Difference between revisions of "Ruleset"

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(enacting "Down We Go")
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= Core Rules =
 
= Core Rules =
  
 
== Ruleset and Gamestate ==
 
== Ruleset and Gamestate ==
This is the '''Ruleset''' for BlogNomic; all Explorers shall obey it. Section One consists of the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering basic proposal mechanics; Section Two contains the rules of the current dynasty; and Section Three contains the appendix, which exists solely to clarify the remainder of the ruleset.
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This is the '''Ruleset''' for BlogNomic; all Seekers shall obey it.
  
The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset.
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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.
  
Explorers may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Proposals at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular “they”.
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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 Ruleset does not properly reflect all legal changes that have been made to it, any Explorer may update it to do so.
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If the text of the Ruleset document does not reflect all legal changes that have been authorised to be made to it, any Seeker may update it to do so.
  
== Explorers ==
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The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the [[Photo Gallery]] page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it.
Any human may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already an Explorer) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post making clear their wish to be a '''Explorer'''. An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT, at which moment they become an Explorer.
 
  
An Explorer may cease to be an Explorer at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be an Explorer in this way may not become an Explorer again within the following two weeks. An Explorer may only change their name as a result of a proposal approving the change.
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== Seekers ==
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A human with access to the blog who is not already a Seeker may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Seeker (plural form Seekers); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Seeker. (See the [[FAQ#Can_I_join_in.3F|FAQ]] for guidance on how to apply for access to the BlogNomic blog.)
  
Some Explorers are '''Admins''', responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Explorers who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves Admins. Existing Admins may be removed from their posts by Proposal, CfJ, or voluntary resignation. New admins shall be given the GNDT configuration password when they become admins.
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A Seeker may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.
  
===Idle Explorers===
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Some Seekers are '''Admins''', responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Seekers 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. Seekers may be made Admins through Proposal or CFJ.
  
Some Explorers are '''Idle''', and shall be marked as such in the sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Explorers”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play” and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Explorers are not counted as Explorers.
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A Seeker may cease to be a Seeker at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be a Seeker in this way may not become a Seeker again within the following two weeks.
  
If a Proposal contains a provision that targets a specifically named Idle Explorer, then that Idle Explorer is considered to be Unidle solely for the purposes of enacting that specific provision
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===Idle Seekers ===
  
When an Explorer 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 Explorer Idled in a different dynasty), the Explorer is given the default value for new Explorer, if such a value exists.
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If a Seeker is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Seekers in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding the core and appendix Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Seekers ”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Seekers are not counted as Seekers . The combined term “Idle Seeker” can be used to refer to Seekers who are Idle even in rules that do not treat them as Seekers.
  
An Admin may render an Explorer Idle if that Explorer has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Explorer has not posted an entry or comment in the last seven days. In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so. An Admin may Unidle an Explorer if that Explorer has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past four days, and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Explorer who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous four days, and within the current dynasty.
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If a Proposal contains a provision that targets a specifically named Idle Seeker, then that Idle Seeker is considered to be Unidle solely for the purposes of enacting that specific provision.
  
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.
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When a Seeker 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 Seeker Idled in a different Dynasty), the Seeker is given the default value for new Seekers, if such a value exists.
  
== Dynasties ==
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An Admin may render a Seeker Idle if that Seeker has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Seeker 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 Seeker 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 Seeker if that Seeker 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 Seeker who would be Unidled has become Idle within the past 96 hours (4 days), and within the current Dynasty.
BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty may be headed by one or more Explorers, known as the Expedition Leaders. If there is no Expedition Leader, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.
 
  
== Votable Matters ==
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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.
A '''Votable Matter''' is a post which Explorers may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.
 
  
Each Explorer may cast one Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the Official Post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, or DEFERENTIAL. Additional voting icons may be permitted in some cases by other rules. A valid Vote is, except when otherwise specified, a Vote of FOR or AGAINST. An Explorer’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-Explorer never has a Vote, even if they were an Explorer previously and had cast a valid Vote.
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Idle admins can resolve Votable Matters as a non-idle admin would.
  
Votable Matters can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Votable Matter is first put forward, it is considered Pending.
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===Dormancy===
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If there are fewer than four Seekers (not including the Observer), then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.
  
Whenever an Admin resolves a Votable Matter, they must also mark their name, and report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was self-killed or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on Enacted or Failed Votable Matters.
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== Dynasties ==
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BlogNomic is divided into a number of '''Dynasties'''. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Seeker, known as the Observer. If there is no Observer, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.
  
This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.
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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 Seeker may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.
  
== Proposals ==
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Unless otherwise stated by a dynastic or Building Blocks rule, then for the purposes of dynastic and Building Blocks rules, the Observer is not a Seeker.
Any Explorer may submit a '''Proposal''' to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Explorer already has 2 Proposals pending, or has already made 3 Proposals that day).
 
  
=== Special Proposal Voting ===
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== Votable Matters ==
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A '''Votable Matter''' is a post which Seekers may cast Votes on, such as a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory.
  
When an Explorer casts a vote AGAINST their own Proposal (which is not in the form of a DEFERENTIAL vote), this renders the Proposal '''Self-Killed''', even if the author later changes their Vote. The Expedition Leader may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Expedition Leader casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Expedition Leader later changes their Vote.
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===Votes===
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Each Seeker 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 Seeker'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-Seeker never has a Vote, even if they were a Seeker previously and had cast a valid Vote.
  
If an Explorer other than the Expedition Leader casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Expedition Leader. When the Expedition Leader has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Proposal, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL on that Proposal are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Expedition Leader's Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.
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If a Seeker other than the Observer casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Observer. When the Observer 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 Observer's Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified. When the Observer 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.
  
=== Resolution of Proposals ===
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A Votable Matter is '''Popular''' if any of the following are true:
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* It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.
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* 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.
  
The oldest pending [[#Proposals|Proposal]] may be '''enacted''' by any Admin (by updating the Ruleset and/or Gamestate to include the specified effects of that Proposal, and then setting that Proposal's status to Enacted) if either of the following is true:
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A Votable Matter is '''Unpopular''' if any of the following are true:
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* The number of Seekers who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
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* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and it is not Popular.
  
* It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
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=== Enacting and Failing ===
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST, and it has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
 
  
The oldest pending Proposal may be '''failed''' by any Admin, if any of the following are true:
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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.
  
* It has been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
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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.
* The number of Explorers who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
 
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.
 
  
If a proposal somehow ends up being pending for more than 7 days, it is ignored for the purpose of calculating the oldest pending proposal, and can be failed by any Admin.
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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.
  
== Calls for Judgement ==
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This rule cannot be overruled by any other rule in its application to Calls for Judgement or Declarations of Victory.
If two or more Explorers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Explorer feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Explorer may raise a '''Call for Judgement''' (abbreviated CfJ) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.
 
  
A Pending CFJ may be Resolved by an Admin if it has a Quorum of FOR Votes, a Quorum of AGAINST Votes, or if it has been open for voting for more than 48 hours. When a CFJ is Resolved, it is to be Enacted if it has more FOR Votes than AGAINST Votes and Failed otherwise. When a CFJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct the GNDT and other gamestate tracking entities, as specified in the CFJ.
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===Tags===
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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).
  
Any CfJ that specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate tracking entities may be failed by any Admin.
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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:
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* 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.
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* The modification is preceded or followed immediately by an unambiguous statement of which section of the ruleset it takes place.
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* The modification specifically states a rule using its number or the name of the stated rule only occurs once in the ruleset.
  
This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.
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== Proposals ==
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Any Seeker may submit a '''Proposal''' to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Seeker already has 2 Proposals pending or has already made 3 Proposals that day).
  
== Victory and Ascension ==
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=== Special Proposal Voting ===
If an Explorer (hereafter referred to as the Victor) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, either individually, or collectively with other Explorers (hereafter referred to as the co-Victors), then that Explorer may make a post to the Blognomic weblog in the Declaration of Victory category, detailing this, and specifying all the co-Victors, if applicable.
 
  
Upon doing so, the game immediately goes into '''Hiatus''', if it hasn’t already. During this time, the only game actions that may be taken are those covered by Rules “Explorers”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.
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When a Seeker 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 Observer may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Observer casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Observer later changes their Vote.
  
Every Explorer may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty.
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=== Resolution of Proposals ===
  
A Pending DoV may be enacted if any of the following is true:
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The oldest Pending [[#Proposals|Proposal]] may be '''Enacted''' by any Admin if all of the following are true:
  
* It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and either the Expedition Leader has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
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* It is Popular.
* It has been open for voting for at least 24 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and has a number of AGAINST Votes lesser than half of Quorum, rounded down.
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* It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours.
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, has a number of Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and more than half of its valid Votes are FOR.
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* It has not been Vetoed or Withdrawn.
  
A DoV may be failed if any of the following are true:
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The oldest Pending Proposal may be '''Failed''' by any Admin, if any of the following are true:
  
* It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and the number of Explorers who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
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* It is Unpopular.
* It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.
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* It has been Vetoed or Withdrawn.
  
When a DoV fails and there are no pending DoVs, Hiatus ends.
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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 DoV is enacted, all other active DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins, with the Victor, and the co-Victors if there are any, as its Expedition Leaders. At this point, the Victor may pass this role to another Explorer by making a post to that effect, if they wish, provided they have achieved victory individually; and any of the Victor and co-Victors may step down from the role, by making a post to that effect, provided they have achieved victory collectively. If all Victor and co-Victors step down in this way, the new Dynasty is a Metadynasty.
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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, Seeker 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.
The Hiatus continues until either of the following happens:
 
* one of the new Expedition Leaders makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify a chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Explorer and Expedition Leader will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire ruleset, and/or a number of dynastic rules to keep. Upon posting such an Ascension Address, the Ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.
 
* all the Victor and co-Victors have stepped down and there is no longer an Expedition Leader - when this happens, all dynastic rules are repealed.
 
  
A DoV may not be started in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address. When a DoV is failed, if it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Explorer who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was failed.
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== Calls for Judgement ==
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If two or more Seekers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Seeker feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Seeker may raise a '''Call for Judgement''' (abbreviated “CfJ”) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgement” category.
  
This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules as it relates to Declarations of Victory, but can be overruled in other matters.
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A Pending CfJ may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are true:
  
== Fair Play ==
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* It is Popular.
The following are BlogNomic’s rules of '''fair play'''. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if an Explorer's behaviour or actions are otherwise deemed unacceptable (socially or otherwise), a proposal or CfJ may be made to reprimand or punish the perpetrator or, in cases of extreme or repeated violations, remove them from the game and bar them from rejoining.
 
  
* A single person should not control more than one non-Idle Explorer within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Explorer and any Idle Explorers.
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A Pending CfJ may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:
* An Explorer should not “spam” the BlogNomic blog. What counts as spamming is subjective, but would typically include posting more than ten blog entries in a day, more than ten blog comments in a row, or posting a blog entry of more than 1000 words.
 
* An Explorer should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
 
* An Explorer should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Explorer.
 
* An Explorer should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
 
* An Explorer should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
 
* An Explorer should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).
 
* An Explorer should not roll dice in the GNDT that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action.
 
  
==Seasonal Downtime==
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* It is Unpopular.
Blognomic goes into hiatus every year on December 24th, and remains in hiatus until December 27th. During this time no game actions may be taken except those described in the rules entitled “Votable Matters,” “Gamestate Tracking” and “Call for Judgement”.
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* It specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate-tracking entities.
  
==Atomic Actions==
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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.
  
When an Explorer performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other action defined in the Ruleset until all such steps are complete. In addition, the Explorer performing an Atomic Action performs its steps as quickly as they are able.
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This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.
  
If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Explorer must redo the Atomic Action. In redoing an Atomic Action, the Explorer uses any legal steps that were already completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones.
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== Victory and Ascension ==
 
 
For instance if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a die in the GNDT and then doing steps based upon it’s result the Explorer would have to reroll the die if they rolled the wrong one if the first place and any steps that depended upon the result of that die; however if all they did was take an illegal action later on, the die is still used in the redone action.
 
  
If the Atomic Action was illegal due to a die that was wrong in the GNDT (for example, rolling a 1 on a DICE6 gives that Explorer a point and the rest do nothing and the Explorer rolls a DICE5 in the first one) and in redoing the Atomic Action they get the same effect as before (i.e. rolling an incorrect die and getting result X but then rolling the correct die and still getting result X) then the steps that depended upon that result are valid and don’t need to be redone. Steps that depend upon multiple dice which were done incorrectly must have each incorrect die have the same effect to be considered valid.
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If a Seeker (other than the Observer) 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.
  
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.
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A Seeker'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 [[#hiatus|on Hiatus]], no Idle Seeker may be made unidle, and no new player joining requests may be administered.
  
</div>
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A Pending DoV may be Enacted by any Admin if any of the following are true:
  
= Dynastic Rules=
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* It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Seekers, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Observer has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
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* It has a number of FOR Votes greater than 2/3rds of the number of Seekers, and it has been open for at least 24 hours.
  
==Combos==
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A Pending DoV may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:
Anytime that an Explorer wants to do 5 or more actions within an hour they may choose in lieu of doing all of those actions separately, which potentially causes confusion as to what is happening, to make a “Combo” blog post that cannot be edited after posting. The gamestate may be changed to reflect the results of the Combo once all of the actions are completed.
 
  
A Combo post is a numbered list of the actions taken, the first action is #1 each subsequent number of actions is increased by one. Each action and the portion of the gamestate changed from that action are kept on their own line. An Atomic action has lettering of it’s steps, refer to the example and note the curly braces vs the parenthesis.
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* It is Unpopular, and it has been open for at least 12 hours.
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* It is more than 48 hours old and cannot be Enacted
  
    Example Combo
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If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Seeker who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was Failed.
    1 [action one] ([gamestate before action] -> [gamestate after action])
 
    2 [action two] ([gamestate before action] -> [gamestate after action])
 
    3 [atomic action] {[gamestate before atomic action]}
 
    3a [first atomic substep] ([gamestate before substep] -> [gamestate after substep])
 
    3b [second atomic substep] ([gamestate before substep] -> [gamestate after substep]) {[gamestate after atomic action]}
 
    4 [action four] ([gamestate before action] -> [gamestate after action])
 
    etcetera . . .
 
  
If any actions require a die roll or other random event that is visible to the public, Explorers must make those rolls before posting the combo with a note stating which step the roll is for and what action they are taking and the title of their Combo. Explorers may not make multiple rolls in the GNDT for the same step. Explorers cannot have two or more rolls in the GNDT with Combo titles that are different unless all but one of the Combo titles have been posted and include that roll.
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When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, the Seeker who posted the DoV becomes Observer, 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.
  
Each action of a Combo happens in their own second, substeps of an Atomic Action happen all at the same second as the parent step. The first action happens at the time the Combo is posted.
+
If the game is in an Interregnum then the new Observer must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming a Seeker who was not the last dynasty’s Observer, in which case the passing Seeker ceases to be the Observer and the Seeker so named becomes the Observer) 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 Observer'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).
 +
* Optionally specify any number of Building Blocks rules to remove or insert, as per the instructions in the Building Blocks section.
 +
* Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms, repeal any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept, and make any specified or automatic changes to the Building Blocks section of the ruleset. Update the Building Blocks page to reflect any changes to the terms outlined in the rule Synonyms.
 +
* Optionally change 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”.
  
If there is a mistake in the summary of the gamestate in a combo and that mistake doesn’t make it impossible for the stated actions to have happened, the author of that combo may correct those mistakes by making a comment along the format “[# of step]: [corrected gamestate summary]”.
+
Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.
  
==Tags==
+
== Fair Play ==
Tags are put in the title of the votable matter with the format “[X]” where X is the tag. Votable matters with tags in their titles are considered to have those tags. Tags which are not defined anywhere are invalid. Votable matters cannot have invalid tags.
+
The following are BlogNomic’s rules of '''fair play'''. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Seeker'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. Seekers should vote against any DoV that relies on having broken a fair play rule.
  
Votable matters have at least one tag, if no tags are given the defaults are used. Proposals default to [Dynastic] and [Gamestate], DoV default to [Victory] and [Gamestate] and other Votable matters default to the [Gamestate] tag. CfJ default to every tag.
+
* A single person should not control more than one non-Idle Seeker within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Seeker and any Idle Seekers. This extends to exerting full control over the actions of another Seeker, defined here as the controlled Seeker's game behavior being functionally indistinguishable from if the controlling Seeker was logged into their account and playing through it, over a period of more than a day.
 +
* A Seeker 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 Seeker should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
 +
* A Seeker should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Seeker.
 +
* A Seeker should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
 +
* A Seeker should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
 +
* A Seeker 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 Seeker 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 Seeker must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
 +
* A Seeker should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
 +
* A Seeker should not use a Core, Building Blocks, or Appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Seeker to achieve victory.
 +
* A Seeker 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 Seeker or Seekers 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.
  
Some valid tags are:
+
All Seekers and idle Seekers 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 Seekers are encouraged to commit to upholding them to whatever extent is possible.
*Victory
 
*Dynastic
 
*Gamestate
 
*Core
 
*Appendix
 
  
Tags, other than [Victory] and [Gamestate], correspond to rules which are not subrules of any rule. For each tag which corresponds to a section in the ruleset, votable matters can only make changes to that tag’s corresponding ruleset section if they have that tag.
+
</div>
  
Votable matters can only affect the gamestate if they have the [Gamestate] tag.
+
= Dynastic Rules =
Votable matters can only give an Explorer victory if they have the [Victory] tag.
 
  
The partial list of valid tags is maintained as follows:
+
==Shots==
*tags, other than [Victory] and [Gamestate], which do not have a section in the ruleset they correspond to are not valid and should be removed from the list.
+
Seekers may create Shots by taking photographs (or having photographs taken on their behalf) and hosting them through the image hosting functionality offered by the BlogNomic wiki.
*rules which have a prefix in the ruleset’s Table of Contents that contain only numerals and don’t have a corresponding tag should have a tag added to the list. Adding a tag to the list is done by taking the section name that needs a tag and adding it to the list of valid tags. Then if the most recently added tag has the word “Rules”, remove that word from the tag unless that is the only word in the tag.
 
  
==Camps==
+
A Shot is confirmed as Authentic if it includes an appearance of a hand-written note (as part of the Shot) which includes the name of an active Seeker and the Merriam Webster Word of the Day for the day on which the Shot was taken, or the preceding day (per http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day). Such a post is known as a Snap. A typographical error does not prevent the Shot from being Authentic, as long as it’s obvious what the intended word is.
There are Camps. Camps along with their state are tracked on the wiki page called “Camps”. Each Camp has an amount of Supplies and a Latitude. Latitude is an angle which ranges from 66° to 90° (both inclusive). In addition, each section tracking a Camp can have a Description, which is a subsection of their Section on the “Camps” page.
 
  
Every Explorer has a Location, which can be either a Camp or a Latitude. The Location of every Explorer is tracked in the GNDT and defaults to “Base Camp”.
+
==Criteria==
 +
There exist a number of Public Criteria, which are a type of Criteria, and which are listed in this rule. Each Seeker has a set of up to five Private Criteria, which are a type of Criteria - defaulting to blank. Each Private Criteria is privately tracked by its seeker, and publicly tracked by its sha256 hash which includes the Private Criteria plus a salt of 5 characters or less. Each Private Criteria also has a publicly-tracked count of satisfying Shots and unsatisfying Shots, both defaulting to 0. At any time a Seeker may change any of their Private Criteria while also resetting its satisfying and unsatisfying counts to zero.
  
Camps have temperatures tracked on the [[Camps]] wikipage. The default temperature for a Camp is 20°C
+
An Authentic Shot’s Criteria Score is equal to the number of Criteria it meets.
  
As a daily Outdoors action, an Explorer may take X Supplies from the Camp they are located at. If they do, their Debt increases by X.
+
The following Public Criteria exist:
 +
* The Shot was taken in an outside location.
 +
* A Snap which includes a specific named entity that had its own Wikipedia page at Mon 18/03/24—09:00 UTC
 +
* A Snap in which at least one article of clothing worn by the posting Seeker at the time that the Snap was taken is visible
 +
* A Snap that contains a message to the viewer
  
An Explorer may exit a Camp by setting their Location to their current Camp’s Latitude, as an Outdoors action. An Explorer who is not currently in a Camp may enter a Camp by setting their Location to the name of that Camp if they have the same Latitude as that Camp.
+
Two Criteria are considered to be equivalent if any shot which meets the first criteria also meets the second criteria, and any shot which does not meet the first criteria also does not meet the second criteria. None of a Seekers private criteria can be equivalent to another of that Seekers private criteria.
  
Explorers at the locations Base Camp and Mountain Camp are considered to be Hexproof.
+
A Private Criteria is considered Saturated if its satisfying count or its unsatisfying count is greater than or equal to five (or half the number of seekers, whichever is greater).
  
===Camping===
+
A Private Criteria’s Exposure is equal to its Unsatisfying Score plus its Satisfying Score.
An Explorer which is not located in a Camp may establish a new Camp by doing the following Outdoors Atomic Action:
 
*Spending 3 of their supplies.
 
*Create a new Camp on the [[Camps]] wikipage.
 
*Add the name of the new Camp. It must end in ” Camp” and must be two words long and can’t be the same as any existing Camp.
 
*Add a description. The description is of the choice of the Camp establisher.
 
*Set the Latitude of the new Camp to their current Location.
 
*Set any other values of the newly created Camp to their defaults.
 
*Set their Location to the newly established Camp.
 
  
===Camp Rules===
+
The date and time (to nearest minute) a given Private Criteria was last changed should be tracked on the gamestate tracking page in a column called “last modified”.
Each Dynastic rule is located in a Camp. This is tracked on the [[Camps]] wikipage. The default Camp for a rule is Base Camp. The Temperature of a Dynastic Rule is the same as the Location that it is located in.
 
  
===Camp doors===
+
===Reasonable Limits===
Every Camp either has closed doors or open doors. Camps with open doors decrease their temperature by 10 degrees every 12 hours. Camps that are at -25°C or less do not decrease their temperature in this way. If an Explorer is located in a Camp they may set that Camps door state to open or closed, as an Outdoors action.
 
The state of a Camp’s door is tracked on the [[Camps]] wikipage.
 
  
===Fire===
+
A Criteria must have the following characteristics:
As an Outdoors action an Explorer may spend X, where X is 1 or greater, supplies to create a Fire of size X in the location they are in. This is tracked on the Camps page with the text “fire (Y)”, where Y is the Fire’s size.
+
* May be no longer than 50 characters in length
If a Fire has a size of 0 or lower, it ceases to exist.
+
* Must be expressed in vernacular English
  
 +
===Audit===
  
===Et ignem regunt numeri===
+
As part of a Declaration of Victory, the Seeker posting the DoV must include a history of their Private Criteria and corresponding salt in the body of the DoV post. Any DoV which does not contain this information is not considered a valid DoV and should be marked as illegal.
As a daily communal action, any Explorer may observe temperature changes, as the following atomic action:
 
*Increase by 30°C (to a maximum of 25°C) the temperature of every Location which has a Fire.
 
*Decrease by 20°C (to a minimum of -25°C) the temperature of every Camp which has no Fire and which has open Doors.
 
*Decrease by 20°C (to a minimum of -25°C) the temperature of every Latitude which has no Fire.
 
*Decrease the size of all Fires by 2, to a minimum of zero.
 
*Post a blog entry summarising these changes.
 
  
==Temperature==
+
==Scoring==
 +
Each Seeker has a Development Interval, which is a publicly tracked number that defaults to 5 which is at least 2, and a Score, which is a publicly tracked number defaulting to 0.
  
All Dynastic Rules have a Temperature. Temperature is a value in degrees Celsius, which is an integer which can be negative. References to “°C” are considered to refer to degrees Celsius.
+
No more than once per number of days equal to their Development Interval, a Seeker may make a post in the story post category with the title of their choice which includes a single Authentic Shot.
  
The default Temperature for any entity that has Temperature is -25°C.
+
Within 48 hours of such a Shot having been posted, each Seeker (including the poster) may at most once respond to it stating which of their own Private Criteria that Shot satisfies and does not satisfy, provided that none of their Private Criteria has been changed since that Shot was posted and provided that there are no other Shots that were posted before the shot in question, within the last 48 hours, and which the Seeker in question has not already responded to in this manner. Upon doing so:
 +
* For each non-Saturated Private Criteria in the response that the Shot satisfies, that Private Criteria’s satisfying count is incremented by one, and its owner’s Score is incremented by that Private Criteria’s unsatisfying count.
 +
* For each non-Saturated Private Criteria in the response that the Shot does not satisfy, that Private Criteria’s unsatisfying count is incremented by one, and its owner’s Score is incremented by that Private Criteria’s satisfying count.
  
The list of entities which have Temperature are:
+
Each Seeker has a Development Bonus which is publicly tracked and defaults to 0. Whenever a Seeker posts a Snap, they gain an amount of Score equal to three times their Development Bonus.
* Dynastic Rules
 
* Camps
 
*Latitudes
 
  
A Temperature of -50°C or lower is Extremely Cold. A Temperature of -25°C or lower is Very Cold.
+
===Editing Disclaimer===
 +
Any new post that contains a Shot must include a description of any edits or changes made to the photograph prior to it being made a Shot, with a lack of such a description indicating that no editing was done. If a post is found to have broken this rule, the Seeker responsible or any Admin should replace the Shot in the offending post with [https://wiki.blognomic.com/images/6/69/Dunce_cap.jpg this] image, no scoring may be performed for that post (and any scoring already awarded to the poster should be reverted), and the responsible Seeker may create a new post as if they had not made the offending post.
  
Rules which are only Very Cold have the text ” V.” at the end of their title. Rules which are Extremely Cold have the text ” E.” at the end of their title.
+
==Guesses==
 +
As a Weekly Action, a Seeker (the Guesser) with a score of at least 3 guess a private criteria of another Seeker (the Target) who is not currently Targeted by performing the following Atomic Action known as Initiating a Guess
  
==Explorers==
+
* Reduce the score of the Guesser by 3
 +
* Make a story post to the blog clearly declaring the name of the Targeted Seeker, and what the guesser thinks one of their Private Criteria are
  
Explorers without COLD WEATHER CLOTHING must spend 1 Supplies each time they take an Outdoors Action in a Location which is below 0°C. If an Explorer without COLD WEATHER CLOTHING has zero or less Supplies, they cannot take Outdoors Actions in Locations which are below 0°C.
+
The Target is now considered Targeted, and may not take any other dynastic action until they perform the following Atomic Action known as Resolving the Guess
  
===Debt===
+
* If the guess is equivalent to one of their private Criteria, respond to the post with a :FOR:, reduce their own Score by the Exposure of that private criteria, and increase the score of the Guesser by the same amount, and then remove that Private Criteria from the Target’s private criteria list (resetting its satisfying and unsatisfying counts to zero in the process)
Each Explorer has a Debt value, which starts at 0 and is tracked in the GNDT under “Debt”.
+
* If the guess is not equivalent to any of their private Criteria, respond to the post with a :AGAINST:
  
===Portable Rules===
+
At this point, the target is no longer considered targeted
Each Explorer may hold 1 Dynastic rule for each Dogsled that they have, tracked in the GNDT under RulesHeld in a comma separated list. The temperature of a Rule that is held by an Explorer is the same as the temperature of the location that Explorer is in. An Explorer may pick up a rule by adding one rule to their RulesHeld if that rule is in their current location and it is not held by another Explorer. An Explorer may remove a Rule from their RulesHeld and the location of that Rule changes to the same as the Explorer removing the Rule and that Rule's location is then tracked on the [[Camps]] wikipage until it is picked up by another Explorer.
 
Explorers that hold a rule are considered to have COLD WEATHER CLOTHING for actions defined in the rule they are holding.
 
  
===Using Supplies===
+
==Upgrades==
Every Explorer has a number of Dog Sleds and a number of Supplies, both of which are tracked in the GNDT.
 
The number of Dog Sleds defaults to 2, the number of Supplies defaults to 10.
 
  
The maximum amount of Supplies an Explorer can have is ten times the amount of Dog Sleds they have.
+
If a Seeker believes that a Shot that they have previously posted (but which has not previously been the subject of an Upgrade Request) meets an Upgrade Benchmark then they may make an Upgrade Request.
  
Explorers may transfer supplies or dog sleds to the other Explorers at the same camp, as an Outdoors Action. Explorers may transfer supplies to their current camp, as an Outdoors Action.
+
An Upgrade Request is a post in the Story Post - Votable Matter category which indicates a single Snap posted by the same author and a single Upgrade Benchmark that it purports to meet, and nothing else.
  
===Exploring===
+
An Upgrade Request is voted on and resolved in the same manner as a Proposal, with the exceptions that it does not need to be resolved in chronological order (nor does it count as a proposal for the purposes of determining the oldest pending Proposal). Seekers should vote FOR on any Upgrade Request where they believe that the specified Snap does meet the specified Upgrade Benchmark. When an Upgrade Request is enacted, the Development Interval of its poster is reduced by 1 (if it is three or higher) or their Development Bonus is increased by one (if their Development Interval is already 2), unless the same Seeker has already had a Upgrade Request enacted for the same Upgrade Benchmark previously in the dynasty, in which case their development interval is not reduced and their development bonus is not increased. (Which Upgrade Benchmarks have been enacted for which seekers should be tracked on the gamestate tracking page for easy reference).
If an Explorer’s Location is a Latitude they may spend 1 supply to increase or decrease their Location X degrees where X is a positive integer equal to or less than the number of Dog Sleds they have, as an Outdoors action.
 
  
If an Explorer has one or more Dog Sleds, they may change their camp to any camp adjacent to their current camp, by spending 1 Supplies as an Outdoors action. They cannot take this action if they have zero or less supplies. A pair of camps are adjacent if they are at the same latitude, or if there are no camps at any latitudes between them.
+
Upgrade Benchmarks are listed in this rule and are as follows:
 +
* A Snap that was taken in the same place as another Snap taken by a different Seeker.
 +
* A Snap on which, after 48 hours, every Private Criteria claimed by another Seeker was Unsatisfied
 +
* A Snap which meets every Public Criteria
 +
* A Snap which includes a found instance of the BlogNomic username of another Seeker, where the found instance cannot be from a screen capture taken from, or a photo of, a computer monitor, laptop screen, phone, tablet, television, or smart watch
  
===Madness===
+
==Catching up with the Photos==
Explorers have Insanity tracked on the GNDT.  Explorers with an Insanity of greater than 10 are insane.
+
While a Seeker has exactly 0 Score and has more than one Private Criteria having a non-null value, a Seeker may perform the following Atomic Action once per week:
Insane Explorers cannot utilize their Background powers.
+
* For the previous three Shots in chronological order, perform the following bullet points:
 +
** Respond to the Shot stating which of their own Private Criteria that Shot satisfies and does not satisfy.
 +
** For each Private Criteria in the response that the Shot satisfies, that Private Criteria’s satisfying count is incremented by one, and increment their Score by that Private Criteria’s unsatisfying count.
 +
** For each Private Criteria in the response that the Shot does not satisfies, that Private Criteria’s satisfying count is incremented by one, and increment their Score by that Private Criteria’s satisfying count
  
An explorer with the background of cultist who is insane may make a public blog post declaring that they are HIDEOUSLY TRANSFORMED. The Expedition Leader may certify that this explorer is, in fact, a cultist by posting a comment containing the word “fnord”.
+
==Awards==
 +
Each Seeker can have a number of Awards, which is publicly tracked and defaults to zero.
  
A Cultist that is insane may pay 2 supplies to shout a MAD RAVING.
+
At any time, if a Seeker has met the Standard for an Award then they may claim it by making a blog post announcing as such and then incrementing their Awards by 1. A Seeker may only claim each individual Award once in the dynasty.
  
====Going Insane====
+
Any Seeker who has claimed 5 Awards has achieved Victory.
An Explorer gains 1 Insanity each time one of the following happens to them:
 
* The first time that an Explorer is in the same location as a Horror that they have not gained insanity from previously
 
* Is in the same location as a Cultist and that Cultist shouts a MAD RAVING.
 
  
An Explorer located in a Camp which contains a Fire and at least one other Explorer may lose 1 Insanity (to a minimum of zero) as a weekly action.
+
The possible Awards and their Standards are as follows:
  
==Background==
+
{| class="wikitable sortable"
 +
|-
 +
! Award !! Standard
 +
|-
 +
| Fine Art Photographer of the Year || Have more than 200 Score
 +
|-
 +
| Excellence in War Photography || Have a Development Bonus of at least 3
 +
|-
 +
| Outstanding Composition || Have five private Criteria, each of which has an Unsatisfying score of 0 and a Satisfying score of 5
 +
|-
 +
| Grand Prix in Advertising Photography || Successfully Guess (i.e. post a Guess and have the target respond with a FOR mark to that Guess)
 +
|}
  
Each Explorer (which isn’t the Expedition Leader) has none or two Backgrounds, which is privately tracked by the Expedition Leader, and Explorers default to having no Backgrounds. The Backgrounds an Explorer may have, and the powers (if any) that they have for having such a Background are the following:
+
<!-- DYNASTIC RULES GO ABOVE THIS COMMENT. DO NOT DELETE THE NEXT LINE WHEN CLEARING THE RULES FOR A NEW DYNASTY. --><br />
* '''Handyman:''' When a Handyman would spend a number of Supplies to perform an action, they may instead spend half that number of Supplies (rounding up) to perform it. (This ability may not be used more than once per action.)
+
<div style="padding:8px;background:#bbb;">
* '''Adventurer:''' The Adventurer, once ever in the dynasty but at-will, may make a public post indicating that they WRESTLE A BEAR. The Expedition Leader shall then be Amazed by making a reply comment to that post in a timely fashion. At that point, the Adventurer is considered to Have COLD WEATHER CLOTHING (and by default don’t have that). Adventurers with COLD WEATHER CLOTHING are immune to cost-increasing effects described in the Temperature Rule and may at-will ENCOURAGE other Adventurers.
 
* '''Scholar:''' The Scholar is well researched into obscure literature and the occult. Each Scholar knows one word of the Creed. Which word is secretly randomly determined by the Expedition Leader. A Scholar may request that word from the Expedition Leader. Scholars can deduce what a Mission’s Secret Treasure will be based on their research. Therefore, they also know what any Mission’s Secret Treasure is (and can request this information privately from the Expedition Leader). Scholars have institutional access to the weekly Annals of Eldritch Studies (AES). As a weekly action, the Expedition Leader may publish an issue of AES. Publishing an issue of AES consists of randomly choosing one word of the Secret Creed and privately messaging that word to all Explorers with institutional access to AES.
 
* '''Military:''' A Military Explorer may make a public post indicating that they DRAW THEIR WEAPON. The Expedition Leader shall then confirm that the Explorer has drawn their weapon, at which point the Military Explorer is considered to be Armed (and by default, is not). If a Military Explorer is Armed, they may hold an Explorer in the same Location as them at Gunpoint, or may stop holding an Explorer at Gunpoint, by making a post announcing this. (If one Explorer is holding another at Gunpoint, this is tracked by having the first Explorer’s Location GNDT field list the second Explorer’s name. If an Explorer is being held at Gunpoint by an Explorer who is at a different Location, they stop being held at Gunpoint.) An Explorer who is being held at Gunpoint may not change their own Location, take Supplies or use Background powers.
 
* '''Spy:''' A Spy may, once only, during this Dynasty private message the Expedition Leader that they spy on a particular Explorer, the Expedition Leader then tells the spy a random background of the person they are spying on.
 
* '''Cultist:''' When a Cultist becomes such, or upon private request to the Expedition Leader for a reminder, the Expedition Leader shall privately communicate to them the Secret Creed in a timely fashion.<br />The Secret Creed contains one number and five words. For example: “13, copper explain ill-fated truck neat”. The content of the Secret Creed is privately tracked by the Expedition Leader. A Cultist Explorer (even if they are Insane) may privately contact the Expedition Leader announcing that they have SEEN THE TRUTH, as a weekly action. In response, the Expedition Leader should set the Cultist Explorer’s Insanity to zero.
 
  
If an Explorer has no Backgrounds, they can, at-will but once ever during this Dynasty, privately request the Expedition Leader their Backgrounds. The Expedition Leader then can and shall grant them two (secretly random and different) Backgrounds in a timely fashion, and privately communicate to the requesting Explorer what their new Backgrounds are.
+
= 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.
  
If any non-Adventurer Explorer makes a post which is in the format of a WRESTLE A BEAR post, or any non-Handyman Explorer makes a post in the format of a GATHER THEIR TOOLS post, the Expedition Leader shall reply to such a post with comment stating that such a post is Shenanigans and remove 1 Dog Sled from them for wasting the expedition’s time.
+
Potential Building Blocks rules can be found at the [[Building Blocks]] page of the wiki. That page is gamestate and may not be altered except as specified by the ruleset or through the passage of a Proposal or CfJ; however, its 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.
  
The Expedition Leader cannot publicly or privately reveal the Backgrounds of any Explorer unless instructed to do so by a rule.
+
When a Observer 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; these rules must then be transcribed faithfully to this section of the ruleset, and any Building Blocks rules not so named must be removed from the Building Blocks section. Some rules on the Building Blocks page are listed as being Recommended; if the new Observer makes no statement on Building Blocks rules to be included in their Ascension Address then the Recommended Building Blocks are considered to have been selected. There are currently no Recommended Building Blocks.
  
An Explorer may opt to not have any Backgrounds assigned to them by privatly communicating this to the Expedition Leader. 72 hours after 03 Jun 2017 16:56:25 UTC, the Expedition Leader assigns Backgrounds to each Explorer that has not opted out of having Backgrounds.
+
==Low-Player Mode==
 +
The Core Rule Dormancy is flavour text.
  
If an Explorer has unidled or joined and the Expedition Leader has not received a private message from them up to 12 hours since they joined or unidled stating they opt out of having Backgrounds, the Expedition Leader assigns them 2 Backgrounds in a timely manner.
+
==Everyone's Playing==
 +
For the purposes of all dynastic and Building Blocks rules, the Observer is a Seeker.  
  
==Expedition Leading==
+
==No Cooperation==
There is a wiki page called “[[Mission Status]]”. This tracks all Missions and their content (except for “Secret Treasure”), and also contains (tracks) “Amount of Missions Completed”, which defaults to 0.
+
In this dynasty, Seekers are expected to avoid co-operating to achieve Victory, except through the use of co-operative mechanisms defined in the Dynastic rules.
  
Each Mission has the following:
+
If a Seeker feels that another Seeker has gone against this expectation in some way during the current dynasty, then they are encouraged to vote against all DoVs from that Seeker during that dynasty. This overrules the encouragement to vote according to the perception of a victory in the rule “Victory in Ascension”.
* '''Title:''' A flavor-appropriate name for the Mission
 
* '''Synopsis:''' A flavor-appropriate description of the Mission
 
* '''Goal:''' An unambiguous description of a certain gamestate pattern. This must also state a certain amount of Participants (Explorers). For example, “Three Explorers are at South Camp. These Explorers are the Participants”.
 
* '''Status:''' This can have a status of “Pending”, “Completed” and default to “Pending”.
 
* '''Reward:''' A certain profit or penalty, for example, more Supplies or Dog Sleds.
 
* '''Secret Treasure:''' This can be “Unknown”, “Double Reward”, “Eldritch Horror” or “None”, defaulting to “Unknown”. If a Mission has an Unknown Secret Reward, the Expedition Leader may assign it any secretly randomly determined value other than “Unknown”.
 
  
When a Mission’s Goal has been met, any Explorer (who is a Participant of that Mission’s Goal) can set that Mission’s Status from “Pending” to “Completed” with a “Mission Hand-in” public blog post, which must state the Mission and Participants involved.
+
</div>
 
 
The Expedition Leader may then Stamp a Mission Hand-in post, by making a comment to that post with the text "STAMP" and increasing Amount of Missions Completed by one. When this happens, all Participants gain the Reward each. If the completed Missions “Secret Treasure” value is “Double Reward”, they each gain twice the Reward instead. If the completed Missions “Secret Treasure” value is “Eldritch Horror”, the Expedition Leader selects one of its Participants in a secretly random manner, and that Participant gains an Artefact.
 
 
 
The Ancient one is an entity who has Satisfaction, which defaults to 0. This value is publically tracked on the “Mission Status” wiki page.
 
 
 
==Hint==
 
As a weekly action, the Expedition Leader should make a blog post that lists - for each Background except “Cultist” - the number of Explorers who have that Background.
 
 
 
==Conspiracies==
 
 
 
An Explorer who is a Cultist or a Scholar may Conspire to convert another Explorer by sending a private message to the Expedition Leader with this intention. At any time when two or more Explorers are conspiring against the same Explorer, the Expedition Leader may resolve the effects of all such Conspiracies, in sequence:
 
 
 
* Any Conspiracies which target an Explorer who is both a Cultist and a Scholar are skipped for the remainder of this list.
 
* If two or more Scholars are conspiring against the same Cultist, that Cultist becomes a Scholar instead of a Cultist.
 
* If two or more Cultists are conspiring against the same Scholar, that Scholar becomes a Cultist instead of a Scholar.
 
* If two or more Explorers are conspiring against the same Explorer, and that Explorer is neither a Scholar nor a Cultist, then all of these Conspiring Explorers become Untrustworthy.
 
 
 
When one or more Explorers become Untrustworthy, the Expedition Leader must announce this in a blog post. If an Explorer is Untrustworthy, they may no longer Conspire against other Explorers.
 
 
 
Upon the Expedition Leader resolving Conspiracies, the Leader must post a blog entry announcing this, and privately inform any Explorers if their Backgrounds have changed. Upon the blog entry being posted, all Explorers cease Conspiring.
 
 
 
An Explorer may spend 4 Supplies to make themselves Hexproof by painting runes on themselves and smoking plenty of incense, as per a ritual the University has discovered. While Hexproof, that Explorer cannot be targeted by Conspiracies, but if that Explorer changes Location, they lose their Hexproof status. An Explorer, by default, is not Hexproof.
 
 
 
==Unmasked==
 
After a DoV or DoA has passed the Expedition Leader makes an “Unmasked” post in a timely manner containing the following information:
 
The backgrounds of each Explorer along with the date and time they received those backgrounds.
 
If an Explorer used a secret power (such as the spy’s power), include what time and date they used it at and what information they received from using such a power.
 
 
 
==Artefacts==
 
Each Explorer carries zero or more Artefacts, and this is tracked privately by the Expedition Leader. Whenever an Explorer gains an Artefact, the Expedition Leader should privately inform them of this.
 
 
 
An Explorer may give an Artefact they are carrying to another Explorer in the same Location by privately informing the Expedition Leader of this. An Explorer who is not a Cultist may destroy an Artefact they are carrying by privately informing the Expedition Leader of this; upon doing so, the Explorer stops carrying it.
 
 
 
'''Bunk Inspection'''<br>
 
An Explorer (the inspector) may inspect another Explorer’s (the inspectee, who must be in the same location as the inspector) bunk by making a Story Post (the Inspection) indicating so. The Expedition Leader may resolve the oldest unresolved Inspection post by posting the resolution of the Inspection as a comment on the post. (If an Inspection post has been deleted, it is no longer an Inspection post.) If the inspector is Untrustworthy, the Inspection becomes invalid and nothing happens. If the inspectee is carrying no Artefacts, the inspector becomes Untrustworthy. If instead the inspectee is carrying more than zero Artefacts, the inspectee becomes Untrustworthy, and the resolution of the Inspection should also publicly declare one randomly-chosen background of the inspectee.
 
 
 
==Victory==
 
If any explorer who is not HIDEOUSLY TRANSFORMED is the only explorer who is not insane, they have achieved victory.
 
 
 
If an explorer is HIDEOUSLY TRANSFORMED, and has had their post to that effect certified by the Expedition Leader, and all explorers are insane, that explorer has achieved victory.
 
 
 
If a Cultist has a number of Artefacts equal to a quorum of Cultists, and is at the Mountain Camp, and is not at Gunpoint, then that Cultist has achieved victory.
 
 
 
If three Artefacts have been destroyed, then the Explorer to have destroyed the most Artefacts (breaking ties in favour of the Explorer to have destroyed an Artefact most recently) has achieved victory.
 
 
 
At any time, a Cultist may Unveil by posting a Story Post containing the word “Unveiling” in its title. In that post, they must declare one of the following:
 
* that they are the only Cultist;
 
* that there are exactly two Cultists, in which case the post must also specify the name of the other Cultist;
 
* that there are at least three Cultists, in which case the post must also specify the names of at least two other Cultists.
 
A Cultist may never achieve Victory if they haven’t Unveiled, or if their latest Unveiling post contains declarations which are not accurate. When a Cultist achieves Victory, they achieve Victory collectively with all the other Cultists whom they named in their latest Unveiling post, if there are any.
 
 
 
==Eternal Torment==
 
The Explorer named Cuddlebeam may not make Combo posts or Calls for Judgment.
 
 
 
==Void==
 
If no Explorer has done so in the last 48 hours, any Explorer can add 1 Insanity to all Explorers via this rule.
 
 
 
<!-- RULES GO ABOVE THIS COMMENT. DO NOT DELETE THE NEXT LINE WHEN CLEARING THE RULES FOR A NEW DYNASTY. --><br/>
 
 
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Line 372: Line 306:
  
 
==Keywords==
 
==Keywords==
A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word. A keyword defined in this glossary supersedes that defined by a rule. (eg. A rule specifying "bananas are blue" cannot be overruled by posting a dictionary definition or a photo of a banana, and a rule specifying "every day is Sunday" will be overruled by the glossary entry below.)
+
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.)
  
;Can
+
===Imperatives===
:"is able to"
+
;Can: “is able to”
 +
;Shall: “is required to”
 +
;Should: “is recommended that”
  
;Comment
+
===Time===
:A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at [http://blognomic.com blognomic.com]
+
;Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Seeker 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 Seeker 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 Seeker 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 Seeker per week.  
  
;Core Proposal
+
===Other===
: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 Explorers.
+
;Comment: A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at [http://blognomic.com 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 Seekers.
 +
;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 Seeker's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Seeker's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Seeker's Vote on that Votable Matter.
 +
;Commentary: When posting a blog entry, a Seeker 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. Seekers , as well as people who are not Seekers 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 Seekers 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. Seekers 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 (or indirectly invoked by Templates contained within) those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.
 +
;<span id="hiatus">Hiatus</span>: 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.
 +
;Pass the Mantle: Passing the Mantle is a mechanism by which, during an Interregnum, a Observer may nominate another Seeker to become the Observer in the upcoming dynasty.
 +
;Post: A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at [http://blognomic.com blognomic.com]
 +
;Quorum: Quorum of a subset of Seekers is half the number of Seekers  in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Seekers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Seekers.
 +
;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.
 +
;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 Observer.
 +
;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.
 +
;Seasonal Downtime: On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is [[#hiatus|on Hiatus]]. In addition, game actions defined by the core rules titled “Seekers” 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.
 +
;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
  
;Daily Action
+
== Gamestate Tracking ==
:If a game action is a Daily Action, each Explorer able to perform it may take that action once each day, but not more than once every ten hours.
 
  
;Daily Communal Action
+
===Official Posts===
:A Daily Communal Action is a Daily Action that can only be performed by one Explorer per day.
 
  
;Day
+
Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at [http://blognomic.com http://blognomic.com]. Any Seeker may [http://blognomic.com/update/index.php?C=publish post] to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the [[#Ruleset and Gamestate|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.
:References to a “day” as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “Sunday”, “The day after performing this action”, or “August 2nd”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a day beginning at and including 00:00:00 UTC, ending when the next day begins. It can never be 2 different days at the same instant.
 
  
;Dice
+
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 Seeker 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.
:References to "YDICEX" refer to Y X-sided dice, rolled within the GNDT. To roll dice, post DICEX in the comments field of the GNDT, replacing X with the number of sides on the die you wish to roll.
 
  
;Dynastic Proposal
+
A 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 is less than six hours old and appears to the Observer to have been intended as a Proposal, and if its author does not already have two Proposals pending, then the Observer 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.
: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)
+
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 Explorer’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Explorer’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Explorer’s Vote on that Votable Matter.
 
  
;Flavour Text
+
===Representations of the Gamestate===
:When posting a blog entry, an Explorer 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.
+
If authorised by the rules as a result of a Seeker’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 Seeker may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.
  
;Gamestate
+
If a Seeker feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) does not match the gamestate, they may either:
:Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of.  All GNDT columns that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention are assumed to be Gamestate, as are all Wiki Pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention except for dynastic histories and discussion pages.
 
  
;IRC Channel
+
* Undo the effects of any alteration that led to it, if that alteration did not follow the rules at the time it was made.
:The Blognomic IRC channel is located at #nomic on the slashnet network (irc.slashnet.org).
+
* 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 Seeker, if doing so would not require the correcting Seeker to make any decisions on behalf of the original Seeker.
 +
Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Seekers 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.
  
;May
+
===Orphan Variables===
:"is permitted to"
 
  
;May not
+
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.
:"is not permitted to"
 
  
;Post
+
A Seeker may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.
:A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at [http://blognomic.com blognomic.com]
 
  
;Private Message
+
=== Random Generators ===
:A message sent via Blognomic’s Private Messages system at blognomic.com.
+
The Dice Roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php can be used to generate random results.
  
;Quorum
+
* The DICE''N'' command can be used to generate a random number between 1 and N.
:Quorum of a subset of Explorers is half the number of Explorers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Explorers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Explorers.
+
* 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, MSeekera, 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.
  
;Resolve/Resolution
+
Any changes to the potential outcomes of the Dice Roller’s random result commands must be made by Votable Matter.
:If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting or failing a Votable Matter. The world “Resolution” means then the act of doing so. If used in any other context, the meaning of both “Resolve” and “Resolution” is the standard English meaning of these words
 
  
;Rule
+
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 Seeker with such access. Only a Seeker with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Seeker with such access, that Votable Matter is Illegal.
:Each individually numbered section of the ruleset is a rule, including sections that are sub-rules of other rules.
 
  
;Shall
+
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 Seeker making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Seeker making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.
:"is required to"
 
  
;Should
+
==Atomic Actions==
:"is recommended that"
 
  
;Sibling Rule
+
An Atomic Action combines otherwise separate game actions into a single action.
:Two rules are “siblings” of each other if they are both direct subrules of the same rule.
 
  
;Slack
+
* 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.
:The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Explorers may request an invite to the Slack while logged in by clicking the button in the sidebar.
+
* When a Seeker 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 Seeker performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
 +
* If a Seeker 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 Seeker must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Seeker 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 Seeker 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.
  
;Slack Channel
+
==Clarifications==
:A Slack Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Slack. To reference a Slack Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel. (For example, #random.)
 
  
;Story Post
+
===Numbers and Variables===
:A Story Post is an entry in the “Story Post” category.
+
* 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 Seeker can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Seekers to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Seeker only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Seeker (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 Seeker 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 Seekers 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 Observer (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Observer when the ruleset allows it. If a Seeker should already know such a piece of information (in that the Observer has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Observer may repeat it to them.
  
;Subject
+
===Rules and Votable Matters===
: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.
+
* 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 Matters|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 Seeker 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), Seekers may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by the ruleset.
 +
* If the Observer has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Seekers 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 Seekers on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid. If there are six or fewer Seekers, then the Observer’s vote of DEFERENTIAL on a proposal is only affected by this rule if all Seekers who are not the Observer have cast a vote on that proposal.
  
;Subrule
+
===Time===
:A subrule is a type of rule that is nested within another rule. A proposal that specifically affects a rule affects all of its subrules; a proposal that specifically affects a subrule does not affect its parent rule or any other subrule of that rule, unless they are also explicitly cited as being affected by that proposal.
+
* 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.
;Table of Contents: The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.
+
* 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 Seeker 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).
  
;TOC: Table of Contents.
+
===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.
 +
* Seekers may correct obvious spelling, punctuation, and/or typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Seekers with the corresponding forms of the singular “they”.
 +
* A Seeker 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.
  
;Vote
+
===Names===
: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.
+
* Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Seeker if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Seeker'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 Seeker's (or prospective Seeker'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.
  
;Voting Icons
+
==Prioritisation==
:For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, an IMP http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and an Imperial Seal http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent the Imperial Veto.
+
* If two parts of the Ruleset contradict each other, precedence shall be construed in the following order:
 
+
# The Appendix has precedence over any other Rule;
;Week
+
# 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;
: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.
+
# 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;
 
+
# If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Seekers may Kick each other” and “Seekers may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Seekers may not Kick each other);
;Weekly Action
+
# 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 “Seekers may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Seekers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Seekers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).
:If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Explorer 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 Explorer per week.  
 
  
;Wiki
+
==Mentors==
:The BlogNomic Wiki at http://wiki.blognomic.com
 
  
== Gamestate Tracking ==
+
A Seeker may have another Seeker as a Mentor. Seekers 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 Seeker 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.
  
Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at [http://blognomic.com http://blognomic.com]. Any Explorer may [http://blognomic.com/update/index.php?C=publish post] to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the [[#Ruleset and Gamestate|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.
+
If an unmentored Seeker requests a Mentor, or a new Seeker has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Observer should select a Tenured Seeker and ask them to take that Seeker 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 Observer should announce it in a blog post. The Observer should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.
  
An official post may only be removed as allowed by the Ruleset.
+
A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. A Seeker may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.
An official post may be altered by its author if it is less than six hours old and either no Explorer 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.
 
  
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 an Explorer who has been an Explorer for fewer than seven days contains the word “Proposal” in its title, but is not a Proposal, and if it has been posted for less than an hour, then any admin may change it to be in the Proposal category.
+
If there is no Observer, any Seeker who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Observer for the purposes of this rule.
  
Specific parts of the Gamestate data shall be tracked by the Generic Nomic Data Tracker at [http://blognomic.com/gndt/generic.cgi?nomic=blog http://blognomic.com/gndt/generic.cgi?nomic=blog]. Any Explorer may update any Explorer's data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.
+
===Things that a mentor must do===
  
All updates to the GNDT are logged. For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as the GNDT or a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of an Explorer’s action is (and can only be) applied by editing that data in that place. One GNDT or wiki update may contain one or more alterations, or one alteration may be split over multiple updates, as long as it is clear what is happening and the alterations are otherwise legal. The GNDT merely represents the Gamestate, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and the GNDT are different, any Explorer may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.
+
A mentor must do the following:
  
If an Explorer feels that the GNDT was altered such that it no longer matches the gamestate (such as by performing an action which was against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), or by any other means), they may simply undo the effects of that alteration. Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed GNDT update, Explorers are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead.
+
*Make pro-active contact with their mentee when appointed, and explain the dynamics of the Mentorship system;
Explorers shall be assigned a password for the GNDT when they join the Nomic.
+
*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 Seeker or arrange a handover to another mentor if requested.
  
=== Random Generators ===
+
===Things that a mentor should do===
The GNDT can be used to generate random results.
+
The following sets out suggested best practice for Mentorship relationships:
 
 
* The DICE''N'' command can be used to generate a random number between 1 and ''N''.
 
* The FRUIT command will return a random result from the following options: Lemon, Orange, Kiwi, Grape, Cherry, Tangelo.
 
* The COLOUR (or COLOR) command will return a random result from the following: White, Red, Green, Silver, Yellow, Turquoise, Magenta, Orange, Purple, Black.
 
* The VEGGIE command will return a random result from the following: Potato, Carrot, Triffid, Pumpkin.
 
  
Any changes to the potential outcomes of the GNDT’s random result commands must be made by proposal; and any proposal that seeks to nominate a change to this rule must first identify an active Explorer with server-level access to the BlogNomic site who is able to perform the changes, and must also update this rule to reflect the new potential outcomes.
+
*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 Seekers .
 +
*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.
  
==Clarifications==
+
===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.
  
===Numbers and Variables===
+
*The mentor should not sock-puppet, bully, coerce or otherwise manipulate the mentee into performing any game actions.
* 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.
+
*The mentor should not seek to dissuade the mentee from pursuing other alliances.
* Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
+
*A former mentor should not seek to use the fact of a prior Mentorship to influence the former mentee on an ongoing basis.
* All numbers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
 
* Unless otherwise specified, to “spend” or “lose” an amount X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V; to “gain” X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to “transfer” X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A’s V and add X to B’s V. Unless otherwise specified, only positive amounts can be spent, lost, gained, or transferred, and a rule that allows Explorers to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Explorer (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
 
* An Explorer who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action's effects are limited to changing values tracked in the GNDT and/or similar gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one or more of those values to an illegal value.
 
* If a rule implies that the result of any calculation should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the calculation is instead the result rounded towards 0.
 
* If a number or other game variable is selected 'at random' or 'randomly' from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified. This value must be determined by an appropriate DICE roll in the GNDT, unless otherwise specified. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Explorer making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the GNDT.
 
* If a game variable has no defined starting value, then that starting value is the nearest legal value to zero that it may take (for numerical variables, defaulting to positive if tied), blank (for a text string or list that may be blank), the alphabetically earliest legal text string it may take (for a text string which may not be blank, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”), or the list which is alphabetically earliest from the set of lists with the fewest elements (for lists which may not be blank, and considering each list to be a single unpunctuated text string, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”).
 
* Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in the GNDT remain valid. (for example, if X appears in a formula referring to a value that is a non-negative integer, X must be used as a non-negative integer)
 
*DICEN cannot be rolled in the GNDT if N is 22 or more digits long.
 
  
===Rules and Proposals===
+
== Synonyms ==
* If a new rule is created by a proposal and its location is not noted in that proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
 
* If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a proposal enacting, that page shall - unless otherwise specified - be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that proposal's submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
 
* Where a [[#Proposals|Proposal]] would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (eg. a proposal proposing that enacted proposals earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
 
* Rules which trigger upon the Resolution of a Votable Matter are the responsibility of the Admin who Resolves it.
 
* Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
 
* If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead named “Unnamed Rule”.
 
* The names of rules are not themselves rule text and have no effect other than being rule names.
 
* If the admin enacting a proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (eg. “two days after this proposal enacts, Explorer A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a proposal has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.
 
*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”.
 
  
===Time===
+
A dynasty may provide extra theming by using alternative terms for words like “Seeker” and “Observer”.
* For the purpose of all rules, time in Blognomic is in UTC.
 
* All references to time must be either specific or defined within the ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. "dinnertime", "twilight") cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
 
* Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (eg. "04/10/09"), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
 
  
===Spelling===
+
Each term in this list is synonymous with the term in parentheses
* Superficial differences between the spelling of geographic versions of English, e.g, British English, American English and Australian English shall be construed as irrelevant for the purposes of play.
 
  
===Names===
+
* Seeker (Player)
* Within the ruleset, a word only refers to the name of an Explorer if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Explorer's name.
+
* Observer (Emperor)
  
===Prioritisation===
+
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.
* If two parts of the Ruleset contradict each other, precedence shall be construed in the following order:
 
# The Appendix has precedence over any Rule;
 
# A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
 
# If both contradicting parts are Core Rules, or if both of them are Dynastic Rules, the part with more limited scope applies. (e.g. if the rules “Explorers may Kick each other” and “Explorers may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Explorers may not Kick each other.)
 
# If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Explorers may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Explorers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Explorers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)
 
  
 
</div>
 
</div>

Revision as of 16:11, 28 March 2024

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Seekers 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. 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 Seeker may update it to do so.

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

Seekers

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

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

Some Seekers are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Seekers 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. Seekers may be made Admins through Proposal or CFJ.

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

Idle Seekers

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

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

When a Seeker 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 Seeker Idled in a different Dynasty), the Seeker is given the default value for new Seekers, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Seeker Idle if that Seeker has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Seeker 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 Seeker 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 Seeker if that Seeker 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 Seeker 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.

Dormancy

If there are fewer than four Seekers (not including the Observer), then BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty may be headed by a single Seeker, known as the Observer. If there is no Observer, 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 Seeker may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

If a Seeker other than the Observer casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Observer. When the Observer 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 Observer's Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified. When the Observer 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 Seekers 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 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 Seeker may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Seeker already has 2 Proposals pending or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

When a Seeker 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 Observer may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Observer casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Observer 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 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, Seeker 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

If two or more Seekers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Seeker feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Seeker 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 Seeker (other than the Observer) 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 Seeker'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 Seeker 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 Seekers, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Observer 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 Seekers, 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 Seeker 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 Seeker who posted the DoV becomes Observer, 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 Observer must either Pass the Mantle (by making a post naming a Seeker who was not the last dynasty’s Observer, in which case the passing Seeker ceases to be the Observer and the Seeker so named becomes the Observer) 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 Observer'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).
  • Optionally specify any number of Building Blocks rules to remove or insert, as per the instructions in the Building Blocks section.
  • Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms, repeal any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept, and make any specified or automatic changes to the Building Blocks section of the ruleset. Update the Building Blocks page to reflect any changes to the terms outlined in the rule Synonyms.
  • Optionally change 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”.

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

Dynastic Rules

Shots

Seekers may create Shots by taking photographs (or having photographs taken on their behalf) and hosting them through the image hosting functionality offered by the BlogNomic wiki.

A Shot is confirmed as Authentic if it includes an appearance of a hand-written note (as part of the Shot) which includes the name of an active Seeker and the Merriam Webster Word of the Day for the day on which the Shot was taken, or the preceding day (per http://www.merriam-webster.com/word-of-the-day). Such a post is known as a Snap. A typographical error does not prevent the Shot from being Authentic, as long as it’s obvious what the intended word is.

Criteria

There exist a number of Public Criteria, which are a type of Criteria, and which are listed in this rule. Each Seeker has a set of up to five Private Criteria, which are a type of Criteria - defaulting to blank. Each Private Criteria is privately tracked by its seeker, and publicly tracked by its sha256 hash which includes the Private Criteria plus a salt of 5 characters or less. Each Private Criteria also has a publicly-tracked count of satisfying Shots and unsatisfying Shots, both defaulting to 0. At any time a Seeker may change any of their Private Criteria while also resetting its satisfying and unsatisfying counts to zero.

An Authentic Shot’s Criteria Score is equal to the number of Criteria it meets.

The following Public Criteria exist:

  • The Shot was taken in an outside location.
  • A Snap which includes a specific named entity that had its own Wikipedia page at Mon 18/03/24—09:00 UTC
  • A Snap in which at least one article of clothing worn by the posting Seeker at the time that the Snap was taken is visible
  • A Snap that contains a message to the viewer

Two Criteria are considered to be equivalent if any shot which meets the first criteria also meets the second criteria, and any shot which does not meet the first criteria also does not meet the second criteria. None of a Seekers private criteria can be equivalent to another of that Seekers private criteria.

A Private Criteria is considered Saturated if its satisfying count or its unsatisfying count is greater than or equal to five (or half the number of seekers, whichever is greater).

A Private Criteria’s Exposure is equal to its Unsatisfying Score plus its Satisfying Score.

The date and time (to nearest minute) a given Private Criteria was last changed should be tracked on the gamestate tracking page in a column called “last modified”.

Reasonable Limits

A Criteria must have the following characteristics:

  • May be no longer than 50 characters in length
  • Must be expressed in vernacular English

Audit

As part of a Declaration of Victory, the Seeker posting the DoV must include a history of their Private Criteria and corresponding salt in the body of the DoV post. Any DoV which does not contain this information is not considered a valid DoV and should be marked as illegal.

Scoring

Each Seeker has a Development Interval, which is a publicly tracked number that defaults to 5 which is at least 2, and a Score, which is a publicly tracked number defaulting to 0.

No more than once per number of days equal to their Development Interval, a Seeker may make a post in the story post category with the title of their choice which includes a single Authentic Shot.

Within 48 hours of such a Shot having been posted, each Seeker (including the poster) may at most once respond to it stating which of their own Private Criteria that Shot satisfies and does not satisfy, provided that none of their Private Criteria has been changed since that Shot was posted and provided that there are no other Shots that were posted before the shot in question, within the last 48 hours, and which the Seeker in question has not already responded to in this manner. Upon doing so:

  • For each non-Saturated Private Criteria in the response that the Shot satisfies, that Private Criteria’s satisfying count is incremented by one, and its owner’s Score is incremented by that Private Criteria’s unsatisfying count.
  • For each non-Saturated Private Criteria in the response that the Shot does not satisfy, that Private Criteria’s unsatisfying count is incremented by one, and its owner’s Score is incremented by that Private Criteria’s satisfying count.

Each Seeker has a Development Bonus which is publicly tracked and defaults to 0. Whenever a Seeker posts a Snap, they gain an amount of Score equal to three times their Development Bonus.

Editing Disclaimer

Any new post that contains a Shot must include a description of any edits or changes made to the photograph prior to it being made a Shot, with a lack of such a description indicating that no editing was done. If a post is found to have broken this rule, the Seeker responsible or any Admin should replace the Shot in the offending post with this image, no scoring may be performed for that post (and any scoring already awarded to the poster should be reverted), and the responsible Seeker may create a new post as if they had not made the offending post.

Guesses

As a Weekly Action, a Seeker (the Guesser) with a score of at least 3 guess a private criteria of another Seeker (the Target) who is not currently Targeted by performing the following Atomic Action known as Initiating a Guess

  • Reduce the score of the Guesser by 3
  • Make a story post to the blog clearly declaring the name of the Targeted Seeker, and what the guesser thinks one of their Private Criteria are

The Target is now considered Targeted, and may not take any other dynastic action until they perform the following Atomic Action known as Resolving the Guess

  • If the guess is equivalent to one of their private Criteria, respond to the post with a :FOR:, reduce their own Score by the Exposure of that private criteria, and increase the score of the Guesser by the same amount, and then remove that Private Criteria from the Target’s private criteria list (resetting its satisfying and unsatisfying counts to zero in the process)
  • If the guess is not equivalent to any of their private Criteria, respond to the post with a :AGAINST:

At this point, the target is no longer considered targeted

Upgrades

If a Seeker believes that a Shot that they have previously posted (but which has not previously been the subject of an Upgrade Request) meets an Upgrade Benchmark then they may make an Upgrade Request.

An Upgrade Request is a post in the Story Post - Votable Matter category which indicates a single Snap posted by the same author and a single Upgrade Benchmark that it purports to meet, and nothing else.

An Upgrade Request is voted on and resolved in the same manner as a Proposal, with the exceptions that it does not need to be resolved in chronological order (nor does it count as a proposal for the purposes of determining the oldest pending Proposal). Seekers should vote FOR on any Upgrade Request where they believe that the specified Snap does meet the specified Upgrade Benchmark. When an Upgrade Request is enacted, the Development Interval of its poster is reduced by 1 (if it is three or higher) or their Development Bonus is increased by one (if their Development Interval is already 2), unless the same Seeker has already had a Upgrade Request enacted for the same Upgrade Benchmark previously in the dynasty, in which case their development interval is not reduced and their development bonus is not increased. (Which Upgrade Benchmarks have been enacted for which seekers should be tracked on the gamestate tracking page for easy reference).

Upgrade Benchmarks are listed in this rule and are as follows:

  • A Snap that was taken in the same place as another Snap taken by a different Seeker.
  • A Snap on which, after 48 hours, every Private Criteria claimed by another Seeker was Unsatisfied
  • A Snap which meets every Public Criteria
  • A Snap which includes a found instance of the BlogNomic username of another Seeker, where the found instance cannot be from a screen capture taken from, or a photo of, a computer monitor, laptop screen, phone, tablet, television, or smart watch

Catching up with the Photos

While a Seeker has exactly 0 Score and has more than one Private Criteria having a non-null value, a Seeker may perform the following Atomic Action once per week:

  • For the previous three Shots in chronological order, perform the following bullet points:
    • Respond to the Shot stating which of their own Private Criteria that Shot satisfies and does not satisfy.
    • For each Private Criteria in the response that the Shot satisfies, that Private Criteria’s satisfying count is incremented by one, and increment their Score by that Private Criteria’s unsatisfying count.
    • For each Private Criteria in the response that the Shot does not satisfies, that Private Criteria’s satisfying count is incremented by one, and increment their Score by that Private Criteria’s satisfying count

Awards

Each Seeker can have a number of Awards, which is publicly tracked and defaults to zero.

At any time, if a Seeker has met the Standard for an Award then they may claim it by making a blog post announcing as such and then incrementing their Awards by 1. A Seeker may only claim each individual Award once in the dynasty.

Any Seeker who has claimed 5 Awards has achieved Victory.

The possible Awards and their Standards are as follows:

Award Standard
Fine Art Photographer of the Year Have more than 200 Score
Excellence in War Photography Have a Development Bonus of at least 3
Outstanding Composition Have five private Criteria, each of which has an Unsatisfying score of 0 and a Satisfying score of 5
Grand Prix in Advertising Photography Successfully Guess (i.e. post a Guess and have the target respond with a FOR mark to that Guess)


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 is gamestate and may not be altered except as specified by the ruleset or through the passage of a Proposal or CfJ; however, its 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 Observer 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; these rules must then be transcribed faithfully to this section of the ruleset, and any Building Blocks rules not so named must be removed from the Building Blocks section. Some rules on the Building Blocks page are listed as being Recommended; if the new Observer makes no statement on Building Blocks rules to be included in their Ascension Address then the Recommended Building Blocks are considered to have been selected. There are currently no Recommended Building Blocks.

Low-Player Mode

The Core Rule Dormancy is flavour text.

Everyone's Playing

For the purposes of all dynastic and Building Blocks rules, the Observer is a Seeker.

No Cooperation

In this dynasty, Seekers are expected to avoid co-operating to achieve Victory, except through the use of co-operative mechanisms defined in the Dynastic rules.

If a Seeker feels that another Seeker has gone against this expectation in some way during the current dynasty, then they are encouraged to vote against all DoVs from that Seeker during that dynasty. This overrules the encouragement to vote according to the perception of a victory in the rule “Victory in Ascension”.

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 Seeker 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 Seeker 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 Seeker 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 Seeker 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 Seekers.
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 Seeker's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Seeker's Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Seeker's Vote on that Votable Matter.
Commentary
When posting a blog entry, a Seeker 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. Seekers , as well as people who are not Seekers 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 Seekers 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. Seekers 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 (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. 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.
Pass the Mantle
Passing the Mantle is a mechanism by which, during an Interregnum, a Observer may nominate another Seeker to become the Observer in the upcoming dynasty.
Post
A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com
Quorum
Quorum of a subset of Seekers is half the number of Seekers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Seekers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Seekers.
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.
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 Observer.
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.
Seasonal Downtime
On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is on Hiatus. In addition, game actions defined by the core rules titled “Seekers” 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.
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 Seeker 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 Seeker 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 is less than six hours old and appears to the Observer to have been intended as a Proposal, and if its author does not already have two Proposals pending, then the Observer 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.

Representations of the Gamestate

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

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

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Seekers 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 Seeker 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, MSeekera, 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 Seeker with such access. Only a Seeker with such access may Enact that Votable Matter. If that Votable Matter does not name a Seeker 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 Seeker making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Seeker 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 Seeker 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 Seeker performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
  • If a Seeker 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 Seeker must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Seeker 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 Seeker 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 Seeker can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Seekers to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Seeker only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Seeker (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 Seeker 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 Seekers 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 Observer (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Observer when the ruleset allows it. If a Seeker should already know such a piece of information (in that the Observer has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Observer 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 a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Seeker 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), Seekers may not deliberately interfere with the function of that tool except in ways explicitly permitted by the ruleset.
  • If the Observer has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Seekers 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 Seekers on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid. If there are six or fewer Seekers, then the Observer’s vote of DEFERENTIAL on a proposal is only affected by this rule if all Seekers who are not the Observer have cast a vote 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 Seeker 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.
  • Seekers may correct obvious spelling, punctuation, and/or typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Votable Matters at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns that refer to Seekers with the corresponding forms of the singular “they”.
  • A Seeker 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 Seeker if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Seeker'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 Seeker's (or prospective Seeker'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 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 “Seekers may Kick each other” and “Seekers may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Seekers 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 “Seekers may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Seekers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Seekers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

A Seeker may have another Seeker as a Mentor. Seekers 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 Seeker 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 Seeker requests a Mentor, or a new Seeker has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Observer should select a Tenured Seeker and ask them to take that Seeker 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 Observer should announce it in a blog post. The Observer should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

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

If there is no Observer, any Seeker who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Observer 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 Seeker 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 Seekers .
  • 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 “Seeker” and “Observer”.

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

  • Seeker (Player)
  • Observer (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.