrackable, and unintuitive are all irrelevant to this discussion.  The argument is about what we know about the language of Dominion as far as it has been defined up to this point.

But the point is that the language of Dominion, as far as it has been defined up to this point, has been intended to align with what the average player expects.  I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I know that there are cards with less-than-precise wording because the most precise version would be confusing to the average player, whereas the less precise version gets the intended point across almost every time.  Donald said as much earlier in this thread.

So, pursuant to this, the fact that your interpretation is impractical, untrackable and unintuitive are all relevant to the discussion.

I think we're talking past each other now because we have different ideas about what this argument is about.  I'm not talking about how Donald would rule on this card that he's not going to make if he made it.  I'm talking about, given the entire volume of rulings that we have so far, if this card were to come into existence, and we wanted to follow the rules as they are written as closely as possible, what would happen.

Haddock's interpretation of the word "while" means something different for self-referential effects than for non-self-referential effects.

This is not a good argument at all. Of course cards should behave differently if they refer to different things. If a card says "trash this" it means something very different to "trash a copper from your hand". That doesn't mean that the meaning of "trash" is being interpreted differently each time.

"Trash" means the same thing, no matter what follows it.  "Trash x" means move x to the trash pile.  Under your interpretation, I can't tell you what "while" means without breaking it down into two cases: one where the card says "while this", and one where the card says "while x" for "x" other than "this".  Under Awaclus's interpretation, I can tell you what "while" means for all x in "while x".

[Awaclus]

But the point is that the language of Dominion, as far as it has been defined up to this point, has been intended to align with what the average player expects.  I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I know that there are cards with less-than-precise wording because the most precise version would be confusing to the average player, whereas the less precise version gets the intended point across almost every time.  Donald said as much earlier in this thread.

That's not the point. We're not talking about a real Dominion card, we're talking about an imaginary card which was created for the purpose of having an argument about what the card text should mean in the technical sense, i.e. what a computer program with "knowledge" of all the official Dominion wordings and rulings would expect.

You could also consider Embargo, which uses a similar "when" phrasing as Lost Arts.  If you don't follow the common sense approach, the proper interpretation is that (just like Highway) the scope is unlimited on all 10 copies of Embargo, which means that a single Embargo token should cause the unfortunate victim to gain 10 Curses total, one for each unlimited scope effect.  But that's wrong.

Embargo is one of the cards that have special case rulings in the rulebook. I think it would be better if Embargo actually had the Altered Highway wording.

There are no official cards with "while this is in play" above the line.  Therefore every interpretation we come up with is consistent (or inconsistent, depending on your point of view) with official cards, since there are no official cards to contradict, nor official cards with which to be consistent.

So you would say that "when you draw an Estate, make a Black Market deck out of the Knights pile and win the game" is an entirely valid interpretation for "When you would gain a Smithy"?

Or to come at it from a different approach -- you are saying that the lack of a specific scope means that it is unlimited.  But there are no official cards with unlimited scope effects above the line.  The closest thing is Hireling, which you yourself brought up.  But note -- Hireling specifies scope!  It actually says "for the rest of the game".  Neither Squeegee nor Highway say this, so it is inconsistent to assume that their effect is unlimited in scope and applies for the rest of the game.

There are official cards with unlimited scope effects below the line. Those cards don't say it, so assuming that cards that don't say anything about the scope are unlimited is consistent.

[eHalcyon]

I think we all agree that this is not a pragmatic argument, since the text is certainly never going to appear on an actual card.  That it is impractical, untrackable, and unintuitive are all irrelevant to this discussion.  The argument is about what we know about the language of Dominion as far as it has been defined up to this point.

But the point is that the language of Dominion, as far as it has been defined up to this point, has been intended to align with what the average player expects.  I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I know that there are cards with less-than-precise wording because the most precise version would be confusing to the average player, whereas the less precise version gets the intended point across almost every time.  Donald said as much earlier in this thread.

So, pursuant to this, the fact that your interpretation is impractical, untrackable and unintuitive are all relevant to the discussion.

I think we're talking past each other now because we have different ideas about what this argument is about.  I'm not talking about how Donald would rule on this card that he's not going to make if he made it.  I'm talking about, given the entire volume of rulings that we have so far, if this card were to come into existence, and we wanted to follow the rules as they are written as closely as possible, what would happen.

Sure.  But the entire body of rules includes those imprecisions for the purpose of clarification. 

If you really want to ignore all that, you'll still find no basis for making a judgement of what this kind of effect has, so you have to make assumptions.  You've made some assumptions, and other people made different assumptions.  Both sets of assumptions are equally valid (as long as you are ignoring intuition, practicality, etc.) because there is nothing that actually sets precedence about this phrase above the line.

But the point is that the language of Dominion, as far as it has been defined up to this point, has been intended to align with what the average player expects.  I can't think of any examples off the top of my head, but I know that there are cards with less-than-precise wording because the most precise version would be confusing to the average player, whereas the less precise version gets the intended point across almost every time.  Donald said as much earlier in this thread.

That's not the point. We're not talking about a real Dominion card, we're talking about an imaginary card which was created for the purpose of having an argument about what the card text should mean in the technical sense, i.e. what a computer program with "knowledge" of all the official Dominion wordings and rulings would expect.

And that's why this whole thread is ridiculous.

As much as Dominion tries to be totally logical, there are lots of little wording imprecisions and shortcuts for the sake of clarity.  In the technical sense, a computer would have no idea what to do with this.  Or if it was robust enough to make sense of all the rulings and exceptions and without needing those specific exceptions to be hard-coded in, then it should also be able to account for the natural human interpretation of language and "what an average player would think" becomes relevant again.

There are no official cards with "while this is in play" above the line.  Therefore every interpretation we come up with is consistent (or inconsistent, depending on your point of view) with official cards, since there are no official cards to contradict, nor official cards with which to be consistent.

So you would say that "when you draw an Estate, make a Black Market deck out of the Knights pile and win the game" is an entirely valid interpretation for "When you would gain a Smithy"?

Or to come at it from a different approach -- you are saying that the lack of a specific scope means that it is unlimited.  But there are no official cards with unlimited scope effects above the line.  The closest thing is Hireling, which you yourself brought up.  But note -- Hireling specifies scope!  It actually says "for the rest of the game".  Neither Squeegee nor Highway say this, so it is inconsistent to assume that their effect is unlimited in scope and applies for the rest of the game.

There are official cards with unlimited scope effects below the line. Those cards don't say it, so assuming that cards that don't say anything about the scope are unlimited is consistent.

"When you would gain a Smithy" is "When you would gain _______", of which there are many examples.

Cards with unlimited scope below the line have no bearing on this hypothetical card, because the timing below the line is different from the timing above the line.  You can make an assumption to help direct you on this, but a computer wouldn't.  In a similar vein, the computer would have no idea what to do with "While this is in play, +$1" or even just "+$1" below the line.

(Let us now begin a whole new thread about how that should be interpreted.)

[AJD]

"Trash x" means move x to the trash pile.

It more or less does, but if there were a card that said "Move x to the trash pile," I bet it wouldn't trigger Market Square.

[GendoIkari]

In a similar vein, the computer would have no idea what to do with "While this is in play, +$1" or even just "+$1" below the line.

(Let us now begin a whole new thread about how that should be interpreted.)

Yes, I've found myself actually thinking about this one. Not that I would expect this to be technically consistent or valid to a computer, but if I were playing a game and came across this card, without any ability to look up an official rule on it, then I would interpret it as follows:

+ when this enters play.
- when this leaves play, to a minimum of .

That's for the "while this is in play" version. For the version with just + below the line, I would ignore the line completely and just treat it as a terminal Copper, thinking that the line is a confusing thing that doesn't belong there.