Ruleset 125

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Players shall obey it. Section One consists of the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering basic proposal mechanics; Section Two contains the rules of the current dynasty; and Section Three contains the appendix, which exists solely to clarify the remainder of the ruleset.

The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset.

Players may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Proposals at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular “they”.

Players

Any human may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already playing) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post making clear their wish to be an Player. An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT, at which moment they become a Player.

A Player may leave the game at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A Player may not rejoin the game within two weeks after having left. A Player may only change their name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

Some Players are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Players who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves Admins. Existing Admins may be removed from their posts by Proposal, CfJ, or voluntary resignation. New admins shall be given the GNDT configuration password when they become admins.

Idle Players

Some Players are Idle, and shall be marked as such in the sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Players”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play” and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Players are not counted as Players.

If a Proposal contains a provision that targets a specifically named Idle Player, then that Idle Player is considered to be Unidle solely for the purposes of enacting that specific provision

When a Player is unidled, if they went Idle in the same dynasty, their personal gamestate retains the last legally endowed values it had, if they are still valid. Otherwise (including if a value is invalid, does not exist, or the Player Idled in a different dynasty), the Player is given the default value for new Player, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Player Idle if that Player has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Player has not posted an entry or comment in the last seven days. In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so. An Admin may Unidle a Player if that Player has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past four days, and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Player who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous four days, and within the current dynasty.

Admins who are unidling themselves should, in their first EVC following each unidling, highlight their changed idle status and any changes to quorum to have come about as a result of it.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Player, known as the Coach. If there is no Coach, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

Votable Matters

A Votable Matter is a post which Players may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.

Each Player may cast one Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the Official Post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, or DEFERENTIAL. Additional voting icons may be permitted in some cases by other rules. A valid Vote is, except when otherwise specified, a Vote of FOR or AGAINST. A Player’s Vote on a Votable Matter is the last valid voting icon that they have used in any comment on that Votable Matter. Additionally, if the author of a Votable Matter has not used a valid voting icon in a comment to the post, then the author’s Vote is FOR. A non-Player never has a Vote, even if they were a Player previously and had cast a valid Vote.

Votable Matters can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Votable Matter is first put forward, it is considered Pending.

Whenever an Admin resolves a Votable Matter, they must also mark their name, and report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was self-killed or vetoed).

This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.

Proposals

Any Player may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Player already has 2 Proposals pending, or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

When a Player casts a vote AGAINST their own Proposal (which is not in the form of a DEFERENTIAL vote), this renders the Proposal Self-Killed, even if the author later changes their Vote. The Coach may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Coach casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Coach later changes their Vote.

If a Player other than the Coach casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Coach. When the Coach has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Proposal, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Coach's Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest pending Proposal may be enacted by any Admin (by updating the Ruleset and/or Gamestate to include the specified effects of that Proposal, and then setting that Proposal's status to Enacted) if either of the following is true:

• It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST, and it has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.

The oldest pending Proposal may be failed by any Admin, if any of the following are true:

• It has been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
• The number of Players who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.

If a proposal somehow ends up being pending for more than 7 days, it is ignored for the purpose of calculating the oldest pending proposal, and can be failed by any Admin.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Players actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Player feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Player may raise a Call for Judgement (abbreviated CfJ) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.

A Pending CFJ may be Resolved by an Admin if it has a Quorum of FOR Votes, a Quorum of AGAINST Votes, or if it has been open for voting for more than 48 hours. When a CFJ is Resolved, it is to be Enacted if it has more FOR Votes than AGAINST Votes and Failed otherwise. When a CFJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct the GNDT and other gamestate tracking entities, as specified in the CFJ.

Any CfJ that specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate tracking entities may be failed by any Admin.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If a Player (other than the Coach) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a post to the Blognomic weblog in the Declaration of Victory category, detailing this.

Upon doing so, the game immediately goes into Hiatus, if it hasn’t already. During this time, the only game actions that may be taken are those covered by Rules “Players”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Player may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty.

A Pending DoV may be enacted if any of the following is true:

• It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and either the Coach has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
• It has been open for voting for at least 24 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and has a number of AGAINST Votes lesser than half of Quorum, rounded down.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, has a number of Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and more than half of its valid Votes are FOR.

A DoV may be failed if any of the following are true:

• It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and the number of Players who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.

When a DoV fails and there are no pending DoVs, Hiatus ends.

When a DoV is enacted, all other active DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins with the Player who made the DoV as its Coach. That Player may pass this role to another Player at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Coach makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Coach's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Player and Coach will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire ruleset, and/or a number of dynastic rules to keep. Upon posting such an Ascension Address, the Ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

A DoV may not be started in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address. When a DoV is failed, the Player who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was failed.

This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules as it relates to Declarations of Victory, but can be overruled in other matters.

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Player's behaviour or actions are otherwise deemed unacceptable (socially or otherwise), a proposal or CfJ may be made to reprimand or punish the perpetrator or, in cases of extreme or repeated violations, remove them from the game and bar them from rejoining.

• A single person should not control more than one Player within BlogNomic.
• A Player should not “spam” the BlogNomic blog. What counts as spamming is subjective, but would typically include posting more than ten blog entries in a day, more than ten blog comments in a row, or posting a blog entry of more than 1000 words.
• A Player should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
• A Player should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Player.
• A Player should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
• A Player should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Player should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).

Seasonal Downtime

Blognomic goes into hiatus every year on December 24th, and remains in hiatus until December 27th. During this time no game actions may be taken except those described in the rules entitled “Votable Matters,” “Gamestate Tracking” and “Call for Judgement”.

Dynastic Rules

The Field of Play

Players may have Positions on the Field, tracked in the GNDT. By default a Player has no Position. If a Player has no Position, they may change their Position at any time.

The Coach may also have a Position, which they may change at any time.

Positions are ordered relative to each other and are associated with a Side. The Sides are Defensive and Offensive. The Positions, in order, with their Sides, are:

1. Goalkeeper (Defensive)
2. Defense (Defensive)
3. Midfield (Offensive)
4. Offense (Offensive)

Only one Player may have Position Goalkeeper.

Two Positions are Adjacent if they occur in adjacent items in the above list. One Position is Towards the Goal (respectively, Away from the Goal) from another Position if the first Position occurs before (resp. after) the second in the above list, that is if the first Position's index in the above list is less than (resp. greater than) the second Position's.

These properties and relations of Positions (Sides, Adjacency, Towards and Away from the Goal) can apply by extension to Players in the obvious way. For example, a Defensive Player is a Player with Position on Side Defensive, and Adjacent Players are Players with Adjacent Positions.

Players may spend 1 Score to change their Position, or to cease to have a Position.

The Ball

One Player may have the Ball; the Player who has the Ball is tracked in the GNDT field “Ball”, with a single “O”.

Some Players may be Assisting, and by default are not Assisting: Assisting Players are tracked in the GNDT field “Ball”, with a single “:”. When a Player gains the Ball, they cease to be Assisting, if they were Assisting.

If the Ball is Out of Play, any Player may roll DICEN, where N is the number of Players. On a roll of K, the Ball is given to the Kth Player in the GNDT.

If the Player with the Ball has no position, the Ball immediately becomes Out of Play.

Kicking the Ball

If a Player has the Ball, they may attempt to Kick the Ball by making a GNDT comment naming a Player (other than themselves, and who has a Position) to be a target Player and rolling DICE9. If the result of the die roll is less than 8, the Kicking Player has Kicked the Ball to the target Player. If the result is 8, the Kicking Player has Lost the Ball to a random Player who has the target Player’s position (excluding the Kicking Player). If the result is 9, the Ball becomes Out of Play and is removed from any Player’s possession.

When a Player Kicks or Loses the Ball to another Player, ownership of the Ball is transferred to the other Player.

When a Player Kicks the Ball, if they are not the Goalkeeper, they may become Assisting. If a Player Kicks the Ball to a Player Towards the Goal from the Kicking Player, the Kicking Player may cause all other Assisting Players to cease to be Assisting. The Goalkeeper may never be Assisting.

The Number of Players

A Player who does not have the Ball may change their Position at any time, if doing so would decrease the magnitude of the difference between the numbers of Offensive and Defensive Players.

The Players’ Equipment

Each Player wears a Shirt with a single number from zero to 99, the number being tracked in the GNDT field “Shirt” and defaulting to zero. If a Player is wearing a zero Shirt, they may change it at any time. No two Players may wear the same Shirt, unless they are wearing zero Shirts.

The Coach may also wear a Shirt with a number that is either zero, or 100 plus a number a Player might have; the Coach may change their Shirt at any time.

The Referee

The Coach is not a Player for the purpose of any Dynastic Rule.

The Assistant Referees

A Proxy is a non-Player entity designated as such by the rules. Each Proxy has its own GNDT row. Proxies are considered to be Players for the purpose of other Dynastic Rules, except where they explicitly refer to non-Proxy players.

If a rule allows a Player to cause a Proxy to act, that Player can update the gamestate on behalf of that Proxy as allowed by the rules. If a Player needs to make comments or GNDT updates on behalf of a Proxy, they must start the comment with “PROXY (X):” where (X) is the name of the Proxy. Proxies cannot make blog posts.

The Coach is considered to be a Player for this rule and its subrules. The Coach may cause any Proxy to act at any time, and should do so to keep the game running smoothly.

List of Proxies

There is a Proxy named McDefense. If McDefense has the Ball, any player may cause McDefense to randomly choose Defense or Midfield player and attempt to Kick the Ball to them. Any player may cause McDefense to roll and comment as required by the rule “Shooting the Ball”.

There is a Proxy named McGraft. The author of any pending proposal with at least two FOR votes on it, or any proposal that became enacted in the last 24 hours, may cause McGraft to attempt to take any rules-defined action. If McGraft’s action affects any gamestate information, its author may not cause McGraft to act again for the same proposal. Players should record which proposal they’re using in a GNDT comment for bookkeeping purposes.

The Duration of the Match

If, at any time after November 20th, 2014 at Noon, the player with the Ball has more Score than each other non-Proxy Player, that player achieves victory.

Ball In and Out of Play

If no Player has the Ball, it is considered Out of Play.

When the Ball becomes Out of Play, all Assisting Players cease to be Assisting.

The Method of Scoring

The number of Scores a Player has is tracked in the GNDT and defaults to 0.

The offense Player who has the Ball may Shoot by making a blog post (known as a Shooting post) entitled “Shooting.” For 48 hours after a Shooting post has been made, certain players may roll a die based on their role at the time the Shooting Post was made: The Shooting Player may roll a DICE5; any assisting player may roll a DICE15; the Goalkeeper may roll a DICE40; and any non-assisting defense player may roll a DICE6. Any Player who rolls a die for this purpose must post the result in a comment to the Shooting post along with a description of the player’s role in shooting (shooter, assisting player, Goalkeeper, defensive player). Such a comment is known as a Play. Once at least 48 hours have passed since the Shooting Post, any Player or the Coach may comment with the sum of the rolls from the shooter and the assisting players, along with the sum of the rolls from the goalkeeper and the non-assisting defense players. The first time this happens on each Shooting Post, the set of players whose rolls contributed to the larger sum all receive one score; if the scores are tied, no players receive a score.

Immediately after a player Shoots, the ball becomes Out of Play.

Offside

If a Player attempts to Kick the Ball to a Player that is not in the same Position or an Adjacent Position to the kicking Player, then the Ball instead becomes Out of Play and is removed from any player’s possesion.

The Throw-in

If the Player who has the Ball has had it for the entirety of the previous 72 hours, any Player may transfer the Ball to their own possession.

Challenges

A Challenge is a task that can be completed within the game that is detailed in the subrules of this rule. By default, all Challenges are Inactive.

As a daily action, the Coach can make a Man of the Match post by making a post titled Man of the Match and Activating a Challenge within the body of the post. If and when a Player wins that Challenge, the Coach must make exactly one Victory post for that Challenge titled Man of the Match: Victory with the name of a player who has completed the Challenge in the body of that post. The player must be the first player to have completed the task since the Challenge most recently became Active. Then, the Challenge becomes Inactive and any Admin may update the GNDT “Shirt” field of that player so that said player has an M in their Shirt field.

Passing

While this Challenge is Active, the number of times a player has Kicked the Ball since the Challenge started is tracked in the GNDT. The first Player to have Kicked the Ball 5 times after this Challenge becomes active wins the Challenge.

Scoring

While this Challenge is Active, the number of Scores a Player has is written as X(+Y), where X is the number of Scores the Player had before the Challenge was Active (their Previous Score) and Y is the number of Scores the Player achieved after it became Active (their Improved Score). The first player to have Scored 2 times since this Challenge became Active wins this Challenge. After this Challenge is finished, each player adds their Previous Score and their Improved Score to get their Score.

Appendix

Keywords

A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word. A keyword defined in this glossary supersedes that defined by a rule. (eg. A rule specifying "bananas are blue" cannot be overruled by posting a dictionary definition or a photo of a banana, and a rule specifying "every day is Sunday" will be overruled by the glossary entry below.)

Can

"is able to"

Comment

A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com

Core Proposal

A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of core rules and/or the glossary, and/or renaming, banning, and/or the granting or removing of admin status from one or more Players.

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Player able to perform it may take that action once each day, but not more than once every ten hours.

Day

References to a “day” as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “Sunday”, “The day after performing this action”, or “August 2nd”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a day beginning at and including 00:00:00 UTC, ending when the next day begins. It can never be 2 different days at the same instant.

Dice

References to "YDICEX" refer to Y X-sided dice, rolled within the GNDT. To roll dice, post DICEX in the comments field of the GNDT, replacing X with the number of sides on the die you wish to roll.

Dynastic Proposal

A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.

Effective Vote Comment (EVC)

A Player’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Player’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Player’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Flavour Text

When posting a blog entry, a Player may use the “Commentary or flavour text” field of the blog publishing form to add their own comments or description of their post. For the purposes of all other rules, such text is not considered to be part of the post.

Gamestate

Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of, including all Wiki Pages, or GNDT columns, which the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention.

IRC Channel

The Blognomic IRC channel is located at #nomic on the slashnet network (irc.slashnet.org).

May

"is permitted to"

May not

"is not permitted to"

Post

A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com

Private Message

A message sent via Blognomic’s Private Messages system at blognomic.com.

Quorum

Quorum of a subset of Players is half the number of Players in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Players it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Players.

Resolve/Resolution

If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the world “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting or failing a Votable Matter. The world “Resolution” means then the act of doing so. If used in any other context, the meaning of both “Resolve” and “Resolution” is the standard English meaning of these words

Rule

Each individually numbered section of the ruleset is a rule, including sections that are sub-rules of other rules.

Shall

"is required to"

Should

"is recommended that"

Sibling Rule

Two rules are “siblings” of each other if they are both direct subrules of the same rule.

Story Post

A Story Post is an entry in the “Story Post” category.

Subject

The "subject" of a blog entry is the part of the Title of an entry which is after the first colon. If the Title does not contain a colon, then the whole Title is the subject. Any entry whose subject is "" (i.e. an empty string) is not valid.

Subrule

A subrule is a type of rule that is nested within another rule. A proposal that specifically affects a rule affects all of its subrules; a proposal that specifically affects a subrule does not affect its parent rule or any other subrule of that rule, unless they are also explicitly cited as being affected by that proposal.

Vote

The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule “Votable Matters”. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote.

Voting Icons

For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, an IMP http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and an Imperial Seal http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent the Imperial Veto.

Week

References to a week as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “At the beginning of each week”, or “already happened this week”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a period of time between the beginning of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.

Weekly Action

If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Player able to perform it may take that action once each week, but not more than once every twenty-four hours.

Weekly Communal Action

A Weekly Communal action is a Weekly Action that can only be performed by one Player per week.

Wiki

The BlogNomic Wiki at http://blognomic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Gamestate Tracking

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Player may post to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the Ruleset allows it. Posts following the format specified by a rule are considered official posts. No entry may be more than one of the following official types of post: Votable Matters, and Idling Post.

If no Player has commented on it, or if the only comments on it begin with “Note:” and contain no voting icons, an official post may be altered or removed by its author; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post's Status must be changed to reflect its status.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following exception: Whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish.

Specific parts of the Gamestate data shall be tracked by the Generic Nomic Data Tracker at http://blognomic.com/gndt/generic.cgi?nomic=blog. Any Player may update any Player's data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.

All updates to the GNDT are logged. Actions that change gamestate directly (defined in other rules) can normally be performed simply by applying their effects to the GNDT, which updates the gamestate accordingly, unless another rule specifies some other method of performing them; one GNDT update may contain one or more actions, or one action may be split over multiple GNDT updates, as long as it’s clear what is happening and the actions are otherwise legal. The GNDT merely represents the Gamestate, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and the GNDT are different, any Player may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Player feels that the GNDT was altered such that it no longer matches the gamestate (such as by performing an action which was against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), or by any other means), they may simply undo the effects of that alteration. Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed GNDT update, Players are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Players shall be assigned a password for the GNDT when they join the Nomic.

Random Generators

The GNDT can be used to generate random results.

• The DICEN command can be used to generate a random number between 1 and N.
• The FRUIT command will return a random result from the following options: Lemon, Orange, Kiwi, Grape, Cherry, Tangelo.
• The COLOUR (or COLOR) command will return a random result from the following: White, Red, Green, Silver, Yellow, Turquoise, Magenta, Orange, Purple, Black.
• The VEGGIE command will return a random result from the following: Potato, Carrot, Triffid, Pumpkin.

Any changes to the potential outcomes of the GNDT’s random result commands must be made by proposal; and any proposal that seeks to nominate a change to this rule must first identify an active Player with server-level access to the BlogNomic site who is able to perform the changes, and must also update this rule to reflect the new potential outcomes.

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

• If a set of valid values is not specified in their definition, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers. Any action that would set those values below zero is an illegal action unless explicitly otherwise stated in the ruleset.
• Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
• All numbers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
• Unless otherwise specified, to “spend” or “lose” an amount X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V; to “gain” X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to “transfer” X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A’s V and add X to B’s V. Unless otherwise specified, only positive amounts can be spent, lost, gained, or transferred, and a rule that allows Players to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Player (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• A Player who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action's effects are limited to changing values tracked in the GNDT and/or similar gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one or more of those values to an illegal value.
• If a rule implies that the result of any calculation should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the calculation is instead the result rounded towards 0.
• If a number or other game variable is selected 'at random' or 'randomly' from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified. This value must be determined by an appropriate DICE roll in the GNDT, unless otherwise specified.
• If a game variable has no defined starting value for new Players, or for existing Players upon the variable’s creation, then that starting value is zero (for numerical variables) or blank (for a text string or list).
• Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in the GNDT remain valid. (for example, if X appears in a formula referring to a value that is a non-negative integer, X must be used as a non-negative integer)

Rules and Proposals

• If a new rule is created by a proposal and its location is not noted in that proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
• If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a proposal enacting, that page shall - unless otherwise specified - be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that proposal's submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
• Where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (eg. a proposal proposing that enacted proposals earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
• Rules which trigger upon the Resolution of a Votable Matter are the responsibility of the Admin who Resolves it.
• Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
• If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead named “Unnamed Rule”.
• The names of rules are not themselves rule text and have no effect other than being rule names.
• If the admin enacting a proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (eg. “two days after this proposal enacts, Player A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a proposal has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.

Time

• For the purpose of all rules, time in Blognomic is in UTC.
• All references to time must be either specific or defined within the ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. "dinnertime", "twilight") cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
• Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (eg. "04/10/09"), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.

Spelling

• Superficial differences between the spelling of geographic versions of English, e.g, British English, American English and Australian English shall be construed as irrelevant for the purposes of play.

Names

• Within the ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Player if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Player's name.

Prioritisation

• If two parts of the Ruleset contradict each other, precedence shall be construed in the following order:

1. The Appendix has precedence over any Rule;
2. A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
3. If both contradicting parts are Core Rules, or if both of them are Dynastic Rules, the part with more limited scope applies. (e.g. if the rules “Players may Kick each other” and “Players may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Players may not Kick each other.)
4. If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Players may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Players may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Players may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)