Ruleset 37

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Musicians must 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 glossary, which exists solely to clarify the remainder of the ruleset. Rules may be referred to by their type and entire number or type and name. (e.g. This Rule may be referred to as Rule 1.1 or the Rule entitled "Ruleset and Gamestate").

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

No Rule may contain a provision that bars itself from being altered and/or repealed. If at any moment a Rule exists or is altered in a manner that renders it to contain such a provision, the entirety of that Rule shall be considered void and with no effects on the Gamestate. The provisions on this paragraph supersede any text in a Rule.

Spivak pronouns, as defined in the Glossary, shall be used whenever a Musician is referred to.

Admins may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset at any time.

Musicians

Anybody may apply to join BlogNomic (if e is not already playing) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post announcing eir arrival. An Admin will add em to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment e becomes a Musician.

A Musician may leave the game at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A Musician may only change eir name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

Some Musicians are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Musicians who wish to become Admins shall 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.

Some Musician are idle, and shall be marked as such in the sidebar. For the purposes of the Ruleset, excluding Rules 1.1 and 1.2, idle Musicians are not counted as Musicians. Admins may render a Musician idle if that Musician has failed to vote for more than a week or has asked to become idle. Admins may un-idle a Musician at eir request - the Musician's personal gamestate retains the values it had immediately prior to eir idling.

A single person may not control more than one Musician within BlogNomic. If anybody is suspected of controlling more than one Musician, then a Proposal may be made to remove any number of such Musicians from the game, and to bar the perpetrator from rejoining.

Proposals

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

Proposals can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Proposal is first put forward, it is considered Pending.

Voting

Any Musician may cast eir Vote on a Pending Proposal by making a comment on that entry using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST or DEFERENTIAL.

If the Musician who made a Proposal has not cast a Vote on it, eir Vote is counted as FOR. If a Musician casts more than one Vote on a Proposal, only the most recent of those Votes is counted. If a Musician leaves the game or goes idle, eir Vote no longer counts. If a Musician votes against eir own proposal, that vote may not be changed.

A vote of DEFERENTIAL is a vote of no opinion, or of faith in the decision of the Conductor. The vote will count as the same as Conductor's vote. The Conductor cannot cast a vote of DEFERENTIAL. If there is no Conductor, a vote of DEFERENTIAL counts as an explicit vote of abstention.

Enactment

The oldest pending Proposal may be enacted by any Admin (and the Ruleset and/or Gamestate updated to include the specified effects of that Proposal) 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, more than half of its votes are FOR, 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 enough AGAINST votes that it could not be Enacted without one of those votes being changed.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and half or fewer of its votes are FOR.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and has fewer than 2 valid votes.
• The Musician who proposed it has voted AGAINST it.
• The Conductor has voted to VETO it.

Whenever an Admin marks a proposal as enacted or failed, e must also mark eir name, and report the final tally of votes (or the fact that the proposal was self-killed or vetoed).

Calls for Judgment

If two or more Musicians actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Musician feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Musician may raise a Call for Judgment by posting an entry in the "Call for Judgment" category. If the Musician wishes, e may post anonymously by choosing "Call for Judgment" from the Author drop-down menu on the OPTIONS tab. The post shall go on to describe the issue, and measures that shall be taken to resolve it.

All Musicians may add votes of agreement or disagreement in comments to this entry, using appropriate voting icons (a Musician's later votes overriding eir earlier ones). Unfailed CfJs continue until they reach a quorum of FOR votes, a quorum of AGAINST votes, or if there is no hiatus going on, until four days have passed, and if there is a hiatus going on until two days have passed. After this time, if more than half of the cast votes are in favour, the Gamestate and Ruleset shall be amended as was specified. Otherwise, the CfJ fails. A Failed CfJ has no further effect.

Gamestate Tracking

Proposals, Calls for Judgment, and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Musician 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.

If no Musician has commented on it, an official post may be altered or removed by its author; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. 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 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 five minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as e wishes.

Voting and comments are accessible through the link at the bottom of every post.

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 Musician may update any Musician's data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.

All updates to the GNDT are logged - if a Musician feels that an alteration goes against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), e may simply undo the effects of that alteration. If such an undoing is disputed, a Call for Judgment shall be raised.

Musicians shall be assigned a password for the GNDT when they join the Nomic.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty is headed by a single Conductor, and is named according to the number of Dynasties they have headed (eg. "The First Dynasty of Myke").

The Conductor may vote to VETO any Proposal.

Victory and Ascension

If a Musician (other than the Conductor) believes that e has achieved victory in the current Dynasty, e may make a post to the Blognomic weblog in the Declaration of Victory category, detailing this.

Upon doing so, the game immediately game goes into Hiatus, if it hasn't already. During this time, the only game actions that may be taken are those covered by Rules 1.2, 1.6, 1.7 and 1.9.

Every Musician may respond to an active DoV saying whether or not e believes the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty (using the FOR and AGAINST icons).

The Declaration of Victory may be resolved after 24 hours, or after 12 hours if the Conductor has voted on it. Upon resolution, if a Quorum of Musician's have voted on the DoV and more than half of those votes were in favour, then the DoV passes - otherwise the DoV fails, and if no other DoVs are still pending, the Hiatus ends.

When a DoV passes, all other active DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins with the Musician who made the DoV as its Conductor. (That Musician may pass this role to another Musician at this point, if they wish.) The Hiatus continues until the new Conductor posts an Ascension Address to the BlogNomic weblog - this shall specify Conductor's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally include a proclamation that any number of Dynastic Rules will be repealed, and that any keywords will be replaced with new theme-appropriate terms.

Dynastic Rules

Instrumentation

Each Musician may be playing a single Instrument, tracked in the GNDT.

Any Musician who isn’t playing an Instrument may start playing one by adjusting the GNDT appropriately.

Occasionaly a Musician who is playing an Instrument may change eir Instrument.

Orchestral Positions

The Conductor may appoint Musicians to particular roles as described below. Only 1 Musician may occupy a role at a time. The Conductor may remove the appointment at any time. Appointments to roles must be announced by a post and marked with an asterisk following the instrument in the GNDT.

Occasionaly, a Musician who holds an Orchestral Position can change the instrument of any other musician to one within eir own group, provided that musician does not also hold an Orchestral Position.

Leader

A musician may only be appointed as Leader if e is playing the Violin. If at any time e stops playing the Violin then e ceases to be Leader.

Principal Oboe

A musician may only be appointed as Principal Oboe if e is playing the Oboe. If at any time e stops playing the Oboe then e ceases to be Principal Oboe.

Groups

Instruments belong to Groups, as follows:

• Woodwinds: Flute, Piccolo, Oboe, Cor anglais, Clarinet, Bass clarinet, Bassoons, Contrabassoon
• Brass: Horn, Trumpet, Trombone, Bass trombone, Tuba
• Percussion: Timpano, Snare drum, Bass drum, Celesta, Piano
• Strings: Harp, Violins, Violas, Cello, Double bass, Lute
• Weird: Any Instrument not listed above.

Style

Each Musician with an Instrument may be playing in a certain Style. Style is tracked in a number of GNDT columns listed below, with the values given below, each column also having the value “-”. All GNDT Style columns of any new Musician are set to “-”, although this is not a Style value. A Musician with no Instrument must have all GNDT Style columns set to “-”, from which they cannot be changed as long as that Musician has no Instrument; this take precedent over the rest of this rule.

Styles may change manually or automatically (i.e. as the result of other changes) as described below. When an effect (either manual or automatic) would set a Style entry to a certain value, it is considered a change only if the new value is different from its previous value. All the automatic changes that happen as a result of a manual change occur before another manual change may take place. If a change immediately leads to more than one automatic change, all such automatic changes happen simultaneously, but if simultaneous changes would simultaneously set the same Style entry to different values, that value instead remains unchanged. Automatic changes can lead to more automatic changes and so on, until a state (the set off all the Musicians’ Styles) is reached where no more such changes are required. If, in a sequence of changes, the same state is reached twice, the changes cease having an effect, and no more automatic changes occur until after a manual change, or a musician is added to or removed from the GNDT. For instance, suppose someone makes a manual change from state A to state B. State B leads automatically to state C, which leads automatically to state A, which leads automatically to state D, which leads automatically to state C. Here it stops, because C was reached twice.

In this rule, any implied ordering of the Musicians is the order they're listed in the GNDT, which wraps so that the last Musician listed in the GNDT is adjacent to the first Musician listed.

The Style columns and their corresponding values are as follows:

• Harmony. Values: Consonant, Dissonant. The Harmony of a musician immediately between two Consonant musicians becomes Consonant. The Harmony of a musician immediately between two Dissonant musicians becomes Dissonant.

• Tempo. Values: Allegro, Moderato, Adagio. If three consecutive musicians are playing at the same Tempo, the middle one's Harmony becomes Consonant. If three consecutive musicians are playing at three different Tempos, the middle one's Harmony becomes Dissonant.

Manual Changes of Style

These are the changes of Style that may be done manually:

• Any musician may often change eir Harmony.
• A musician whose Harmony is Consonant may occasionally change the Tempo of any other musician.
• Any musician with Dissonant Harmony may often change eir Tempo.

Dictator

The Conductor has Dictatorial Powers, as follows.

Pacing

Often, the Conductor may change the Harmony and/or Tempo of any number of Musicians.

Shutting up

The Conductor may stop a Musician from playing any Instrument, at any time.

Timing

The conductor may often change the time signature by making a post with the title “Time Signature: x/y” where x/y is the new time signature.

Grouping

At any time, the Conductor may Make a Post adding or removing any number of Instruments to or from any Group listed in the Instrumentation rule, and edit the Ruleset to reflect those changes.

Time Signature

There is a variable known as the “Time Signature” written in the form x/y where 2 <= x <= 12 and y is a member of {2, 4, 8}. The time signature is not tracked anywhere in the gamestate, except for the post where it is set, so it is the responsibility of each musician to track the time signature for emselves.

Proposals

Rule 1.3 does not apply.

Any Musician may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes unless...

• e already has 2x/y proposals pending or
• e has already made 3x/y Proposals that day

...where x and y are substituted in from the current time signature and fractions are rounded down.

Proposals can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Proposal is first put forward, it is considered Pending.

Crescendo

If more than half the musicians that have a Tempo have an “Alegro” Tempo, and more than half the musicians that have a Harmony have a “Dissonant” Harmony, then any musician may choose a positive integer number of musicians with a “Dissonant” Harmony and simultaneously change then to “Consonant” - That number must be at least as great as half the current number of musicians with a “Dissonant” Harmony. Immediately upon doing that, this same musician is entitled to make a post to change the Time Signature to x+2/y, where x and y are the values in the time signature in the moment of the post. That post may not be done if it would bring the value for x out of the limits set by the Time Signature rule.

The Score

Any musician who simultaneously meets all the criteria below is said to have Mastered the Score. A musician who has Mastered the Score has achieved victory.

• e must have Consonant harmony.
• e must have the same Tempo as the conductor (and that Tempo must not be "-").
• e must have the same Dynamic as the conductor (and that Dynamic must not be "-").
• e must have an Enacted of at least 8.
• eir Enacted must be greater than eir Failed.

Tracking

Failed

An integer quantity known as Failed is tracked in the GNDT.

When a musician makes a proposal, e should increase eir Failed by 1 with a GNDT comment containing the proposal's title. If more than 10 minutes have passed since e made the proposal and there has been no GNDT modification that increases eir Failed with the proposal's title in the comment than any musician may increase the proposer's Failed by 2 with a GNDT comment containing the proposal's title.

New musicians have eir Failed set to 0.

Enacted

An integer quantity known as Enacted is tracked in the GNDT.

When an admin enacts a proposal, e must decrease the proposer's Failed by 1 and increase the proposer's Enacted by 1.

New musicians have eir Enacted set to 0.

Glossary

This is always at the end of the Ruleset. Its only effect can be to clarify ambiguity.

• It is noted that 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 writer a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own writer, when enacted).
• Rules which trigger on Enactment or Failure of a Proposal are the responsibility of the acting Admin, who is responsible to check if Quorum is met at the moment of the Enactment.
• Appropriate 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 I http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a vote of DEFERENTIAL, and an Imperial Seal (currently http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif) shall represent the Imperial Veto.
• 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.
• "Posts" and "comments" refer only to those made to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com
• 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.)
• Unless otherwise specified, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers, and any action that would set those values below zero instead sets them to zero. Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
• Superficial differences between the spelling of geographic versions of English, e.g, British English, American English, Australian English shall be construed as irrelevant for the purposes of play.
• Gamestate is defined as any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of, such as Musicians' names and the blog colour scheme.

Typographic Conventions

• Italicized text is not considered part of the ruleset and may be used to clarify rules with examples, notes, and flavor text. For example, this italicized text provides an example of the use of italicized text.

Timespans

• References to "a day" (as an entity rather than a duration, eg. "Sunday") refer to that day in the timezone of the BlogNomic blog, which is considered to be GMT for all purposes.
• References to a "week" refer to the period of time between the start of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.
• 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.
• An action which may be taken 'often' may be taken once per day, but not more than once every six hours.
• An action which may be taken 'occasionally' may be taken once per week, but not more than once per twenty-four hours.

Keywords

• Quorum is equal to half the number of Musicians, rounded down, plus one.

Dice

References to "YDICEX" refer to Y X-sided dice. 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.

Spivak

• The Spivak pronouns used in Blognomic are:
  • Subject case: "e";
  • Object case: "em";
  • Possessive Adjective case: "eir";
  • Possessive Pronoun case: "eirs";
  • Reflexive case: "emself".

IEEE

• The IEEE auxiliary verbs used in Blognomic are:
  • Is required to: "shall";
  • Is recommended that: "should";
  • Is permitted to: "may";
  • Is able to: "can".