Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Trick-or-Treaters 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; Section Three contains rules which apply in special cases; and Section Four 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.

Trick-or-Treaters 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”.

If the Ruleset does not properly reflect all legal changes that have been made to it, any Trick-or-Treater may update it to do so.

Trick-or-Treaters

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

A Trick-or-Treater may cease to be a Trick-or-Treater at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be a Trick-or-Treater in this way may not become a Trick-or-Treater again within the following two weeks. A Trick-or-Treater may only change their name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

Some Trick-or-Treaters are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Trick-or-Treaters 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 Trick-or-Treaters

Some Trick-or-Treaters 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”, “Trick-or-Treaters”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play” and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Trick-or-Treaters are not counted as Trick-or-Treaters.

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

When a Trick-or-Treater 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 Trick-or-Treater Idled in a different dynasty), the Trick-or-Treater is given the default value for new Trick-or-Treater, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Trick-or-Treater Idle if that Trick-or-Treater has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Trick-or-Treater 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 Trick-or-Treater if that Trick-or-Treater 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 Trick-or-Treater 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 vote 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 Trick-or-Treater, known as the Homeowner. If there is no Homeowner, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

Votable Matters

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

Votes

Each Trick-or-Treater may cast one Vote on a Votable Matter by maHomeowner 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 Trick-or-Treater’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-Trick-or-Treater never has a Vote, even if they were a Trick-or-Treater previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If a Trick-or-Treater other than the Homeowner casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Homeowner. When the Homeowner has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Votable Matter, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL on that Votable Matter are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Homeowner's Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.

A Votable Matter is Popular if any of the following are true:

• It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, and more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST.

A Votable Matter is Unpopular if any of the following are true:

• The number of Trick-or-Treaters who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours is not Popular.

Enacting and Failing

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). Comments cannot be made on Enacted or Failed Votable Matters.

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

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When a Trick-or-Treater 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 Homeowner may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Homeowner casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Homeowner later changes their Vote.

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 all of the following are true:

• It is Popular.
• It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours.
• 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 is Unpopular.
• It has been Vetoed or Self-Killed.

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

A Pending CfJ may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are ture:

• It is Popular.

A Pending CfJ may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

• It is Unpopular.
• It specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate tracking entities.

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.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If a Trick-or-Treater (other than the Homeowner) 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 “Trick-or-Treaters”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Trick-or-Treater 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 by any Admin if any of the following is true:

• It is Popular, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Homeowner has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
• It is Popular, and it has been open for at least 24 hours.

A Pending DoV may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

• It is Unpopular, and it has been open for at least 12 hours.

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

When a DoV is enacted, all other pending DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins with the Trick-or-Treater who made the DoV as its Homeowner. That Trick-or-Treater may pass this role to another Trick-or-Treater at this point by maHomeowner a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Homeowner makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Homeowner's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Trick-or-Treater and Homeowner 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, if it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Trick-or-Treater 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 Trick-or-Treater'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 non-Idle Trick-or-Treater within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Trick-or-Treater and any Idle Trick-or-Treaters.
• A Trick-or-Treater 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 Trick-or-Treater should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
• A Trick-or-Treater should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Trick-or-Treater.
• A Trick-or-Treater should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
• A Trick-or-Treater should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Trick-or-Treater should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).
• A Trick-or-Treater should not roll dice in the GNDT that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action.

Dynastic Rules

Trick or Treat

Each Trick-or-Treater has an amount of Tricks and an amount of Treats, each defaulting to 0 and tracked on the GNDT.

Costumes

Each Trick-or-Treater has a Costume, tracked in the GNDT, and defaulting to “Human”. Each Costume has an associated Trick value and a Treat value, listed below. If they have not done so this Metadynasty, a Trick-or-Treater may change their costume to one of the following:

• Human (0 Trick, 0 Treat)
• Prince or Princess (0 Trick, 3 Treat)
• Superhero (0 Trick, 2 Treat)
• Ghost (1 Trick, 1 Treat)
• Skeleton (2 Trick, 1 Treat)
• Witch or Wizard (3 Trick, 0 Treat)
• Pirate (3 tricks, 0 Treats)

Prince and Princess, and Witch and Wizard, are considered to be synonyms.

The Neighborhood

Pumpkin Boulevard starts out having 6 houses. Each has a family name, costume type preference, a candy type, and a gullibility. Family Name is a string defaulting to “Adams”, Costume Type Preference is a string defaulting to “spooky”, Candy Type is string defaulting to “Candy Corn”, and gullibility is a number which starts between 0 and 10. It defaults to 0. No candy will be distributed until each house has a unique Family Name, Costume Type Preference, and Candy Type.

This information is tracked on a wiki page named “Pumpkin Boulevard”

Special Houses Rules

Some houses may have special rules regarding their traits. They will be written as new paragraphs of the form: The [FAMILY NAME]: [SPECIAL RULE] And will be stored in this section.

The Joneses: If any of the Joneses numerical values is equal to or smaller than than the same type of value that a different Neighbor has, the Joneses value is set to 1 higher, if possible. The Greenbergs: If you walk to the Greenburgs’ house, with more than 3 treats wrapped in plastic, they will scorn you, and take those treats, replacing them with one trick.

Locations

Each Trick-or-Treater has a location tracked on the GNDT, defaulting to “Street”, with possible locations listed in the table. As an action a Trick-or-Treater may spend 1 Trick or 1 Treat to change their location up to 5 times. A Trick-or-Treater may only change to a location that their current location has a connection to. Connections are listed in the table.

Valid Locations	Connections
Street	Sidewalk, Hardware Store, Gated Fence, Cemetary, Police Station
Addams	Sidewalk
Addams	Sidewalk
Addams	Sidewalk
Addams	Sidewalk
Joneses	Sidewalk
Addams	Sidewalk
Sidewalk	Addams, Addams, Addams, Addams, Addams, Joneses, Street
Hardware Store	Street
Cemetary	Street, Spooky Woods
Spooky Woods	Cemetary
Gated Fence	Street, Ominous Castle
Ominous Castle	Gated Fance
Police Station	Street
Beach	Street, Shipwreck
Shipwreck	Beach

Special Case

Special Case Rules can be active or inactive and default to active. The status of a Special Case rule is notated in the title of that rule ending in ”[X]” where X is the word Active or Inactive, denoting that Rule’s status. When a new dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may state any existing Special Case Rules that are set to inactive; any Special Case Rules not set in the Ascension Address become Active.

Special Case Rules that are inactive do not have an effect on the gamestate aside from existing as text in the ruleset.

Combos [Active]

Anytime that a Trick-or-Treater wants to do 5 or more actions within an hour they may choose in lieu of doing all of those actions separately, which potentially causes confusion as to what is happening, to make a “Combo” blog post that cannot be edited after posting. The gamestate may be changed to reflect the results of the Combo once all of the actions are completed.

A Combo post is a numbered list of the actions taken, the first action is #1 each subsequent number of actions is increased by one. Each action and the portion of the gamestate changed from that action are kept on their own line. An Atomic action has lettering of its steps, refer to the example and note the curly braces vs the parenthesis.

Example Combo

• 1 [action one] ([gamestate before action] -> [gamestate after action])
• 2 [action two] ([gamestate before action] -> [gamestate after action])
• 3 [atomic action] {[gamestate before atomic action]}
• 3a [first atomic substep] ([gamestate before substep] -> [gamestate after substep])
• 3b [second atomic substep] ([gamestate before substep] -> [gamestate after substep]) {[gamestate after atomic action]}
• 4 [action four] ([gamestate before action] -> [gamestate after action])
• etcetera . . .

If any actions require a die roll or other random event that is visible to the public, Trick-or-Treaters must make those rolls before posting the combo with a note stating which step the roll is for and what action they are taking and the title of their Combo. Trick-or-Treaters may not make multiple rolls in the GNDT for the same step. Trick-or-Treaters cannot have two or more rolls in the GNDT with Combo titles that are different unless all but one of the Combo titles have been posted and include that roll.

Each action of a Combo happens in their own second, substeps of an Atomic Action happen all at the same second as the parent step. The first action happens at the time the Combo is posted.

If there is a mistake in the summary of the gamestate in a combo and that mistake doesn’t make it impossible for the stated actions to have happened, the author of that combo may correct those mistakes by maHomeowner a comment along the format “[# of step]: [corrected gamestate summary]”.

Tags [Active]

Votable matters have zero or more tags. Tags are added by adding it to the title of a votable matter with the format “[X]” where [X] is the tag, for example “[Core] Wording Fix”. Votable Matters require the [Core] tag in order to make changes to the Core Rules, and the [Appendix] tag in order to make changes to the Appendix Rules. Votable Matters other than DoVs require the [Victory] tag in order to grant victory to a Trick-or-Treater.

Atomic Actions [Active]

When a Trick-or-Treater performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other action defined in the Ruleset until all such steps are complete. In addition, the Trick-or-Treater performing an Atomic Action performs its steps as quickly as they are able.

If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Trick-or-Treater must redo the Atomic Action. In redoing an Atomic Action, the Trick-or-Treater uses any legal steps that were already completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones.

For instance if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a die in the GNDT and then doing steps based upon it’s result the Trick-or-Treater would have to reroll the die if they rolled the wrong one if the first place and any steps that depended upon the result of that die; however if all they did was take an illegal action later on, the die is still used in the redone action.

If the Atomic Action was illegal due to a die that was wrong in the GNDT (for example, rolling a 1 on a DICE6 gives that Trick-or-Treater a point and the rest do nothing and the Trick-or-Treater rolls a DICE5 in the first one) and in redoing the Atomic Action they get the same effect as before (i.e. rolling an incorrect die and getting result X but then rolling the correct die and still getting result X) then the steps that depended upon that result are valid and don’t need to be redone. Steps that depend upon multiple dice which were done incorrectly must have each incorrect die have the same effect to be considered valid.

For the purposes of determining the ordering or legality of game actions the time of an Atomic Action shall be the time that it is completed. For Atomic Actions that are redone, the time of completion is the last redone step.

Dormancy [Inactive]

If there are fewer than five Trick-or-Treaters, then BlogNomic is Dormant. While BlogNomic is Dormant, actions defined by dynastic rules may not be taken, and proposals may not be submitted.

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

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”.

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 Trick-or-Treaters.

Daily Action

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

Daily Communal Action

A Daily Communal Action is a Daily Action that can only be performed by one Trick-or-Treater per day.

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 Trick-or-Treater’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Trick-or-Treater’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Trick-or-Treater’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Flavour Text

When posting a blog entry, a Trick-or-Treater 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. All GNDT columns that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention are assumed to be Gamestate, as are all Wiki Pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention except for dynastic histories and discussion pages.

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

Resolve/Resolution

If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “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.

Slack

The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Trick-or-Treaters may request an invite to the Slack while logged in by clicHomeowner the button in the sidebar.

Slack Channel

A Slack Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Slack. To reference a Slack Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel. (For example, #random.)

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.

Table of Contents

The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.

TOC

Table of Contents.

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 Trick-or-Treater 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 Trick-or-Treater per week.

Wiki

The BlogNomic Wiki at http://wiki.blognomic.com

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 Trick-or-Treater 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. Any single official post cannot be of two different types of official post unless a rule explicitly states otherwise.

An official post may only be removed as allowed by the Ruleset. An official post may be altered by its author if it is less than six hours old and either no Trick-or-Treater has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icons; 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 two exceptions: Firstly, 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. Secondly, if a post by a Trick-or-Treater who has been a Trick-or-Treater for fewer than seven days contains the word “Proposal” in its title, but is not a Proposal, and if it has been posted for less than an hour, then any admin may change it to be in the Proposal category.

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 Trick-or-Treater may update any Trick-or-Treater's data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.

All updates to the GNDT are logged. For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as the GNDT or a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of a Trick-or-Treater’s action is (and can only be) applied by editing that data in that place. One GNDT or wiki update may contain one or more alterations, or one alteration may be split over multiple updates, as long as it is clear what is happening and the alterations 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 Trick-or-Treater may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Trick-or-Treater 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, Trick-or-Treaters are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Trick-or-Treaters 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.

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 a Trick-or-Treater 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.

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 selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Trick-or-Treater maHomeowner this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the GNDT.

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 Trick-or-Treaters to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Trick-or-Treater (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• A Trick-or-Treater 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 game variable has no defined starting value, then that starting value is the nearest legal value to zero that it may take (for numerical variables, defaulting to positive if tied), blank (for a text string or list that may be blank), the alphabetically earliest legal text string it may take (for a text string which may not be blank, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”), or the list which is alphabetically earliest from the set of lists with the fewest elements (for lists which may not be blank, and considering each list to be a single unpunctuated text string, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”).
• 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)
• DICEN cannot be rolled in the GNDT if N is 22 or more digits long.

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 the admin enacting a proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (eg. “two days after this proposal enacts, Trick-or-Treater 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 Trick-or-Treater if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Trick-or-Treater's name.
• 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.
• Subrules can be referred to by a name which incorporates name of the rule they are a subrule of. Example: a subrule of the rule “Gin” is a “Gin Rule”, however the rule “Gin” is not a “Gin Rule” because it’s not a subrule of the rule “Gin”.
• When referring to a proposal, the name used in reference to a specific proposal may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a proposal named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.

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 “Trick-or-Treaters may Kick each other” and “Trick-or-Treaters may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Trick-or-Treaters may not Kick each other.)
4. If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Trick-or-Treaters may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Trick-or-Treaters may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Trick-or-Treaters may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)
5. Special Case Rules have equal precedence as Dynastic Rules, unless that Special Case Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule.