Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Prisoners 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.

Prisoners 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”.

Prisoners

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 a Prisoner. An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT, at which moment they become a Prisoner.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Votable Matters

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

Each Prisoner 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 Prisoner’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-Prisoner never has a Vote, even if they were a Prisoner 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 Prisoner may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Prisoner already has 2 Proposals pending, or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

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

If a Prisoner other than the Warden casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Warden. When the Warden 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 Warden'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 Prisoners 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 Prisoners actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Prisoner feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Prisoner 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 Prisoner (other than the Warden) 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 “Prisoners”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Prisoner 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 Warden 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 Prisoners 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 Prisoner who made the DoV as its Warden. That Prisoner may pass this role to another Prisoner at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Warden makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Warden's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Prisoner and Warden 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 Prisoner 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 Prisoner'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 Prisoner within BlogNomic.
A Prisoner 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 Prisoner should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
A Prisoner should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Prisoner.
A Prisoner should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
A Prisoner should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
A Prisoner 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

Sentences

Each Prisoner has a Sentence, being a number measured in years and defaulting to the mean value of all other Prisoner’s Sentences (rounding down). This is tracked in the GNDT.

If, immediately after unidling, a Prisoner’s Sentence is lower than the mean value of all other Prisoner’s Sentences, it is increased to the mean value of all other Prisoner’s Sentences.

The Warden’s Sentence is considered to be a measure of Demerits against his employment record.

Confessions

As a daily action, a Prisoner may confess to a Crime by posting a blog entry to this effect, with “Crime:” in its title and naming a single other Prisoner as the Crime’s Accomplice in its body. A post such as this is known as a Confession to that Crime, and the Prisoner who posted it is the Crime's Suspect. The Suspect and Accomplice of a Confession are known as its Parties. Confession blog entries must be posted in the Votable Matters category, but are not considered to be Votable Matters for any other purpose.

A Crime’s Suspect or Accomplice may respond to its Confession with a Statement (if they have not already done so on that Confession), being a blog comment to that Confession which contains a single Hash. The Hashes in the Parties’ Statements shall be different.

A Crime's Suspect or Accomplice may Sign a Statement he or she has made by posting a follow-up comment on the same Confession which specifies a piece of text whose Hash is the same as the Hash in their Statement. Upon doing so: if that piece of text contains the word "defect" (with any capitalisation) then the Prisoner who wrote the Statement has Defected on that Confession, otherwise they have Cooperated.

If both Prisoners have either Cooperated or Defected on a Confession, then any Prisoner may update the gamestate as follows for that Confession, after which point the Confession is over and ceases to be a Confession:

If the Suspect and Accomplice both Cooperated, each has their Sentence increased by 1 year and their SHIV score increased by 15.
If the Suspect Cooperated and the Accomplice Defected, the Suspect has their Sentence increased by 3 years and the Accomplice has their SHIV score increased by 10.
If the Suspect Defected and the Accomplice Cooperated, the Accomplice has their Sentence increased by 3 years and the Suspect has their SHIV score increased by 10.
If the Suspect and Accomplice both Defected, each has their Sentence increased by 2 years.

If a Criminal ceases to be a Criminal for any reason, then any Confession for whose Crime they are a Suspect or an Accomplice ceases to be a Confession.

Either Party of a Confession may Threaten the other (the “Nerk”), if either of the following is true:

The Threatening Party has either Defected or Cooperated on that Confession more than 24 hours previously, and the Nerk has neither Defected nor Cooperated on that Confession.
The Threatening Party has made a Statement on that Confession more than 24 hours previously, and the Nerk has not made a Statement on that Confession.

When such a Threat is made, the Threatening Party may announce that the Nerk has either Defected or Cooperated, in a comment to that effect on that Confession; upon doing so, the Nerk is considered to have Defected or Cooperated, accordingly, on that Confession.

If a Confession is more than 120 hours old, both of its Parties are considered to have Cooperated on it

Rumours

A Prisoner is a Fish if no non-Injured Prisoner has a lower Sentence than them.

As a daily communal action, any Prisoner may start a Rumour by posting a blog entry describing a Crime, with “Rumour:” in its title and naming two different Fish as the Crime’s Suspect and Accomplice in its body. Such a post is considered to be a Confession to the described Crime, with the two named Fish as its Suspect and Accomplice.

Snitching

A Snitch is a type of Confession. When a Prisoner Confesses to a Crime, they may choose to make that Confession a Snitch, by using a title including “Snitch:” instead of “Crime:”.

After a Snitch Confession ceases to be considered a Confession in a way that increases the Sentence of either Party of that Confession, both of its Parties then lose one year from their Sentence (to a minimum of zero), and 10 SHIV (to a minimum of zero).

Attack

An Attack is a type of Confession. As a weekly action, a Prisoner may make an Attack, by confessing to a crime by using a title including “Attack:” and the name of a Prisoner instead of “Crime:”. The Prisoner named in the title is the Target of the attack.

Attacks may not be resolved as regular Confessions. Instead, if both Parties have either Cooperated or Defected on an Attack and neither is Injured, then any Prisoner may update the gamestate as follows for that Attack, after which point the Confession is over and ceases to be a Confession:

If the Suspect and Accomplice both Cooperated, the Target is Injured.
If the Suspect Cooperated and the Accomplice Defected, the Suspect is Injured.
If the Suspect Defected and the Accomplice Cooperated, the Accomplice is Injured.
If the Suspect and Accomplice both Defected, every Prisoner’s SHIV is increased by 10.

If either Party to an Attack is Injured, that Attack ceases to be a Confession.

An Attack may not be resolved if a more recently posted unresolved Attack exists.

Escaping

An Escape attempt is a type of Confession. As a weekly action, a Prisoner may make an Escape attempt, by confessing to a crime by using a title including “Escape:” instead of “Crime:”.

Escape attempts may not be resolved as regular Confessions. Instead, if both Parties have either Cooperated or Defected on an Escape attempt and neither is Injured, and if that Escape attempt is more than 72 hours old, then any Prisoner may update the gamestate as follows for that Escape attempt, after which point the Confession is over and ceases to be a Confession:

If the Suspect and Accomplice both Cooperated, the Suspect goes Over the Wall.
If the Suspect Cooperated and the Accomplice Defected, the Suspect is Injured.
If the Suspect Defected and the Accomplice Cooperated, the Accomplice is Injured.
If the Suspect and Accomplice both Defected, nothing happens.

If either Party to an Escape attempt is Injured, that Escape attempt ceases to be a Confession. A Party to an Escape attempt may not be Threatened. If an Escape attempt is more than 120 hours old, both of its Parties are considered to have Defected on it (this takes precedence over the rule “Confessions”).

An Escape attempt may not be resolved if an older unresolved Escape attempt exists.

Hashes

A string of 32 hexademical characters is known as a Hash. The Hash of a piece of text is the MD5 Hash generated for it at http://www.miraclesalad.com/webtools/md5.php.

The Don

The Prisoner with the greatest Sentence is known as the Don.

When The Don Confesses to a Crime, they may increase their SHIV by 20 and name another Prisoner to be the Suspect rather than themselves. If a Prisoner is not the Don, but has been the Don in the previous 48 hours, they may - if they have not already done so this dynasty - Deliver a Monologue. Upon doing so, they increase their SHIV by 50.

Attitudes

Each Prisoner has an Attitude, which may be either Withdrawn, Rebellious, Comfortable, Converted or Injured (defaulting to Withdrawn) and is tracked in the GNDT. The Warden’s Attitude can be only Converted or Injured, defaulting to Converted.

Attitudes have the following effects:-

If a Prisoner is Withdrawn, they may not be chosen as the Accomplice of a non-Rumour Crime, but are always considered to be a Fish for the purposes of Rumours.
If a Prisoner is Rebellious, their SHIV is not increased as a result of their own Defections.
If a Prisoner is Comfortable, they are never considered to be a Fish nor the Don.
If a Prisoner is Converted, their SHIV is not increased as a result of their own Cooperations.

As a weekly action, a Prisoner may change their own Attitude, provided that their Attitude is not currently Injured, and that they are not currently a Suspect or Accomplice in a Confession.

If a Prisoner is Injured, then the Prison is in Lockdown. If the Prison is in Lockdown, then when a Prisoner joins the game or is unidled, they become Injured (and their Attitude defaults to Injured instead of Withdrawn).

Shivving

Each Prisoner has a Standard Heuristic for Inmate Violence (SHIV) score, which is an integer between 0 and 495, inclusive. It is tracked in the GNDT and defaults to zero. Each Prisoner’s SHIV score represents how unpopular they are within the Prison, and how likely they are to be the subject of violence.

As a daily action, each Prisoner may Walk the Yard by rolling DICE100 in the GNDT. If the result is lower than their SHIV score, they must reduce their Sentence by half (rounded up), set their SHIV score to 50, and set their Attitude to Injured.

If a Prisoner has a higher SHIV score than exactly one other Prisoner and no others, then they may Peer Pressure that other Prisoner, setting that Prisoner’s SHIV score to match their own.

As a daily action, a non-Injured Prisoner may reduce another Prisoner’s SHIV by any amount to add that same amount to their own SHIV. This is known as Taking a Fall.

The Infirmary

If all Prisoners are Injured, any Prisoner may change every Prisoner’s Attitude to “Withdrawn”.

Grudges

Each Prisoner can have up to one Grudge, which is tracked in the GNDT. A Prisoner’s Grudge must be the name of one other Prisoner.

As a weekly action and so long as they are not Suspect in a Confession, a Prisoner may Change their Grudge. This stands for changing or clearing their Grudge.

When a Prisoner (the “Chump”) has their Sentence increased as a direct result of a Confession being resolved, then if the other Party of that Confession has a Grudge against the Chump, the Chump has their Sentence increased by a further year.

Victory Conditions

Riot

If all Prisoners who are not Injured have a SHIV score above 50, and exactly one of those Prisoners is a Fish, then that Fish has achieved victory.

Kingpin

If there is exactly one Prisoner who is not Injured, then that Prisoner has achieved victory.

Release

If the Warden has achieved victory, he may announce that a Prisoner of his choice has been Released. Upon doing so, that Prisoner achieves victory.

Escape

If a Prisoner has gone Over the Wall, they have achieved Victory.

Gang affiliation

Each Prisoner may be a member of up to one of the following Gangs:

Locker Boys
Kitchen Crew
J-Wing Mob
The Dust
Quartering Crow
Los Pulpos
Self-Reference Club
Two-Star Guardians

Gang membership is tracked in the GNDT and defaults to “-”, and may be changed as a weekly action. All Prisoners with the same value in the GNDT (other than the default) for their Gang are considered to be part of the same Gang, and may be referred to as each others’ Gang-mates.

Whenever a Prisoner who is a member of a Gang posts a Confession of any kind, but before the Accomplice makes a Statement on that Confession, or any Prisoner Signs that Confession, the Suspect’s Gang-mates may Intimidate the Accomplice of that Confession by making a comment to the Confession that includes an arrow symbol. If the Accomplice Defects on that Confession then any member of that Gang may, once, increase the Accomplice’s SHIV by 10 per Intimidating Gang-mate (even if the Accomplice is Rebellious), and then Walk the Yard for the Accomplice as if they had done so themselves.

Boredom

A Prisoner can change another Prisoner (the Slacker)‘s Attitude to Injured, at any time on Sundays from Sunday 11 October 2015 onwards, but only if the Slacker has not been the Suspect of two or more Confessions that week.

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 Prisoners.

Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Prisoner 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 Prisoner 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 Prisoner’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Prisoner’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Prisoner’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Flavour Text: When posting a blog entry, a Prisoner 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 Prisoners is half the number of Prisoners in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Prisoners it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Prisoners.

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.

Slack: The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Prisoners 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.

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 Prisoner 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 Prisoner 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 Prisoner 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 Prisoner 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 Prisoner may update any Prisoner'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 Prisoner may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Prisoner 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, Prisoners are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Prisoners 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 Prisoner 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 Prisoners to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Prisoner (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
A Prisoner 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, 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)

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, Prisoner 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 Prisoner if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Prisoner's name.

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 “Prisoners may Kick each other” and “Prisoners may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Prisoners may not Kick each other.)
If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Prisoners may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Prisoners may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Prisoners may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)

Ruleset 132

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