Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Attorneys 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.

Attorneys 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 Attorney may update it to do so.

Attorneys

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

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

Some Attorneys are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Attorneys 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 Attorneys

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

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

When an Attorney 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 Attorney Idled in a different dynasty), the Attorney is given the default value for new Attorney, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render an Attorney Idle if that Attorney has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Attorney 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 an Attorney if that Attorney is Idle and 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 Attorney 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.

Idle Admins can enact and fail Votable Matters.

Dynasties

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

Each Attorney 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. An Attorney’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-Attorney never has a Vote, even if they were an Attorney previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If an Attorney other than the Judge casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Judge. When the Judge 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 Judge'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 Attorneys who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and it 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 should mark their name, and are highly encouraged to 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 Attorney may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Attorney already has 2 Proposals pending, or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

When an Attorney 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 Judge may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Judge casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Judge 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 Attorneys actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Attorney feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Attorney 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 an Attorney (other than the Judge) 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.

If the game is not already in Hiatus and there is a pending DoV, 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 “Attorneys”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Attorney 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 Judge 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 Attorney who made the DoV as its Judge. That Attorney may pass this role to another Attorney at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Judge makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Judge's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Attorney and Judge 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 Attorney 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 an Attorney'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 Attorney within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Attorney and any Idle Attorneys.
An Attorney 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.
An Attorney should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
An Attorney should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Attorney.
An Attorney should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
An Attorney should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
An Attorney should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).
An Attorney 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.
An Attorney should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.

Dynastic Rules

Clients

A Client is an entity with a Name, a Class (being either Adult, Child, Business or State), a Worth (being a dollar value) and a Reputation (being Impeccable, Respected, Decent, Suspicious or Corrupt). A Client’s Villainy is a numerical value equal to the position that their Reputation appears in the bracketed list of Reputations in this paragraph.

A Pool of Clients exists as follows:

Casey Chamberlain: Suspicious Adult; Worth $810,000
Morgan Chamberlain: Impeccable Adult; Worth $891,000
Benjamin Chamberlain: Respected Adult; Worth $987,209
Elizabeth Chamberlain: Respected Adult; Worth $795,588
Isabel Chamberlain: Decent Adult; Worth $632,340
James Chamberlain: Decent Adult; Worth $486,000
Joshua Chamberlain: Suspicious Adult; Worth $567,000
Anne Chamberlain: Suspicious Adult; Worth $720,900
Robert Chamberlain: Corrupt Adult; Worth $729,000
State of Connecticut: Impeccable State; Worth $100,081,000
X Express: Decent Business; Worth $955,881
Goldberg Technology: Suspicious Business; Worth $1,164,924
Bananasoft: Impeccable Business; Worth $1,044,000
Mortis Maximis: Impeccable Business; Worth $1,000,000

Gaining and Losing

As a weekly action, an Attorney with fewer than three Clients may take on a new Client by updating the list below. The new Client must not be a non-State Client who is already represented by any other Attorney, and the new Client must not Mistrust the Attorney.

For each possible pairing of Client and Attorney, if the total of the Client’s Villainy and the Attorney’s Integrity is lower than five, then that Client Mistrusts that Attorney.

An Attorney may stop representing a Client at any time by removing themselves as the Attorney of that Client in the rule “Clients”.

Representations

Each Attorney (including idle Attorneys) represents a set of Clients, defaulting to none. Which Clients an Attorney represents is tracked in the following bullet list.

Kevan represents: Casey Chamberlain, State of Connecticut, Mortis Maximis
Trigon represents: State of Connecticut
naught represents: Elizabeth Chamberlain
Brendan (idle) represents: Morgan Chamberlain, Anne Chamberlain
Purplebeard (idle) represents: Benjamin Chamberlain
StripedMaple (idle) represents: X Express

Cases

Each Case has a Plaintiff (a Client), a Defendant (a Client) and an Accusation (which may be either a Crime or a Complaint). Cases may be Open or Shut, defaulting to Open. If the Plaintiff is a State, the Case is a Criminal one; otherwise it is a Civil one. The Parties of a Case are its Plaintiff and its Defendant. Each Party of a Case has an amount of Guilt within that Case, tracked privately by the Judge.

Crimes are Arson, Burglary, Murder, Perjury and Jaywalking. Complaints are Personal Injury, Defamation, Negligence, Malpractice and Unpaid Debt.

If there are fewer than two Open Cases, the Judge may create a Case as an atomic action with the following steps:

Select a Client in a secretly random manner as its Plaintiff
Select a Client in a secretly random manner (excluding the Plaintiff and all States) as its Defendant
If neither Party of the Case is represented by Attorney, skip the rest of this atomic action
If the Case is Criminal, randomly select a Crime as its Accusation
If the Case is Civil, randomly select a Complaint as its Accusation
Assign an amount of Guilt for this Case to each of the Case’s Parties, where the amount chosen is a secretly random number between 0 and the Party’s Villainy.
If both Parties’ Guilts for a Case are equal, increase one of them (chosen at secretly random) by 1.
For every Attorney who represents a Party in the Case, privately inform that Attorney of the Guilt for that Party in this Case
Post a blog entry describing this Case: this post tracks the state of Case

Within the comments of a Case, FOR icons represent solidly researched arguments and AGAINST icons represent underhanded tactics. Making a comment on a Case is considered to be a dynastic action.

If nobody has posted a voting icon in a comment on the oldest Open Case in the previous 24 hours, and if the Case is more than 24 hours old, then the Judge may close that Case as an atomic action with the following steps:

For each Party in the Case whose Attorney made a comment on the Case’s blog post which included a FOR icon, decrease that Party’s Guilt for this Case by 2 (to a minimum of zero)
For each Party in the Case whose Attorney made a comment on the Case’s blog post which included an AGAINST icon, decrease that Party’s Guilt for this Case by 1 (to a minimum of zero) and decrease that Attorney’s Integrity by 1 (to a minimum of zero).
Select the Winner of the Case as being whichever of its two Parties has the lowest Guilt (if their Guilts are equal, this is resolved at random); the other Party is the Case’s Loser.
Establish the Fine as being 10% of the Worth of the Loser of the Case (rounding down)
Decrease the Worth of the Loser of the Case by the Fine
Increase the Worth of the Winner of the Case by 90% of the Fine
If the Winner is represented by any Attorneys who made a comment on the Case’s blog post which included a FOR icon, increase each of those Attorneys’ Money by 10% of the Fine
If the Winner is represented by any Attorneys who did not make a comment on the Case’s blog post which included a FOR icon, increase each of those Attorneys’ Slush Fund by 10% of the Fine
If the Case’s Accusation is Murder, the Defendant is an Adult and the Defendant is the Loser of the Case, then any other Open cases featuring the Defendant as a Plaintiff are immediately closed, and the Defendant is removed from the list of Clients.
Comment on the Case’s blog entry mentioning its Winner and Fine
Mark the Case as Closed

Attorney Stats

Each Attorney has an amount of Money (measured in dollars) and an amount of Integrity (a number), both tracked in the GNDT and both defaulting to zero. Each Attorney also has a Slush Fund, being an amount of dollars tracked privately by the Judge.

If they have not already done so this dynasty, an Attorney may Set Up Shop by setting their own Money and Integrity to values where the total of their Money and one thousand times their Integrity does not exceed 10,000.

If a Lawyer has never Set Up Shop, they may not take dynastic actions outside of this rule.

The terms “Attorney” and “Lawyer” are considered to be synonyms.

Banking

An Attorney may Launder a specified, positive amount of money from their Slush Fund by making a blog post to this effect: this is known as a Laundering Post. If the money specified in a Laundering Post is less than or equal to the posting Attorney’s Slush Fund, the Judge may decrease that Attorney’s Slush Fund by that value, increase that Attorney’s Money by 90% of that value (rounding up), and make a comment on the post announcing that this has happened. If the money specified in a Laundering Post is greater than the posting Attorney’s Slush Fund, the Judge may make a comment to this effect.

If a Laundering Post has been processed in this way by the Judge, or if it is more than 72 hours old, then it ceases to be considered a Laundering Post.

An Attorney who Set Up Shop more than seven days ago may give any positive amount of their Money to another Attorney, at any time.

As a weekly action, the Judge may post a blog entry announcing the number of Attorneys who have a Slush Fund greater than zero, and the size in dollars of the largest Slush Fund.

Fiscal Victory

An Attorney’s Worth is equal to their Money, excluding any Money that they were given by other Attorneys in the previous 48 hours. It does not include their Slush Fund.

If an Attorney has a Worth exceeding $100,000, and more Worth than every other Attorney, and is also the first Attorney to have met these criteria this dynasty, then that Attorney has achieved victory.

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.

The text of Special Case Rules that are inactive shall be interpreted, for the purpose of play, to mean nothing.

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, the [Special Case] tag in order to make changes to the Special Case 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 an Attorney.

Atomic Actions [Active]

When an Attorney performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other dynastic action, or achieve victory, until all such steps are complete. All of the steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, as well as the steps of an Atomic Actions that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.

An Atomic Action may direct the performer to skip some of its steps, which the performer should do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.

If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Attorney must redo the Atomic Action. In redoing an Atomic Action, the Attorney 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 Attorney 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.

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.

This rule cannot be overruled by the Dynastic Rules.

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”.

Dormancy [Active]

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

No Orphan Variables [Active]

An Orphan Variable is a dynastic gamestate variable which has neither a location in which it’s tracked, nor a manner in which it it can be determined from other gamestate variables, specified in the Ruleset.

An Attorney may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

If the Judge has voted DEFERENTIAL on a proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Attorneys have voted FOR the proposal than have voted AGAINST it) or AGAINST (in all other cases).

Dynastic Distance [Active]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, The Judge is not an Attorney.

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 Attorneys.

Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Attorney 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 Attorney 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 Action: an action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.

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): An Attorney’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Attorney’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Attorney’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Flavour Text: When posting a blog entry, an Attorney 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.

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

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. Attorneys may request an invite to the Slack while logged in by clicking 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, a DEF http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and a crossed-out circle http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent a vote to 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 Attorney 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 Attorney 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 Attorney 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 two hours old and either no Attorney 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. An official blog post that has the status of Enacted or Failed cannot change categories. An official blog post’s status may never be altered except in accordance with the rules that define that official post.

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 New Attorney is not in any category but follows the wording of a Proposal, in that it has written changes the gamestate and or ruleset, and if it has been posted for less than six hours, then any admin may change it to be in the Proposal category. A New Attorney is defined as an Attorney who has been an Attorney for fewer than seven days or an Attorney that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

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 Attorney may update any Attorney'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 an Attorney’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 Attorney may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Attorney 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, Attorneys are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Attorneys 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 an Attorney 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 Attorney making 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 Attorneys to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Attorney (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
An Attorney 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, Attorney 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.
An Attorney may not take more than one dynastic game action at the same time (excluding any actions which have been ongoing for more than three hours).

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 an Attorney if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Attorney'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:

The Appendix has precedence over any Rule;
A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
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 “Attorneys may Kick each other” and “Attorneys may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Attorneys may not Kick each other.)
If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Attorneys may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Attorneys may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Attorneys may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)
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.

Ruleset

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