Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Geneticists shall obey it.

It comprises four Sections: 1) the "core rules" of BlogNomic, covering the essential elements of gameplay; 2) the rules of the current Dynasty; 3) rules which set metagame parameters for the current dynasty; and 4) the appendix, which complements and clarifies the Ruleset.

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

If the text of the Ruleset document does not reflect all legal changes that have been authorised to be made to it, any Geneticist may update it to do so.

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Research Papers page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it.

Geneticists

A human with access to the blog who is not already a Geneticist may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Geneticist (plural form Geneticists); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Geneticist. (See the FAQ for guidance on how to apply for access to the BlogNomic blog.)

Some Geneticists are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Geneticists who wish to become Admins should submit a Proposal or CfJ to that effect. An Admin may make a blog post clearly stating their wish to resign under this rule. In response, any Admin may remove them from their post as Admin.

a Geneticist may cease to be a Geneticist at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be a Geneticist in this way may not become a Geneticist again within the following two weeks.

Idle Geneticists

A Geneticist may be either Active or Idle. A Geneticist is only Active if their name is on the list of currently active Geneticists in the Sidebar; otherwise they are Idle.

A Geneticist may request to become Idle at any time by making a post or comment to that effect. An Admin may render a Geneticist Idle if that Geneticist has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Geneticist has not posted an entry or comment in the past 168 Hours (7 days). Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so.

For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Geneticists”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, “Imperial Tracking”, “Mentors” and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Geneticists are not counted as Geneticists. The combined term “Idle Geneticists” can be used to refer to Geneticists who are Idle even in Proposals or rules that do not treat them as Geneticists, and any Votable Matter that specifically refers to a named Idle Geneticist can affect them as if they were Active. Idle admins may act as Admins as if they were Active.

An Admin may make a Geneticist Active if that Geneticist is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), and Idle Admins may make themselves Active at any time, unless the Geneticist who would become Active has become Idle within the past 48 hours (2 days), and within the current Dynasty. Admins who are making any Geneticist Active should highlight the changed status of the relevant Geneticist and any changes to Quorum to have come about as a result of it as a comment to the entry requesting the change, or as part of their next vote comment if making themselves Active.

When a Geneticist is made Active, 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 Geneticist Idled in a different Dynasty), the Geneticist is given the default value for new Geneticists, if such a value exists.

When a Geneticist becomes idle due to inactivity, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post, and the 168 Hour idle timeout is considered to be reduced to 96 hours for that Geneticist during the current and subsequent dynasty.

Dormancy

If there are fewer than four Active Geneticists (not including the Firm), then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Recusants

An Idle Geneticist may post or vote on a Proposal or CfJ provided that it does not, even conditionally, create, repeal, change, or amend dynastic rules or gamestate defined by dynastic rules (apart from idling or unidling Geneticists), or uphold, revert, or reject Dynastic Actions. An Idle Geneticist who makes or votes upon such a Proposal or CfJ is, for the purposes of that Proposal or CfJ, a Recusant. When resolving a Proposal or CfJ, all Idle Geneticists who are Recusants on that matter are considered to be Active solely for the purposes of determining whether it was legally posted, and for determining Quorum on that matter; and all otherwise valid votes cast by Recusants are considered to be valid votes cast by Active Geneticists.

Dynasties

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

An Interregnum is the period between dynasties, after a DoV has been enacted and before a Dynastic Reset has been performed. During an Interregnum the game is in hiatus; additionally, no DoVs may be made, and no Geneticist may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.

If the game is in an Interregnum and the Firm has posted an Ascension Address during this Interregnum, then Proposals may be submitted as if the game was not in Hiatus. If the game is in an Interregnum, Proposals may be submitted and resolved as if the game was not in Hiatus provided they do not change the Dynastic Rules or Gamestate defined by Dynastic Rules.

Unless otherwise stated by a dynastic or Building Blocks rule, then for the purposes of dynastic and Building Blocks rules, the Firm is not a Geneticist.

Each Dynasty is tracked by a number. The current Dynasty Number is 250.

The following Geneticist is the Firm: "Goob".

Votable Matters

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

Votes

Each Geneticist 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 Geneticist‘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-Geneticist never has a Vote, even if they were a Geneticist previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If a Geneticist other than the Firm casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Firm. When the Firm 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 Firm’s Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified. When the Firm themselves casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, it indicates an indication of confidence in the votes of the other players; please see the Rules and Votable Matters section of the Appendix for more information on how this is resolved.

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 Geneticists 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.

This rule cannot be overruled by dynastic or Building Blocks rules in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.

Enacting and Failing

Votable Matters have a status, which can either be Pending, Enacted, Failed, or Illegal. When a Votable Matter is first put forward it is considered Pending (which is tracked as having no status in the current blog software), and it remains Pending until it is Resolved.

A Votable Matter is resolved by an admin setting its status through use of the “status” field in the blog post editing form. When 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 withdrawn or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on resolved Votable Matters.

A Votable Matter may not be resolved except as directed by the ruleset, and the status of a resolved Votable Matter, once resolved, is determined by the votes cast upon it, as assessed by the rules that govern the specific kind of Votable Matter (as well as any other considerations regarding the legality of the Votable Matter, such as the stipulations put forward in the Appendix rule Official Posts). When a Failed proposal has been Vetoed it may optionally have the Vetoed status upon resolution, which is considered to be the same as Failed for the purposes of all other rules.

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

Tags

Votable Matters have zero or more tags. Tags are represented in the title of a Votable Matter with the format “[X]” (e.g. “[Core] Wording Fix”, where “[Core]” is the tag).

Votable Matters making changes to the Core Rules, the Building Blocks Rules or the Appendix Rules require any of the following to be true for each such change in order to make that specific modification to the ruleset:

• The Votable Matter has the appropriate Tag or Tags for that change: [Core] for Core Rules changes, [Building Blocks] for Building Blocks Rules changes and [Appendix] for Appendix Rules changes.
• The modification is preceded or followed immediately by an unambiguous statement of which section of the ruleset it takes place.
• The modification specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

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

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:

• It is Popular.
• It has been open for voting for at least 24 hours.
• It has not been Vetoed or Withdrawn.

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 Withdrawn.

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.

When a Proposal is Enacted, its stated effects are applied by treating the text in the Proposal as a series of steps starting from the beginning of that Proposal’s text and performing each step until reaching the end of that Proposal’s text, except that if the Admin Enacting it reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Votable Matter enacts, Geneticist A gains 1 point”) or at all (e.g. applying to a rule which does not exist), that step is ignored for the purposes of Enactment; the Admin Enacting the Proposal shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in each step that was performed.

Calls for Judgement

Any Geneticist or idle Geneticist may raise a Call for Judgement (abbreviated “CfJ”) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category. Calls for Judgement are intended to be used only to resolve disagreements about the interpretation of the Ruleset, to address aspects of the game that need urgent attention, or to address mistakes in gamestate tracking. If a CfJ is used for other purposes, this does not cause the CfJ to become invalid, but Geneticists are encouraged (but not required) to vote AGAINST such CfJs.

A vote of DEFERENTIAL on a CfJ is never considered a valid vote.

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

• It is Popular.

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

• It is Unpopular.
• It does not specify changes to the gamestate nor ruleset, does not specify that any attempt to perform an action should be upheld or rejected, and does not specify corrections to any gamestate-tracking entities.

When a CfJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the CfJ.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If a Geneticist (other than the Firm) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a Declaration of Victory (abbreviated “DoV”) detailing this, by posting an entry in the “Declaration of Victory” category.

A Geneticist’s vote on a DoV is encouraged to reflect whether or not they agree with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty. A vote of DEFERENTIAL on a DoV is never considered a valid vote. If there is at least one pending DoV, BlogNomic is on Hiatus, no Idle Geneticist may be made unidle, and no new player joining requests may be administered.

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

• It has a FOR Vote from every Geneticist.
• It has been open for at least 24 hours and it has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.

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.
• It is more than 48 hours old and cannot be Enacted

When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, the Geneticist who posted the DoV becomes Firm, and the game enters an Interregnum. The player who Enacted it updates the rule “Dynasties” as specified in “Imperial Tracking”. When a DoV is enacted then all game actions that led up to it are considered to be upheld.

If the game is in an Interregnum then the new Firm must make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. The Ascension Address may be altered by its author if it is less than 4 hours old and the Dynastic Reset action has not yet been performed since the initial posting of that Ascension Address. The Ascension Address should specify the Firm’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specifiy one or more of the following:

• New dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule “Synonyms”
• A number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed)
• Any number of Building Blocks rules to remove or insert, as per the instructions in the Building Blocks section
• The name of the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” to a different page that does not exist and does not start with the word “Ruleset”
• The Firm’s Imperial Style, which if specified is a set of nonbinding guidelines that the Firm is encouraged to follow, using the terms defined on the wiki page Imperial Styles.

If it has not been done since the most recent posting of an Ascension Address, the Firm or any Geneticist (if it’s the latter, they must wait until at least 4 hours after that Ascension Address has been posted) may perform a Dynastic Reset, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• If necessary, edit the wiki page “Ruleset X” (where X is the current dynasty number) so it contains a copy of the current ruleset.
• Increase the current Dynasty Number by 1
• Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms as outlined in the most recent Ascension Address.
• Repeal any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept in the most recent Ascension Address.
• Update the gamestate tracking page referred to in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” with the name specified in the most recent Ascension Address, if any. If no name is specified, set the gamestate tracking page to be “Gamestate Tracking X” where X is the current dynasty number
• Update the Building Blocks page to reflect any changes to the terms outlined in the rule Synonyms.
• Make any specified or automatic changes to the Building Blocks section of the ruleset as described in the most recent Ascension Address.

Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.

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 Geneticist’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. Geneticists should vote against any DoV that relies on having broken a fair play rule.

• A single person should not control more than one non-Idle Geneticist within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Geneticist and any Idle Geneticists. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Geneticist, defined here as the controlled Geneticist’s game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Geneticist was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
• A Geneticist 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 Geneticist should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• A Geneticist should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Geneticist.
• A Geneticist should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post, except as permitted by the rule Date and Time Tracking in the Appendix.
• A Geneticist should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Geneticist should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
• A Geneticist should not roll dice 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. A Geneticist must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• A Geneticist should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Geneticist should not use a Core, Building Blocks, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Geneticist to achieve victory. For the purposes of this bullet point, such a scam is one in which rules from one or more of these sections of the ruleset are used to achieve victory in a manner that does not have a dependency on a specific set of dynastic rules.
• A Geneticist should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within BlogNomic, nor trade actions or favours in one Dynasty of Blognomic for actions or favours in another Dynasty of Blognomic.
• A person with administrative, moderation, or other heightened access to the software running or supporting BlogNomic should not take any action using such heightened access for the purpose of causing any Geneticist or Geneticists to gain, receive, maintain, or preserve gameplay advantage unless any of the following is true:
  • Such action is required or explicitly permitted by the rules or required to implement an action required or explicitly permitted by the rules.
  • A reasonable, impartial, and prudent external observer would deem such action necessary or reasonable for the purpose of supporting, moderating, or administering BlogNomic or such software.

All Geneticists and idle Geneticists should be aware of the BlogNomic Community Guidelines. The contents of this page are not ruletext and are nonbinding as pertains to the ruleset, but Geneticists are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.

Dynastic Rules

Bacteria

Each Geneticist has a number of publicly tracked Bacteria which they own. A Bacterium is defined by three specifically ordered, publicly tracked Genes, each consisting of one letter A-Z (for example, “AAA” “BBB”, “ABA”, “CBA”, etc.”) Each gene’s Position is determined by the order, with the first gene being in Position 1, the second in Position 2, and the third gene being in Position 3. Each gene has a level of Quality, equivalent for all purposes to its letter and its placement in the alphabet, with A being the lowest level of quality and Z being the highest level of quality. These three ordered letters is known as a Genome. Genomes where all three genes are identical (for example, AAA, BBB, and so on) are called Triples.

Petri Dishes

Each geneticist has three publicly tracked Petri Dishes, labeled 1, 2, and 3. A Bacterium must be contained within a Petri Dish owned by that bacterium’s Geneticist. Each Petri Dish may contain up to three bacteria, or none at all. If a Petri Dish already has three bacteria within it, then a Geneticist may take no action that would create, transfer, or otherwise add another bacterium to that Petri Dish. By default each Geneticist has one bacterium with genes “AAA” in their Petri Dish 1, one bacterium with genes “ABB” in their Petri Dish 2, and one bacterium with genes “ABC” in their Petri Dish 3.

Agar

Agar is used to host bacterium growth. For each Geneticist, the amount of Agar that Geneticist has is a publicly tracked number that defaults to 42. As a Communal Daily Action, any Geneticist may give 9 Agar to every Geneticist, up to a maximum of 61. Any action that would lead to a Geneticist holding more than or equal to 61 Agar at the completion of the action instead puts said Geneticist at having 61 Agar.

As a weekly action, a Geneticist may Inspect Dishes by gaining 2 Agar for every distinct Genome they own.

Genetic Engineering

A Geneticist may at any time select a Bacterium they own and remove 3 of their own Agar to initiate Binary Fission. If the Bacterium selected in this way is a Triple, instead remove 2 Agar to initiate Binary Fission. When Binary Fission is initiated, a new bacterium is created in the same Petri Dish as the selected bacterium, with an identical set of genes as the selected bacterium.

A Geneticist may Engineer at any time, by performing the following steps:

• Choose two Bacteria owned by that Geneticist with different Genomes in the same Petri Dish.
• Spend 5 Agar, or instead 4 if one of the Bacteria selected is a Triple.
• Genes in the same position are considered a set of genes, a set of genes where both genes are the same is considered a matching set, and a set of genes where both genes are different is considered a differing set.
• Create a new “offspring” Bacterium from the selected Bacterium by taking the lower Quality Gene of each set in the same order as they were in the selected Bacteria.
• Optionally perform one of the following modifications to the “offspring” Bacterium (an additional different modification may be performed if the selected Bacteria have exactly one matching set and two differing sets, but the modification must select a Gene that has not yet been modified):
  • Improve, by selecting a Gene corresponding to a matching set which is not Z, and improving its Quality by one.
  • Splice, by selecting a Gene corresponding to a differing set, and replace that Gene with the higher quality gene of the two genes in the differing set.
  • Rotate, by selecting a Gene corresponding to a differing set, and swapping its position with that of another Gene in the “offspring” Bacterium.

A Geneticist may at any time move a Bacterium they own from the petri dish it is currently in to another petri dish that they own by removing 2 of their own Agar.

A Geneticist may at any time permanently destroy a Bacterium that they own, removing it from the game entirely by removing 1 of their own Agar. A Geneticist may not take this action if it would leave them with no bacteria.

A Geneticist may at any time choose a Bacterium they own whose Genome is the same as the Input of an Enzyme, and change its Genome to be the same as the Output of that Enzyme, by removing 3 of their own Agar (this is known as “using” that Enzyme).

Enzymes

An Enzyme represents a process by which one Bacterium can be transformed into another Bacterium, and is specified using two Genomes, its Input and Output. The Input and Output of each Enzyme is publicly tracked.

As a weekly atomic action, a Geneticist may Create an Enzyme by following the following steps:

• Choose a number in the range 4 to 26 inclusive;
• Roll DICEX 6 times, where X is the number chosen in the previous step;
• Interpreting the dice results as Genes (where 1=A, 2=B, etc.), create an Enzyme whose Input and Output contain the six results from the previous step in order (with the first three rolls forming the Input in order, and the last three rolls forming the Output in order).

A Geneticist (the Experimenter) cannot use Enzymes that were created by other Geneticists in the previous 72 hours, unless the Experimenter has performed Create an Enzyme earlier in the same week than that Genome was created.

As long as there are more Enzymes than the amount of Geneticist; any Geneticist may remove the oldest pair of Genomes that form a Enzyme.

Competitive Research

Each Geneticist has a publicly tracked number named Published defaulting to 0.

There is a publicly tracked Research Target which is either empty or a Bacterium, defaulting to empty.

Publishing Time is publically tracked and defaults to None. Any time the Research Target is not empty, if a Geneticist owns a Petri Dish containing a Bacterium with Genes that exactly match the Genes (in both value and order) of the Research Target, that Bacterium is known as that Geneticist’s Matching Bacterium, and that Geneticist may perform Publish Research as an atomic action with the following steps if the Publishing Time is None or the current date and time is less than 24 hours after the Publishing Time:

• Set that Geneticist’s Matching Bacterium to ABC.
• Increase that Geneticist’s Published by 1.
• If the Publishing Time is None, set it to the current date and time.

As long as it is at least 24 hours after Publishing Time and Publishing Time is not None, any Geneticist may perform Search for Next Target as a atomic action with the following steps:

• Find the highest-quality Gene among all Genes of all Bacterium in all Geneticists’ Petri Dishes. This is the Base Target Gene. If the Base Target Gene is W, X, Y, or Z, then the rest of the steps in this action must be skipped.
• Set the Research Target to a Bacterium where each Gene in that Bacterium is set to a publicly randomly selected value among the set of Genes that are two levels of quality higher, three levels of quality higher, and four levels of quality higher than the Base Target Gene respectively. Example: if the Base Target Gene is F, the random selection would be among the set {H,I,J}.
• Set Publishing Time to None.

Replanning

A Replan is an Official Post in the Story Post - Votable Matter category in which the title of that post begins with “Replan”. Once a Replan is posted, that Replan becomes a Pending Votable Matter. If there is no Pending Replan, any Geneticist may post a Replan and may optionally explain in the body of that Replan why they are posting it.

If a Geneticist has one or more Bacteria in a Petri dish that they own with the highest-quality Gene among all Genes of all Bacterium in all Geneticists’ Petri Dishes, that Geneticist is considered a Leading Geneticist. If a Leading Geneticist casts a vote of VETO on a Pending Replan, this renders that Replan Vetoed, even if that Geneticist later changes their Vote or that Geneticist is no longer a Leading Geneticist after that vote.

A Pending Replan may be Enacted by any Admin if it is Popular. A Pending Replan may be Failed by any Admin if it is Unpopular or Vetoed.

When a Replan is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall perform the Search for Next Target action.

Prior Art

Each Geneticist may, once in the dynasty, Build on Prior Art, specifying another Geneticist with 9 or more Agar. When this happens, all the publicly tracked dynastic variables (except Published) of the Geneticist performing the action are set to match those of the specified Geneticist, and then the Geneticist performing the action loses 9 Agar. After performing this action, the Geneticist who performed it may not perform daily actions for the rest of the current day, nor weekly actions for the rest of the current week.

SAX250 Genome

The SAX250 Genome is either empty, or an ordered list of three Genes (in the format of a Genome), defaulting to empty. The SAX250 Genome is Sealed and privately tracked by the Firm. Whenever the SAX250 Genome is empty, the Firm should at their earliest convenience perform the following Atomic Action: secretly randomly generate three Genes, each of which is N, O, P, Q, R or S (with equal probability of each, duplicates allowed), set the SAX250 Genome to a list of those three Genes in the order they were generated, and make a blog post announcing that the SAX250 Genome has been selected (but not stating what it is).

Whenever a Geneticist’s Published increases to 1, 2 or 3, the Firm may (at any point subsequent to the increase) and should (at their earliest convenience) reveal a number of Genes from the start of the SAX250 Genome equal to that Geneticist’s Published to that Geneticist (i.e. if a Geneticist’s Published increases to 2, the Firm should reveal the first 2 Genes of the SAX250 Genome to that Geneticist, and likewise for 1 and 3).

A Bacterium is considered to be an SAX250 Bacterium if and only if its Genome is the same as the SAX250 Genome (where “same” here is defined as “same Genes in the same order”). While the SAX250 Genome is empty, no Bacterium can be an SAX250 Bacterium.

As a weekly action, a Geneticist may Produce a Substance from a Bacterium in one of that Geneticist’s Petri Dishes, by making a Story Post whose name starts with “Production” and that specifies the Bacterium (and specifies no other Bacteria); such a Story Post is known as a Production Post. For each Production Post, the Firm may (unless a Geneticist has achieved victory already this dynasty), and should (at their earliest convenience), respond to that post by specifying whether or not the specified Bacterium is an SAX250 Bacterium; however, the Firm must perform these responses in the order in which the posts were posted (i.e. they must not respond to a Production Post if there is an earlier-posted Production Post they could respond to instead). When the Firm responds to a Production Post that specifies an SAX250 Bacterium, the author of that post achieves victory.

Building Blocks

Building Blocks are rules that can be substituted in and out of the ruleset as needed, usually as a result of an Ascension Address. All rules in the Building Blocks section are ruletext.

Potential Building Blocks rules can be found at the Building Blocks page of the wiki. That page’s contents are not rulestext. When the contents of the Building Blocks page are referred to as ‘rules’ by the ruleset or by a Votable Matter, it should be assumed that said contents are being referred to as potential rules rather than actual rules.

When a Firm specifies the Building Blocks rules in use for a new dynasty in an Ascension Address, they should specify (by name) the rules from the Building Blocks page that they would like to be included in this section of the ruleset. When a Dynastic Reset is performed, the Building Blocks rules selected in the most recent Ascension Address (if any) must be transcribed faithfully to this section of the ruleset, and any Building Blocks rules not so named in that Ascension Address must be removed from the Building Blocks section.

Whenever the text of a Building Block rule is changed in the ruleset, or a new Building Block rule is added to the ruleset, those changes are also made to the Building Blocks page of the wiki.

Precondition Unidling

A Proposal that would (if adopted) amend the dynastic ruleset or dynastic gamestate, and that was submitted by an idle Geneticist, is known as Precondition Call.

Idle Geneticists may submit Precondition Calls as if they were not idle. The author of a Precondition Call is not considered to have a vote on that Proposal while they remain idle, and Recusants may not vote on Precondition Calls

If a Precondition Call enacts, the enacting admin must unidle its author immediately after enacting that Proposal (unless such an unidling would be impossible, perhaps because the author was already unidled)

Virtual Actions

A Virtual Action is a type of action that the Firm performs on behalf of a Geneticist. A Geneticist may initiate a virtual action by privately communicating to the Firm their request to do so, along with any additional information needed to carry it out. The Firm shall resolve the Virtual Action by performing the following Atomic Action:

1. Determine whether the Virtual Action fails (if it does not fail, it is successful).
2. If the action is successful, apply any specified effects on the gamestate and/or perform any specified actions on behalf of the Geneticist, and indicate to the Geneticist that their action has succeeded.

If a Virtual Action fails, the Firm should tell the Geneticist why. A virtual action may fail for any of these reasons:

• Some requirements/prerequisites to perform the action are not met.
• The request does not contain all the information needed to resolve the action.
• The request is unintelligible, or too vague to interpret unambiguously.
• It would require the Firm to do something they cannot do.
• Any other reason specified by the action itself.

Except where otherwise stated by the ruleset, the Firm must resolve all virtual actions in the order that they are received. A virtual action is considered to have occurred at the time it was resolved.

Until a virtual action is resolved, it is pending. A Geneticist may cancel a pending Virtual Action by privately communicating to the Firm their request to do so.

When the performance of a Virtual Action causes the modification of publicly tracked gamestate, the Firm should publicly track the historical fact of the occurrence of that Virtual Action on behalf of the Geneticist who initiated that Virtual Action, using the Firm’s own name in that public tracking, and privately track the historical fact of the occurrence of that Virtual Action using the name of the Geneticist who initiated that Virtual Action.

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. (e.g. 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.)

Imperatives

Can

“is able to”

Shall

“is required to”

Should

“is recommended that”

Time

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Geneticist 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 Geneticist per day. A Daily Communal Action may still not be performed if another Geneticist has performed that action within the last ten hours.

Day

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

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 Geneticist 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 Geneticist per week. A Weekly Communal Action may still not be performed if another Geneticist has performed that action within the last twenty-four hours.

Other

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 Geneticists.

Dice

References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.

Dynastic Action

An action that is defined only 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.

Dynastic Variable

A gamestate variable that exists only due to a dynastic rule and is not mentioned in a non-dynastic rule. (In particular, the identity of the Firm is not a dynastic variable.)

Effective Vote Comment (EVC)

A Geneticist's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Geneticist's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Geneticist's Vote on that Votable Matter.

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, a Geneticist 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.

Discord

The BlogNomic Discord can be accessed at https://discord.gg/J7kP9KuHQK and is also linked to on the sidebar. Geneticists , as well as people who are not Geneticists but are interested in learning more about BlogNomic, may join the Discord by clicking the button in the sidebar.

Discord Channel

A Discord Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Discord in the BlogNomic Discussion category. All Geneticists who are in the Discord should have the ability to access all of these channels. To reference a Discord Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel (e.g. #random).

Flavour Text

If a part of the ruleset or gamestate is defined as being “flavour text”, it retains its context, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Geneticists are not required to obey flavour text and may not perform any action defined by it, and any statements that flavour text makes about gamestate are ignored. A Geneticist cannot achieve victory if achieving that victory relies on matching the contents of any flavour text gamestate that Geneticist has with the criteria for achieving victory.

Gamestate

Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All wiki pages that the rules and Building Blocks explicitly mention (except for the FAQ, the dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within (or indirectly invoked by Templates contained within) those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.

Hiatus

If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken (except where the rule defining the action explicitly requires it to be taken during Hiatus), and Proposals may not be submitted or Resolved unless a core rule permits doing so for that type of Hiatus. If multiple rules require BlogNomic to be on Hiatus at any given time, BlogNomic will continue to be on Hiatus until no rules require it.

Indirect Action

An action performed by a Geneticist or the Firm where the performance of the action is defined using the phrase “on behalf of” another Geneticist. When such an action is performed, any gamestate changes are applied as if the latter Geneticist had performed that action directly, with the exception that the person performing the action may make any decisions necessary to perform that action without regard to the benefit of the latter Geneticist, unless otherwise specified by the rules for that action.

Post

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

Quorum

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

Reject

To reject an attempt to take an action is to retroactively declare the attempt to have been unsuccessful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after that attempt were attempted as though the rejected attempt had been unsuccessful. An attempt to take an action can be rejected even if it were originally legal. The opposite of rejecting an attempt to take an action is upholding it.

Resolve/Resolution

If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting, failing, or marking illegal 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. The resolution of a Votable Matter is tracked by reference to its status in the blog post edit form. If otherwise legally applied, the application of any status through the blog post editing form is sufficient to consider that Votable Matter to have been correctly resolved, but a resolved Votable Matter should have the correct status wherever possible; if any admin believes that a resolved Votable Matter has an incorrect status then they may correct it.

Revert

To Revert an action or change is both to fully reverse the effects of that change having occurred, and also to consider that change to have not occurred at all. To Revert a document or piece of tracked gamestate to a specific prior state means to return that item to that state, considering the actions that may have changed it since the time of that state to have not occurred. Reverting the gamestate to a specific state does not imply upholding that state.

Rule

Each individually numbered and titled block of text (using the wikimedia section heading formatting) of the Ruleset is a rule, including rules that are subrules of other rules; with the exception that the top-level headings defined as ‘sections’ in the rule “Ruleset and Gamestate” are considered sections but not rules themselves.

Sticky Post

A blog post where the “Make Entry Sticky” option has been enabled. Changing the state of this option is not considering altering or modifying the post with regards to the rules on Official Posts. The sticky status of posts should generally be left to the discretion of the Firm.

Story Post

A Story Post is a post (that is not a Proposal, Call for Judgement, or Declaration of Victory) that follows a format specified by a dynastic rule, and is either in the “Story Post” category, (if it is a Votable Matter) the “Story Post—Votable Matter” category, or in no category. As an exception to the rule against changing the categories of posts in “Official Posts”, if a Story Post is ever in no category, it may be edited into 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.

Seasonal Downtime

On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is on Hiatus. In addition, game actions defined by the core rules titled “Geneticists” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.

Subrule

A subrule is a type of rule that is hierarchically ordered beneath another rule. Rules and proposals that refer to a rule do not also refer to its subrules, unless otherwise specified.

Table of Contents

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

Title

The title of a post is never considered to include, for the purposes of any rule, any text that was automatically generated by the blog software as a result of the author putting it into the appropriate category.

Uphold

To uphold an attempt to take an action is to retroactively declare the attempt to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after that attempt were attempted as though the upheld attempt had been successful. An attempt to take an action can be upheld even if it were originally illegal (in which case the retroactive change is made by pretending, for the purpose of calculating the results of that change, that the action was legal). The opposite of upholding an attempt to take an action is rejecting it.

Vote

The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with the rule “Votable Matters” and its subrules. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote. The definition of the word Vote in either noun or verb form cannot be redefined by a dynastic rule.

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.

Wiki

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

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Geneticist 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. Dynastic rules cannot define posts in the “Call for Judgement” category to be a type of official post other than a Call for Judgement, and this restriction cannot be overridden by dynastic rules.

An official post may only be removed as allowed by the Ruleset. An official post may only be altered by its author 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, except that a Votable Matter’s illegal resolution may be overturned. An official blog post’s status may never be altered except in accordance with the rules that define that official post.

An official post may be altered by its author if it is less than 30 minutes old and either no Geneticist has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icon; this provision may be overruled by dynastic or Building Blocks rules.

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 voting icons in any of its comments, the author may change the categories as they wish. Secondly, if a post is less than six hours old and appears to the Firm or any admin to have been intended as a Proposal, and if its author does not already have two Proposals pending, then the Firm or any admin may move it into the Proposal category, causing it to be considered to have been open for voting since the time that the post was first posted.

Any post that is or is made illegal as a result of an infraction against any of the prohibitions set out in this rule, except for a Votable Matter’s illegal resolution that has been overturned, continues to be an Official Post but may no longer have any effect on the ruleset or the gamestate. If it is a Votable Matter then it is Unpopular, regardless of any other performance against criteria set out in the core rules. When it is resolved it may be marked as Illegal by the resolving admin. A post that is illegal in this manner cannot subsequently be made legal by any means, except for the legal enactment of a CfJ. An illegal CfJ cannot cause itself to become legal.

An Official Post is considered to consist only of text or other content clearly visible while looking at the blog’s output of that Official Post’s underlying code, and links clearly marked as links by the blog.

Date and Time Tracking

The Entry Date field of an Official Post may be modified by its author, an Admin, or the Firm, only under the following conditions and only in the following ways:

• If an Official Post is older than 7 days but needs to remain Sticky on the front page of the Blog then its Entry Date may be edited to the time of the edit, to within a minute, with the original date and time at which it was posted added to the Commentary or flavour text field of that post, in which case the original time of posting remains the time at which it was posted.
• If an Official Post has been made visible on the blog within the preceding 6 hours, then the Entry Date field may be amended to match the timestamp for the first revision of the post (i.e. the timestamp for the initially posted version).

Representations of the Gamestate

If authorised by the rules as a result of a Geneticist’s action, changes to gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page) do not take effect until the representation of that gamestate has been updated to match the authorised change. One 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. Likewise, when performing a sequence of actions in quick succession that would otherwise require multiple comments to be posted in a row to the same blog post, the Geneticist performing them may combine those comments into a single comment (as long as it is clear which actions were performed), performing any wiki page updates that would otherwise have been performed between the comments immediately after posting the combined comment. The wiki merely represents the Gamestate tracked there, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Geneticist may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Geneticist feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) does not match the gamestate, they may either:

• Undo the effects of any alteration that led to it, if that alteration did not follow the rules at the time it was made.
• Alter the representation to match what they believe to be the correct application of an incorrectly-applied alteration. This may include completing incomplete actions on behalf of the original Geneticist, if doing so would not require the correcting Geneticist to make any decisions on behalf of the original Geneticist.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Geneticists are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement.

The historical fact of the occurrence of a defined game action is itself considered to be gamestate. Unless the rule defining the action specifies otherwise, this occurrence is tracked in the history of whatever resource is used to track the gamestate modified by that action, where possible, or in the wiki page Gamestate Modifications if this is not possible.

A week (168 hours) after each attempt by a Geneticist to perform an action, the values to which that attempt changed publicly tracked dynastic variables on their public trackers are automatically upheld, unless the attempt is challenged. (If an attempt does not change the value of a particular variable on the tracker, this does not cause the value of that unchanged variable to be upheld.) An attempt can be challenged in a blog post or comment (e.g. by stating that the attempt may not have succeeded or that the value of the variable is wrong), by making a CFJ that would uphold, reject or revert the attempt, or by making an edit to the tracker that purports to correct the effects of that attempt on publicly tracked dynastic variables (including by reverting its changes on the purported basis that attempted action was illegal).

Orphan Variables

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

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

Imperial Tracking

The identity of the current dynasty’s Firm is tracked in the last sentence of the Core Rule “Dynasties”. Whenever a Geneticist becomes the Firm, that sentence changes to “The following Geneticist is the Firm: ” followed by that Geneticist’s name in quotes. Whenever a Metadynasty starts, that sentence changes to “There is no Firm this Dynasty.”.

All names after the colon in the last sentence of “Dynasties” are considered to be references to Geneticists, and are flavour text for all purposes other than referencing Geneticists. If the Firm changes their name by proposal, the sentence in question is updated to reflect the new name of the Firm.

The identity of the Firm is considered to be a gamestate variable that belongs to the game of BlogNomic as a whole, rather than belonging to the Firm personally.

Random Generators

The Dice Roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php 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 CARD command will return a card with a random suit (either Hearts, Diamonds, Spades or Clubs) and a random value (either Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King). A card with a value that is either Jack, Queen or King is a face card.
• A list of comma-separated values in curly brackets (eg {x,y}) will return one of the values at random.

Any changes to the potential outcomes of the Dice Roller’s random result commands must be made by Votable Matter.

If a Votable Matter proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Votable Matter must name a Geneticist with such access. Only a Geneticist with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Geneticist with such access, that Votable Matter is Illegal.

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 roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified, and which value the roll result corresponds to must be reasonably inferable from the nature of the roll and any comments supplied by the Geneticist making the roll before or while making the roll. The Dice Roller is considered to fulfill the uniform probability distribution requirements to meet the purposes of the game. Additionally, when using a private random generation method, it is enough that the Geneticist performing the selection holds a genuine belief that their random selection method is uniform. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Geneticist making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.

Atomic Actions

An Atomic Action combines otherwise separate game actions into a single action.

• All steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, including the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.
• When a Geneticist 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 except when required as part of the steps of that Atomic Action, or achieve victory, until all the steps are complete or 72 hours have passed.
• If a rule allows the Geneticist performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
• If a Geneticist arrives at a step in an Atomic Action and they cannot perform that step, they undo all the steps they have performed of that Action and are considered never to have performed that Action. If the step required posting a blog post, it is undone by editing the blog post to explain that its creation was undone (rather than by deleting the post). If the step required posting a comment, it is undone by adding another comment to the same post, explaining that the comment was undone (rather than by deleting the comment). A post or comment that is undone this way as part of correcting an Atomic Action no longer has any effect on the ruleset or gamestate.
• If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Geneticist must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Geneticist uses any legal steps that have already been completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones. (For example, if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a dice and then doing steps based upon its result, the Geneticist would have to reroll the dice only if they rolled the wrong one in the first place, and would then have to repeat any steps that depended upon the result of that dice; however, if they rolled the dice correctly but took an illegal step later on, the result of the original dice roll would still be used in the redone step.)
• 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.

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,” “pay” 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” or “pay” 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, paid, lost, gained, or transferred, a Geneticist can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Geneticists to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Geneticist only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Geneticist (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• If a Dynastic Action is defined as having a cost X of numeric value V, or defines a requirement to spend, pay, or lose X of numeric value V to accomplish an effect or multiple effects, then the arithmetic effects of spending or payment and the act of carrying out those effects are considered to be subsequent steps in an Atomic Action, with the spending or payment step taking place before the effects step unless stated otherwise.
• A Geneticist 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 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 a default value but no defined starting value, then its default value should also be considered a starting value. If a game variable has neither a default value nor a starting value, then both may be considered to be 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), false (for variables or states that may only be either true or false), 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”). For the purposes of this bullet point, the names of Geneticists are not considered to be legal values for game variables, nor for list items within game variables.
• If the rules that define a game variable are amended, and some previously valid values become invalid as a consequence, any existing variables whose current values would become invalid are instead set to their starting value.
• Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in a gamestate-tracking entity 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 Dice Roller if N is greater than one million.
• If a piece of information is described as being tracked secretly or privately by the Firm (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Firm when the ruleset allows it. If a Geneticist should already know such a piece of information (in that the Firm has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Firm may repeat it to them. Additionally; if a piece of private information is described as being Sealed; the Geneticist or Firm who tracked that information may reveal it during an Interregnum or during any later dynasty.
• A range of numerical values stated to be “between” one value and another value is treated as an inclusive range unless otherwise explicitly stated.
• If a game variable is defined to hold a singular Geneticist or the singular name of a Geneticist and that Geneticist (or the Geneticist with the matching name) goes idle, that variable is set to its default value. If a game variable is defined to hold a list of Geneticists, or the list of names of Geneticists, and that Geneticist (or the Geneticist with the matching name) goes idle, it is removed from the list (if this would cause the list to become invalid, the list is instead set to its default value

Rules and Votable Matters

• If a new rule is created by a Votable Matter and its location is not noted in that Votable Matter, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
• If a wiki page (or image or Template) becomes gamestate as a result of a Votable Matter enacting, that content shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Votable Matter’s submission (and if the new gamestate did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
• Where a Votable Matter would amend the effects of Votable Matter Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (e.g. a Votable Matter proposing that enacted Votable Matters 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 dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Geneticist may delete it from the ruleset.
• A rule may be accompanied by one or more illustrations, and an illustration may have a caption. In all situations, unless otherwise explicitly stated, an illustration may not be treated as containing ruletext, and may not be considered to possess any meaning other than that given to it by ruletext, and a caption to an illustration must be treated as flavour text.
• When the ruleset calls for the use of a specific tool (such as the dice roller, or an off-domain website, or a specific piece of downloadable software), Geneticists may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by the ruleset.
• If the Firm has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, they (and any other Geneticists who have voted DEFERENTIAL on it) are not considered to be a Geneticist for the purposes of totaling quorum on that Proposal.

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 (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
• A Geneticist 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 and formatting

• 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.
• Geneticists may correct obvious spelling, punctuation, typographical, and/or formatting mistakes in the Ruleset, the Building Blocks page, and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Geneticists with the corresponding forms of the singular ‘they’.
• A Geneticist may reformat a list of items in the dynastic ruleset to have bullet points or other appropriate list markup, if doing so would not change the order of that list, nor how any rules interpreted its content.
• A Geneticist may change the layout or design of a gamestate wiki page if doing so would not change how any rules interpreted its content.

Names

• Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Geneticist if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Geneticist's name.
• If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the Votable Matter that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
• The names of rules and wiki pages (other than the Ruleset) are flavour text.
• 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 Votable Matter, the name used in reference to a specific Votable Matter may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a Votable Matter named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.
• When referring to a Rule, the name used in reference to a specific Rule may be simplified by not including braces and any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
• Where a Votable Matter refers to a second Votable Matter by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted Votable Matter of that name which pre-dates the first Votable Matter.
• When changing their name or joining the game for the first time, a Geneticist's (or prospective Geneticist's ) new name must be between 3 and 30 characters in length, and may only include the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers, underscores, hyphens, full stops and apostrophes. A Geneticist’s name may only be changed as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

Prioritisation

• The Ruleset may impose no limitation on the ability of a CfJ to alter the Gamestate or Ruleset. If an enacted CfJ calls for a change that the Ruleset prohibits or considers impossible then the CfJ has priority (with the exception of the prohibition on votable matters making changes that apply to its own enactment). An enacted Proposal has priority over the Dynastic rules or Building Blocks, but may not make changes that are prohibited or contradicted by the Appendix or Core Rules.
• If two parts of the Ruleset contradict each other, precedence shall be construed in the following order:

1. The Appendix has precedence over any other Rule;
2. If a Core Rule explicitly says it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Core Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has precedence over that Core Rule;
3. If a Building Blocks Rule explicitly says that it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Building Blocks Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has equal precedence as that Building Blocks Rule;
4. If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Geneticists may Kick each other” and “Geneticists may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Geneticists may not Kick each other);
5. If two contradicting parts have the same scope, or have scopes that only overlap where they contradict each other, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Geneticists may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Geneticists may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Geneticists may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

• This document is considered to be, in effect, the only Ruleset for BlogNomic, so long as it is located at at the URL https://wiki.blognomic.com/index.php?title=Ruleset.

Mentors

A Geneticist may have another Geneticist as a Mentor. Geneticists who are willing to act as a Mentor, and who meet the criteria set out in the Tenured Players section of the aftermentioned page, are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. An Admin may add or remove their own name, or the name of a Geneticist who has requested a change on their own behalf, or may remove the name of any Tenured Player who no longer meets the criteria set out in the Tenured Players section of the Mentorships page, from this list at any time. The Mentorships page is also used to list the names of players who are prohibited from becoming Tenured; this list may only be amended by the effect of a Votable Matter.

If an unmentored Geneticist requests a Mentor, or a new Geneticist has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Firm should select a Tenured Geneticist and ask them to take that Geneticist on as a Mentee; if they accept (and the Geneticist that would become a Mentee is still unmentored), then such a Mentorship may be established by the Firm by making a blog post announcing the Mentorship has been established. The members and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established. The Firm should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. A Geneticist may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

If there is no Firm, any Geneticist who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Firm for the purposes of this rule.

Things that a mentor must do

A mentor must do the following:

• Make pro-active contact with their mentee when appointed, and explain the dynamics of the Mentorship system;
• Be available to answer any questions that their mentee may have about the game, including explaining the rules, common standards and etiquette of play, proofreading posts and clarifying game events;
• Introduce their mentee to the various platforms of the game, including the wiki and Dice Roller, and optionally the game’s Discord and social media feeds
• If possible, give their mentee a nudge if it appears that they are at risk of becoming Idle;
• If they themselves go idle, communicate with their mentee to either continue to support them as an idle Geneticist or arrange a handover to another mentor if requested.

Things that a mentor should do

The following sets out suggested best practice for Mentorship relationships:

• The Mentorship lasts for four weeks or until the next Ascension Address, whichever occurs latest. It can continue informally for longer but after this threshold the mentor is no longer bound by any of the conditions set out in the parent rule to this rule, or any of its subrules.
• The mentor can and should advise the mentee on how to proceed in the mentee’s own best interests. This can include making connections with other Geneticists .
• The mentor should consider copying the mentee in on private, game-related communications, where it does not unfairly prejudice their own interests. The mentee should keep this information private without explicit consent from the mentor.
• The mentor and mentee may work together to achieve victory. If a mentor achieves victory with support of their mentee then they should, if the mentee wishes it, pass the baton to the mentee.

Things that a mentor should not do

The following sets out a list of things that a mentor should not do in their relationship with their mentee. All of these are considered to be Fair Play rules, as per the rule Fair Play.

• The mentor should not sock-puppet, bully, coerce or otherwise manipulate the mentee into performing any game actions.
• The mentor should not seek to dissuade the mentee from pursuing other alliances.
• A former mentor should not seek to use the fact of a prior Mentorship to influence the former mentee on an ongoing basis.

Synonyms

A dynasty may provide extra theming by using alternative terms for words like “Geneticist” and “Firm”.

Each term in this list is synonymous with the term in parentheses

• Geneticist (Player)
• Firm (Emperor)

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may specify new terms for each entry in the above list, provided the newly chosen term does not appear anywhere in the Building Blocks page or the ruleset outside of this rule (though if it only appears in rules which are being removed as part of the Ascension Address, it is fine), and that doing so would not cause two terms in the above list to become synonymous with each other. Doing so causes the old corresponding value (including regional spelling variations) to be replaced by the new value everywhere in the ruleset except in any of the parentheses in the above list.