Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Machinists 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 apply in special cases; and 4) the appendix, which complements and clarifies the Ruleset.

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

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

Machinists

The process of applying for access to the BlogNomic blog is outlined in the FAQ. A human with access to the blog who is not already a Machinist may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Machinist (plural form Machinists); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Machinist.

A Machinist may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

Some Machinists are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Machinists who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves Admins. Existing Admins may be removed from their posts by Proposal, CfJ, or voluntary resignation.

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

Idle Machinists

If a Machinist is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Machinists in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Machinists ”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Machinists are not counted as Machinists . The combined term “Idle Machinist” can be used to refer to Machinists who are Idle even in rules that do not treat them as Machinists.

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

When a Machinist is unidled, if they went Idle in the same Dynasty, their personal gamestate retains the last legally endowed values it had, if they are still valid. Otherwise (including if a value is invalid, does not exist, or the Machinist Idled in a different Dynasty), the Machinist is given the default value for new Machinists, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Machinist Idle if that Machinist has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Machinist has not posted an entry or comment in the past 168 Hours (7 days). In the latter case, 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 Machinist during the current and subsequent dynasty. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so. An Admin may Unidle a Machinist if that Machinist is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Machinist who would be Unidled has become Idle within the past 96 hours (4 days), and within the current Dynasty.

Admins who are unidling themselves should, in their first vote following each unidling, highlight their changed idle status and any changes to Quorum to have come about as a result of it.

Idle admins can resolve Votable Matters as a non-idle admin would.

Dynasties

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

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

If a Machinist other than the Great Machine casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Great Machine. When the Great Machine 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 Great Machine's Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.

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

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

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

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

Enacting and Failing

Votable matters 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 Special Case 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, [Special Case] for Special Case 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 Machinist may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Machinist already has 2 Proposals pending or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

When a Machinist 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 Great Machine may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Great Machine casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Great Machine 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 12 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 immediately applied in full; the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the Proposal.

Calls for Judgement

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

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

• It is Popular.

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

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

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

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If a Machinist (other than the Great Machine) 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 Machinist'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. If there is at least one pending DoV, BlogNomic is on Hiatus, no Idle Machinist 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 number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Machinists, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Great Machine has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
• It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Machinists, and it has been open for at least 24 hours.

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

• It is Unpopular, and it has been open for at least 12 hours.
• It is more than 48 hours old and cannot be Enacted

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Machinist who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was Failed.

When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, the Machinist who posted the DoV becomes Great Machine, and the game enters an Interregnum. 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 Great Machine must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming a Machinist who was not the last dynasty’s Great Machine, in which case the passing Machinist ceases to be the Great Machine and the Machinist so named becomes the Great Machine) or start a new dynasty by completing the following Atomic Action:

• Make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. This should specify the Great Machine's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify new dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule "Synonyms", and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed).
• Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

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 Machinist'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. Machinists 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 Machinist within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Machinist and any Idle Machinists. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Machinist, defined here as the controlled Machinist's game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Machinist was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
• A Machinist 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 Machinist should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
• A Machinist should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Machinist.
• A Machinist should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
• A Machinist should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Machinist 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 Machinist 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 Machinist must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
• A Machinist should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
• A Machinist should not use a Core, Special Case, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Machinist to achieve victory.
• A Machinist should not trade actions in BlogNomic for favors or compensation outside of BlogNomic, nor trade actions in any other game for favors within 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 Machinist or Machinists 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 Machinists and idle Machinists 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 Machinists are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.

Dynastic Rules

Machinist Agendas

An Agenda is a text string describing a particular condition pertaining to a potential dynastic gamestate, which can belong to a Machinist. An Agenda can only be owned by one Machinist at a time, and one Machinist can own no more than three Agendas at a time. An Agenda’s condition and ownership are privately tracked by the Great Machine. Agendas that are not owned by any Machinist can be referred to as Reserve Agendas.

An Initialisation Key is a term that appears with bold formatting in the dynastic rules at least one time, and that is not contained in a longer Initialization Key. The text string of an Agenda must include exactly 2 different Initialisation Keys. An Initialisation Key still counts as being included in an Agenda if an alternate form or tense of that Key appears in that Agenda’s text.

Machinists may never disclose, implicitly or explicitly, publicly or privately, their Agendas, except where explicitly required for the Declaration of Victory, or during Interregnum. The act of causing an Agenda to be fulfilled is never considered a disclosure, nor is taking reasonable steps towards fulfillment which do not include unnecessary revelations of information. If there are fewer than five Machinists who have either voted on a proposal or publicly taken a dynastic action in the preceding 4 days then any Machinist may Impose Omerta by making a story post to that effect. When Omerta is Imposed, all Machinists are subject to the restrictions set out in the rule No Private Communication, regardless of their Alliances.

When an owned Agenda’s condition is a true statement about the current gamestate, that Agenda is Fulfilled.

The following rules in the bulleted list below are considered flavourtext until the subrule “Initialisation Phase Two” is repealed, after which they are immediately considered actual ruletext:

• Machinists must not remove all instances of a given Initialisation Keys from either the rule Known Initialisation Keys, or from the rest of the dynastic ruleset.
• If an active Machinist doesn’t own any Agendas, the Great Machine can and should at their earliest opportunity secretly randomly assign Reserve Agendas to that Machinist until they own exactly three Agendas. If not enough Reserve Agendas exist to do so, the Great Machine can create new Agendas until there are enough.

Brevity

Any Proposal which would add more than 400 characters net to the dynastic ruleset is unpopular and isn’t popular, unless it was posted while a rule named “Initialisation Phase Two” existed. Characters that do not render as ruletext (eg rule titles, table of contents entries, wikimedia markup or similar) are not counted towards the limit imposed by this rule.

Amendments

If it would be impossible for any Machinist to complete a given Agenda under the current dynastic ruleset were they to have that agenda, even if other Machinists were to take arbitrary sequences of dynastic actions over any time period, and it has been impossible for 2 or more days, the Machinist with that Agenda may privately request an Amendment from the Great Machine.

The Great Machine may only perform Amendments on Agendas when legally requested to do so. When the Great Machine does so, they either:

• Modify the agenda such that it is now theoretically achievable under the criteria above, retaining its general concept
• Replace it with a Reserve Agenda that shares as many Initialisation Keys as possible with the old one

Amendments may only be requested after having that Agenda for at least 7 days.

Known Initialisation Keys

Initialisation Keys include: Coal, Housing, Valves, Facilities, Power, Function, Damaged Parts, Repair Log, Destroyed, Graffiti, Flea Market, Lockdown, Components, Surroundings, Destination, Order

Any machinist may bold any instance of these listed Initialisation Keys anywhere in the dynastic ruleset.

The Great Machine’s Structure

The Great Machine contains three Megasystems: the System of Motion, the System of Dwelling, and the System of Control.

Each Machinist always inhabits exactly one Megasystem, which is publicly tracked and defaults to “System of Control”. As a Mechanised Action called Moving, a Machinist may change which Megasystem they’re inhabiting.

Resource Triangle

Each Machinist has a publicly-tracked quantity of Coal, Housing, and Valves, each of which is an integer defaulting to 0.

Each Resource can be exchanged with the one after it in the list above (looping) at a rate of 2 given to 1 received.

Resources are associated with Systems as follows: Coal:Motion :: Housing:Dwelling :: Valves:Control.

Subsystems

Megasystems have Facilities in them. Facilities’ names (which are flavortext), parent Megasystems, Power, and statuses (which can be ACTIVE, STANDBY or DORMANT) are publicly tracked.

A Facility’s Power is a non-negative integer that defaults to 0. Facilities’ statuses default to DORMANT when they have 0 Power and STANDBY otherwise. A Facility whose Power drops to 0 immediately becomes DORMANT. If a Facility with 0 Power gains Power, its status becomes STANDBY.

Every Facility has a Function, which is a publicly tracked text string that is blank or describes a game action; defaulting to blank. As a Mechanised Atomic Action called Operating, a Machinist may perform the following steps:

• Spend 1 Power from a STANDBY Facility in the same Megasystem they inhabit.
• Perform that Facility’s Function.
• If that Facility’s status is STANDBY, change it to ACTIVE.

A Machinist who Moves may not subsequently Operate until the next instance of Passing Time, and vice versa.

Power Sources

A Machinist who has not Moved since the most recent instance of Passing Time may spend 1 Coal to increase the Power of any Facility in the Megasystem they inhabit by 1. If they are inhabiting the System of Motion, they may increase the power of a second Facility in the System of Motion by 1.

As a Mechanized Action called Residing, a Machinist who has been in the System of Dwelling for at least 48 hours may increase the Power of any Facility in the System of Dwelling by two.

Damage and Repair

Each Megasystem has a publicly-tracked list of damaged Components known as its Damaged Parts and a publicly-tracked list named Repair Log defaulting to empty. Each entry in the Repair Log contains a Date, a list of one or more Components, and a Machinist’s name.

As an atomic action, a Machinist may, at any time, Repair the megasystem they inhabit: they pay 1 of a Component to delete one of that type from its Damaged Parts, add the details to a new Repair Log entry and increase their Baubles by 3.

At any time, a Machinist may Salvage the Megasystem they inhabit, which is a Mechanised atomic Crime with the following steps:

• Add a random component and one non-Paint component of your choice to its Damaged Parts
• Gain a component of the type you chose in the previous step

Any megasystem that has six or more Damaged Parts is Defective. Any megasystem that has twenty or more Damaged Parts becomes Destroyed. A Destroyed megasystem ceases to be Destroyed once it has 5 or less Damaged Parts.

Crime & Commerce

Graffiti

Graffiti is found deep in the bowels of the machine. Each piece of Graffiti is a string of flavour text, painted onto either the wall of a specific Megasystem, or onto a specific Facility; all Graffiti is publicly tracked. At any time, a Machinist may spend 1 Paint to Deface, may spend 1 Paint to Deface, which is a Mechanised atomic Crime with the following steps:

• Create a piece of Graffiti on a nearby surface, with text of your choosing up to 80 characters in length
• Decrease Order by n, where n is the total amount of pieces of Graffiti in existence

At any time, a Machinist may spend 1 Paint to Clean, which is a Mechanised atomic action with the following steps:

• Remove any number of characters from any number of pieces of Graffiti on a nearby surface
• Delete all pieces of Graffiti that contain 0 characters
• Increase Order by n, where n is the total amount of pieces of Graffiti deleted during this action

A nearby surface for a Machinist is the Megasystem that they currently inhabit, and all Facilities (if any exist) in that Megasystem.

Flea Market

Each Machinist has a publicly tracked number of baubles.

Machinists in the System of Dwelling may Trade in the Flea Market:

• First they pay baubles equal to the number of times they have previously Traded since the last instance of Passing Time, or today if Passing Time has never happened.
• Then they pay 1 of a trade item to receive its cost, or vice versa.

Trade items’ bauble costs are publicly tracked. A trade item’s bauble cost is based on that item’s base cost, and varies daily as described in Time’s Passage.

The trade items and base costs are: Coal, 3. Housing, 3. Valves, 3. Cog, 1. Filter, 1. Paint, 1. Panel, 1. Pipe, 1. Plate, 1. Seal, 1. Wheel, 1. Wiring, 1.

Punishment

Each Machinist has a Witness List, which is a publicly tracked list that may contain names of Machinists.

A Crime is a type of dynastic action. Upon performing a Crime, a Machinist must immediately blank their own Witness List and then add their name to the Witness List of all other Machinists inhabiting the same Megasystem as them.

There is a publicly-tracked list named Lockdown where each entry is a Machinist’s name and a number of Days, defaulting to an empty list. A Machinist whose name is in this list is Incarcerated and may not perform any dynastic actions. If a Machinist is inhabiting the same megasystem as them and is on their Witness List, a Machinist may spend 1 Housing to Arrest them, which is an atomic action with the following steps:

• Add that Machinist to the Lockdown list, listed at 2 Days
• Remove that Machinist’s name from each Machinist’s Witness List wherever it appears
• Increase Order by 5

Pickpocketing

As a Mechanised Crime, a Machinist may, at any time, Pickpocket: they take one Component from a Machinist that is inhabiting the same Megasystem as them and then decrease Order by 2.

Components

Each Machinist has a personal list of the Components they are carrying, which is publicly tracked.

Components that exist are: Cog, Filter, Paint, Panel, Pipe, Plate, Seal, Wheel and Wiring.

Time's Passage

If they have not already done so in the last 30 hours, the Great Machine can and should perform the following Atomic Action, called Passing Time:

• Randomly select a Megasystem and add a random component to its Damaged Parts; do this twice if the Destination list is empty.
• For each trade item, roll DICE3, add to the result that trade item’s base cost, and then set that trade item’s bauble cost to the resulting number.
• Subtract 1 from the Days value of each entry in the Lockdown list, then remove every entry in the Lockdown list with a Days value of 0.
• Give each Machinist one of the Resource corresponding to the Megasystem they inhabit.
• Randomly pick a Component and add one of that Component to each Machinist’s Components.
• If any Megasystem is Destroyed, set all its ACTIVE Facilites’ statuses to DORMANT.
• If the System of Motion is not Destroyed and there is a Facility in it called the “Junction Supergrid”, increase the Junction Supergrid’s Power by 3 to a maximum of 10.
• Set all remaining ACTIVE Facilities’ status to STANDBY.
• If the Destination list is not empty and the System of Motion is not Defective, set the Surroundings to the value of the top entry in the Destination list (if that entry is adjacent to the Surroundings) and then remove the top entry from the list, moving all other entries that exist up one.

If an action is defined as a Mechanised Action, a Machinist can only perform it if they have not already performed an instance of it since the most recent Passing Time.

Overland Navigation

Two Locations are considered adjacent if they are depicted as sharing a border on this map.

The Great Machine has Surroundings, which is a publicly-tracked text string that defaults to “Dead city”, and a Destination, which is a publicly-tracked list of text strings displayed vertically, where the top entry is the first entry and the bottom entry is the last entry, defaulting to an empty list. The valid text strings for Surroundings and each entry in the Destination list are in the list of Locations below. As a Mechanised Action, a Machinist inhabiting the System of Control may spend 1 Valve to add up to two different Locations to the Destination list; new entries go after the last entry in list, or as the first entry if the list is empty. If the System of Control is Defective, a Machinist performing this action must instead spent 2 Valves to add only one Location to the list. If the System of Control is Destroyed, this action cannot be performed at all.

Locations:

• Dead city
• Snowdrifts
• Ice plains
• Frozen Woodlands
• Winding Gorge
• Mountains
• Heavy Blizzard
• Geothermal Basin

Order

Order is a publicly tracked non-negative integer value that defaults to 50 and is capped at 100. If Order would be set to a value below 0 or over 100, it will be set to 0 or 100 respectively.

Victory

A Machinist’s Mastery is equal to the number of Agendas that they own which have been Fulfilled for the last 12 hours.

If a Machinist’s Mastery is at least 2, and is higher than that of every other Machinist, and if the date is on or after August 3, 2023, then they have achieved victory. When a Machinist has achieved victory, the Great Machine should, at their first opportunity, make a blog post announcing the identity of this Machinist and listing every Agenda owned by that Machinist.

Special Case

Special Case Rules can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes "[X]", where X is either Active or Inactive, then its status is X. Otherwise, its status is its Default Status.

Special Case Rules have a Default Status, which can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes “[Standard]” then its Default Status is Active; otherwise, its Default Status is Inactive.

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may list any number of existing Special Case Rules to be set to a status other than their respective Default Status; those Special Case rules are then set to a status other than their respective Default Status. All other Special Case Rules are set to their respective Default Status.

The text of a Special Case Rule that is Inactive is flavour text.

Seasonal Downtime [Active] [Standard]

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

Dormancy [Active] [Standard]

If there are fewer than four Machinists, then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Imperial Deferentials [Active] [Standard]

If the Great Machine has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Machinists have a valid FOR vote on that Proposal than have a valid AGAINST vote on it) or AGAINST (in all other cases). However, in either case, votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Machinists on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid.

Dynastic Distance [Active] [Standard]

For the purposes of dynastic and Special Case rules, the Great Machine is not a Machinist.

Malign Emperors [Inactive]

The Great Machine may be recipient of the Mantle, as if they were a Machinist, during an Interregnum, as per the rule Victory and Ascension. The Great Machine may not cast a vote of VETO on any Proposal whose effect is limited to the dynastic rules or gamestate; any such vote is disregarded for the purposes of proposal resolution.

If the Special Case rule “No Private Communication” is Active, any Machinist may set it to Inactive. (The combo is too strong.)

Dynastic Tracking [Active] [Standard]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the The Scale Model page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. Great Machine may change the wiki page referred to in this rule to a different page as part of their Ascension Address, provided that page did not exist at the time the Ascension Address was posted and does not begin with the word “Ruleset”.

No Private Communication [Active]

Machinists may not privately communicate with each other about dynastic gameplay or votable matters that affect the dynastic ruleset or gamestate. Private communications are considered to be anything that any other Machinist could not reasonably be privy to, perceive, or understand. Discussion conducted in plain English on the BlogNomic wiki and blog, and the #current-dynasty, #blognomic-general and #new-player-questions-and-mentorships Discord channels, are not considered to be private communication. Idle Machinists (or people who are not yet Machinists) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Machinist during the course of the dynasty. The use of creative strategies to circumvent this rule may be considered to be a scam for the purposes of determining whether an infraction of Fair Play has taken place.

A mentor and mentee may still privately converse with each other, but should keep their conversations away from discussing specific gameplay strategy. This rule’s restrictions on communication do not apply during an Interregnum. The restrictions in this rule on communication in non-blognomic-related media shall not be construed as to cause those media to be gamestate.

If information which was not allowed to be discussed is still privately discussed, the Machinists who were part of the conversation should make a post to the blog disclosing what information was discussed as their earliest convenience.

Mantle Limitations [Active] [Standard]

The mantle may not be passed, except as a result of a Call for Judgment. (Deals should not be made based on being made Emperor of the next dynasty by other means than achieving victory or being passed the mantle.) This limitation does not apply to proposals that would explicitly award Victory.

Declared Alliances [Active]

Each Machinist may have an Alliance, which is publicly tracked, and consists of the distinct names of no more than two other Machinists; a Machinist's Alliance defaults to an empty set. A Machinist may change their Alliance as a daily action.

If "Mantle Limitations" is also active, and if a Machinist has achieved victory in this dynasty, has posted a Declaration of Victory which has been enacted, and did not change their Alliance for at least the 48 hours immediately prior to the posting time of their Declaration of Victory: then that Machinist may pass the Mantle to a Machinist who was named in their Alliance at the posting time of their Declaration of Victory.

If “No Private Communication” is active, it does not apply to communications between Machinists who each have the other’s names in their Alliance, nor does the prohibition on deals in “Mantle Limitations” (if it is active) apply to Machinists who have each other’s names in their Alliance.

Event Types [Active] [Standard]

An Event is an official post that meets a type definition in the dynastic rules, if and only if that type definition is specified as defining a type of Event; the type definition must include the following:

• A type name, such as “Auction” or “Quest”. A post with the Event type’s name as a tag is an Event of that type, provided it was (legally) posted while the type had a complete definition.
• A Response Format, the format by which a comment on that type of Event is classified as a Response for that Event. While other comments are allowed on an Event, only those comments which conform to its type’s Response Format are officially considered Responses. Whether or not a comment is currently considered a Response may change according to circumstances, but comments submitted on an Event while it is Ended can never be considered Responses.

An Event type definition may also optionally stipulate:

• Creation Condition(s). Unless they are met, an Event of that type may not be posted. They may include a format for the body of the post.
• Ending Condition(s). Unless they are met, an Open Event of that type may not be Ended.
• Ending Action(s). A Machinist (or the Great Machine) must do these when they End an Open Event of that type.

An Event is either Open or Ended, defaulting to Open. Except as otherwise specified, any Machinist (or the Great Machine) may post or may End an Event. To End an Event is to make it Ended by submitting a comment on that post saying it is Ended or is being Ended, and then immediately taking its Ending Action(s), if any. Once an Event has been Ended, it may not become Open again, nor may it be Ended again.

Bounties [Inactive]

A Bounty Notice is a post in the Story Posts - Votable Matter category which broadly requests a single mechanical or ruleset change. Despite its category, it is not a votable matter and any votes on it are ignored. A Bounty Notice may be Open or Closed being Open by default and being Closed when set to the ‘Enacted’ or ‘Failed’ status in the post backend. The Enacted Status should be used for successfully completed Bounty Notices, while Failed should be used for ones that were closed for any other reason

The Great Machine may post a Bounty Notice, or close an open Bounty Notice, at any time.

If a Bounty Payout action is not defined in the dynastic rules, then the Bounty Payout action is that nothing happens.

If the Great Machine believes that one or more enacted votable matters satisfy the demand of an open Bounty Notice, then they may apply the Bounty Payout action to each Machinist (other than the Great Machine) who authored at least one of those votable matters and set that Bounty Notice to closed.

Reinitialisation [Inactive]

If they have not already done so in the current dynasty, a Machinist may make a post to the blog announcing that they are Reinitialising; if they do so then they must immediately set all of their gamestate tracked values to their defaults for new players, and if the Great Machine is privately tracking any information about them then they should do likewise at their first opportunity. When a Machinist has Reinitialised, they are considered to have undertaken no actions in this dynasty for the purposes of determining the validity of limited actions taken after the Reinitialisation, except for the action of Reinitialising itself.

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 Machinist 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 Machinist per day.

Day

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

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 Machinist 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 Machinist per week.

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 Machinists.

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 in the Dynastic rules.

Dynastic Proposal

A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.

Effective Vote Comment (EVC)

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

Commentary

When posting a blog entry, a Machinist 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. Machinists , as well as people who are not Machinists 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 Machinists 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. Machinists 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.

Gamestate

Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All wiki pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention (except for dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or 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. 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.

Post

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

Private Message

A message sent via BlogNomic’s Private Messages system at blognomic.com.

Quorum

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

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.

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.

Story Post

A Story Post is an entry in the “Story Post” category.

Subject

The “subject” of a blog entry is the part of the Title of an entry which is after the first colon. If the Title does not contain a colon, then the whole Title is the subject. Any entry whose subject is “” (i.e. an empty string) is not valid.

Subrule

A subrule is a type of rule that is 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.

Uphold

To Uphold an illegal action is to retroactively declare the attempt to take it to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after it were attempted as if the Upheld action had been successful.

Vote

The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule “Votable Matters”. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote.

Voting Icons

For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, a DEF http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and a crossed-out circle http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent a vote to VETO.

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 Machinist 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 be altered by its author if it is less than 4 hours old and either no Machinist has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icons; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post’s Status must be changed to reflect its status. An official blog post that has the status of Enacted or Failed cannot change categories, 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.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following two exceptions: Firstly, whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish. Secondly, if a post by a New Machinist is not in any category but follows the wording of a Proposal, in that it has written changes the gamestate and or Ruleset, and if it has been posted for less than six hours, then any Admin may change it to be in the Proposal category. A New Machinist is defined as a Machinist who has been a Machinist for fewer than seven days or a Machinist that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

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.

Representations of the Gamestate

If authorised by the rules as a result of a Machinist’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. 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 Machinist may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Machinist 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 Machinist, if doing so would not require the correcting Machinist to make any decisions on behalf of the original Machinist.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Machinists 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, 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.

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

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 Machinist with such access. Only a Machinist with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Machinist 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 Machinist making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Machinist 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 Machinist performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other dynastic action, or achieve victory, until all the steps are complete.
• If a rule allows the Machinist performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
• If a Machinist 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 one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Machinist must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Machinist 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 Machinist 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 Machinist can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Machinists to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Machinist only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Machinist (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 Machinist 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), 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 Machinists 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 Great Machine (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Great Machine when the ruleset allows it. If a Machinist should already know such a piece of information (in that the Great Machine has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Great Machine may repeat it to them.

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 becomes gamestate as a result of a Votable Matter enacting, that page shall – unless otherwise specified – be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that Votable Matter’s submission (and if the page 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 the Admin enacting a Votable Matter reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (e.g. “two days after this Votable Matter enacts, Machinist A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a Votable Matter has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.
• If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Machinist 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 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), Machinists may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by the ruleset.

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 Machinist 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.
• Machinists may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Machinists with the corresponding forms of the singular “they”.
• A Machinist 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.

Names

• Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Machinist if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Machinist'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 Machinist's (or prospective Machinist's ) new name must be between 4 and 30 characters in length, and may only include the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, numbers, underscores, hyphens, full stops and apostrophes.

Prioritisation

• If two parts of the Ruleset contradict each other, precedence shall be construed in the following order:

1. The Appendix has precedence over any 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 Special Case Rule explicitly says that it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Special Case Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has equal precedence as that Special Case Rule;
4. If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Machinists may Kick each other” and “Machinists may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Machinists 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 “Machinists may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Machinists may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Machinists may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

A Machinist may have another Machinist as a Mentor. Machinists who are willing to act as a Mentor 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 Machinist who has requested a change on their own behalf, 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 Machinist requests a Mentor, or a new Machinist has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Great Machine should select a Tenured Machinist and ask them to take that Machinist on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is 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 Great Machine should announce it in a blog post. The Great Machine should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

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

If there is no Great Machine, any Machinist who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Great Machine 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 Machinist 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 Machinists .
• 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 “Machinist” and “Great Machine”.

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

• Machinist (Player)
• Great Machine (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 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.