Ruleset

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Councillors shall obey it. Section One consists of the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering basic proposal mechanics; Section Two contains the rules of the current dynasty; and Section Three contains the appendix, which exists solely to clarify the remainder of the ruleset.

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

Councillors 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”.

If the Ruleset does not properly reflect all legal changes that have been made to it, any Councillor may update it to do so.

Councillors

Any human may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already a Councillor) 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 Councillor. An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT, at which moment they become a Councillor.

A Councillor may cease to be a Councillor at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. A human who has ceased to be a Councillor in this way may not become a Councillor again within the following two weeks. A Councillor may only change their name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

Some Councillors are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Councillors who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves Admins. Existing Admins may be removed from their posts by Proposal, CfJ, or voluntary resignation. New admins shall be given the GNDT configuration password when they become admins.

Idle Councillors

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

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

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

An Admin may render a Councillor Idle if that Councillor has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Councillor has not posted an entry or comment in the last seven days. In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so. An Admin may Unidle a Councillor if that Councillor 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 Councillor who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous four days, and within the current dynasty.

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

Dynasties

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

Votable Matters

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

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

Votable Matters can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Votable Matter is first put forward, it is considered Pending.

Whenever an Admin resolves a Votable Matter, they must also mark their name, and report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was self-killed or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on Enacted or Failed Votable Matters.

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

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

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

If a Councillor other than the Mayor casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Mayor. When the Mayor has a valid Vote other than VETO on a Proposal, then all votes of DEFERENTIAL are instead considered to be valid and the same as the Mayor's Vote for the purposes of other rules unless otherwise specified.

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest pending Proposal may be enacted by any Admin (by updating the Ruleset and/or Gamestate to include the specified effects of that Proposal, and then setting that Proposal's status to Enacted) if either of the following is true:

• It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST, and it has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.

The oldest pending Proposal may be failed by any Admin, if any of the following are true:

• It has been Vetoed or Self-Killed.
• The number of Councillors who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.

If a proposal somehow ends up being pending for more than 7 days, it is ignored for the purpose of calculating the oldest pending proposal, and can be failed by any Admin.

Calls for Judgement

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

A Pending CFJ may be Resolved by an Admin if it has a Quorum of FOR Votes, a Quorum of AGAINST Votes, or if it has been open for voting for more than 48 hours. When a CFJ is Resolved, it is to be Enacted if it has more FOR Votes than AGAINST Votes and Failed otherwise. When a CFJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct the GNDT and other gamestate tracking entities, as specified in the CFJ.

Any CfJ that specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate tracking entities may be failed by any Admin.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If a Councillor (other than the Mayor) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a post to the Blognomic weblog in the Declaration of Victory category, detailing this.

Upon doing so, the game immediately goes into Hiatus, if it hasn’t already. During this time, the only game actions that may be taken are those covered by Rules “Councillors”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Councillor may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty.

A Pending DoV may be enacted if any of the following is true:

• It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and either the Mayor has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
• It has been open for voting for at least 24 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and has a number of AGAINST Votes lesser than half of Quorum, rounded down.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, has a number of Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and more than half of its valid Votes are FOR.

A DoV may be failed if any of the following are true:

• It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and the number of Councillors who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
• It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be Enacted.

When a DoV fails and there are no pending DoVs, Hiatus ends.

When a DoV is enacted, all other active DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins with the Councillor who made the DoV as its Mayor. That Councillor may pass this role to another Councillor at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Mayor makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Mayor's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Councillor and Mayor will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire ruleset, and/or a number of dynastic rules to keep. Upon posting such an Ascension Address, the Ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

A DoV may not be started in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address. When a DoV is failed, if it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Councillor who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was failed.

This rule cannot be overruled by Dynastic Rules as it relates to Declarations of Victory, but can be overruled in other matters.

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Councillor'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 Councillor within BlogNomic.
• A Councillor 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 Councillor should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
• A Councillor should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Councillor.
• A Councillor should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
• A Councillor should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• A Councillor should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).

Seasonal Downtime

Blognomic goes into hiatus every year on December 24th, and remains in hiatus until December 27th. During this time no game actions may be taken except those described in the rules entitled “Votable Matters,” “Gamestate Tracking” and “Call for Judgement”.

Dynastic Rules

Auld Anchorage

The City of Auld Anchorage is a 10x10 grid of Blocks. Each Block supports one of four Parties (Up, Down, Charm or Strange) and is part of a named Constituency (Anchorage, Brucetown, Danforth, Fluke Hill, Grapnel East, Grapnel West, Herreshoff, Northill, Killick or The Bowery). This information is tracked on the Auld Anchorage wiki page.

If a single Party is supported by more Blocks in a Constituency than every other Party in that Constituency, then that Constituency is said to support that Party. If a single Party is supported by more Constituencies than every other Party, then that Party is said to be In Power.

Two blocks are adjacent if they share a border on the grid.

Council Duties

Each Councillor may represent a single Constituency, and this is tracked in the GNDT.

If a Councillor represents no Constituency, then they may represent any unrepresented Constituency by updating the GNDT to this effect.

Atomic Actions

An Atomic Action is a series of steps, defined in the Ruleset as a numbered list, that affect the gamestate or Ruleset (or both) of Blognomic. When a Councillor 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 Councillor performing an Atomic Action should perform its steps as quickly as they are able.

If an hour has passed since a Councillor began an Atomic Action, but they have not completed it, all its steps are considered illegal and may be reverted by any Councillor, and the Atomic Action is not considered to have been performed.

Gerrymander

As a Staff Action, a Councillor can Gerrymander. When a Councillor Gerrymanders, they choose one block of Auld Anchorage and change its Constituency to any other Constituency. When changing the Constituency of a block, the following rules must be followed:

• A Constituency may not have 8 or less blocks.
• A Constituency may not have 12 or more blocks.
• All blocks in a Constituency must be connected to all other blocks of that Constituency in one continuous group.

Campaign

As a Staff Action, a Councillor can Campaign. When a Councillor Campaigns, they choose one block of Auld Anchorage and change its Party to any other Party as long as at least one adjacent block is of the new Party.

Staff

Each Councillor has a number of Staff, defaulting to 3. A number of each Councillor's Staff are Ready, defaulting to 3. Staff and their Readiness are tracked in the GNDT (eg. "2/3" for a Councillor with 3 Staff, 2 of whom are Ready).

When a Councillor takes a Staff Action, they must reduce their Ready Staff by 1 to do so. A Councillor may not take a Staff Action if they have fewer than 1 Ready Staff.

As a Daily Communal Action that may only be taken on a Monday, any Councillor may set every Councillor's Ready Staff value to match that same Councillor's Staff value.

Surveys

A Constituency may have one or more of the following Aspects, tracked in the Key on the Auld Anchorage wiki page. (By default, a Constituency has no Aspects.) Each Aspect has a Bonus, listed in brackets, and some requirements:

• Diverse (+1 Staff) Requires at least two blocks supporting each of the four Parties.
• Unified (+2 Staff) Requires at least eight blocks supporting a single Party, and at most two blocks not supporting that Party.

As a daily action which is also an Atomic Action, a Councillor may perform a Survey. That action consists of checking each Constituency in alphabetical order: if the checked Constituency lacks any Aspects which it meets the requirements for, it gains those Aspects (and the Councillor representing it gains those Aspects’ Bonuses); then, if it has any Aspects it does not meet the requirements of, it loses those Aspects (and the Councillor representing it loses those Aspects’ Bonuses).

If Staff lost through this rule would cause a Councillor to have more Ready Staff than their maximum Staff, their number of Ready Staff is set to the same number as their maximum Staff. Otherwise, their number of Ready Staff is unaffected by these losses. Staff loss by means of this rule cannot cause a Councillor to have fewer than three Staff.

Party Lines

Each Councillor is part of one of the four Parties, and this is tracked in the GNDT.

If a Councillor is part of no Party, then they may join any Party by updating the GNDT to this effect.

Headquarters

Each Constituency may have one Headquarters, positioned in a specific block and marked on the Auld Anchorage map with an asterisk in that block. If a block contains a Headquarters it may not have its Party or Constituency changed.

As a Staff action, a Councillor may add, remove or move a Headquarters within the Constituency that they represent.

Appendix

Keywords

A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word. A keyword defined in this glossary supersedes that defined by a rule. (eg. A rule specifying "bananas are blue" cannot be overruled by posting a dictionary definition or a photo of a banana, and a rule specifying "every day is Sunday" will be overruled by the glossary entry below.)

Can

"is able to"

Comment

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

Core Proposal

A Proposal which mandates changes that, even if conditionally, are limited to the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of core rules and/or the glossary, and/or renaming, banning, and/or the granting or removing of admin status from one or more Councillors.

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Councillor 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 Councillor per day.

Day

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

Dice

References to "YDICEX" refer to Y X-sided dice, rolled within the GNDT. To roll dice, post DICEX in the comments field of the GNDT, replacing X with the number of sides on the die you wish to roll.

Dynastic Proposal

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

Effective Vote Comment (EVC)

A Councillor’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Councillor’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Councillor’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Flavour Text

When posting a blog entry, a Councillor may use the “Commentary or flavour text” field of the blog publishing form to add their own comments or description of their post. For the purposes of all other rules, such text is not considered to be part of the post.

Gamestate

Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. 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

The Blognomic IRC channel is located at #nomic on the slashnet network (irc.slashnet.org).

May

"is permitted to"

May not

"is not permitted to"

Post

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

Private Message

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

Quorum

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

Resolve/Resolution

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

Each individually numbered section of the ruleset is a rule, including sections that are sub-rules of other rules.

Shall

"is required to"

Should

"is recommended that"

Sibling Rule

Two rules are “siblings” of each other if they are both direct subrules of the same rule.

Slack

The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Councillors may request an invite to the Slack while logged in by clicking the button in the sidebar.

Slack Channel

A Slack Channel is any channel on the BlogNomic Slack. To reference a Slack Channel, use a hash (#) followed by the name of that channel. (For example, #random.)

Story Post

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

Subject

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

Subrule

A subrule is a type of rule that is nested within another rule. A proposal that specifically affects a rule affects all of its subrules; a proposal that specifically affects a subrule does not affect its parent rule or any other subrule of that rule, unless they are also explicitly cited as being affected by that proposal.

Vote

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

Voting Icons

For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, an IMP http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and an Imperial Seal http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent the Imperial Veto.

Week

References to a week as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “At the beginning of each week”, or “already happened this week”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a period of time between the beginning of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.

Weekly Action

If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Councillor 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 Councillor per week.

Wiki

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

Gamestate Tracking

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Councillor 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.

If no Councillor has commented on it, or if the only comments on it begin with “Note:” and contain no voting icons, an official post may be altered or removed by its author; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post's Status must be changed to reflect its status.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following exception: Whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish.

Specific parts of the Gamestate data shall be tracked by the Generic Nomic Data Tracker at http://blognomic.com/gndt/generic.cgi?nomic=blog. Any Councillor may update any Councillor's data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.

All updates to the GNDT are logged. Actions that change gamestate directly (defined in other rules) can normally be performed simply by applying their effects to the GNDT, which updates the gamestate accordingly, unless another rule specifies some other method of performing them; one GNDT update may contain one or more actions, or one action may be split over multiple GNDT updates, as long as it’s clear what is happening and the actions are otherwise legal. The GNDT merely represents the Gamestate, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and the GNDT are different, any Councillor may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Councillor 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, Councillors are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Councillors shall be assigned a password for the GNDT when they join the Nomic.

Random Generators

The GNDT can be used to generate random results.

• The DICEN command can be used to generate a random number between 1 and N.
• The FRUIT command will return a random result from the following options: Lemon, Orange, Kiwi, Grape, Cherry, Tangelo.
• The COLOUR (or COLOR) command will return a random result from the following: White, Red, Green, Silver, Yellow, Turquoise, Magenta, Orange, Purple, Black.
• The VEGGIE command will return a random result from the following: Potato, Carrot, Triffid, Pumpkin.

Any changes to the potential outcomes of the GNDT’s random result commands must be made by proposal; and any proposal that seeks to nominate a change to this rule must first identify an active Councillor with server-level access to the BlogNomic site who is able to perform the changes, and must also update this rule to reflect the new potential outcomes.

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

• If a set of valid values is not specified in their definition, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers. Any action that would set those values below zero is an illegal action unless explicitly otherwise stated in the ruleset.
• Any situation which would require a roll of DiceX when X is zero or lower always yields a value of 0 unless stated otherwise.
• All numbers, unless stated otherwise by a rule, are in base ten.
• Unless otherwise specified, to “spend” or “lose” an amount X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V; to “gain” X of a numeric value “V” means to add X to V; and to “transfer” X of a numeric value “V” from A to B means to subtract X from A’s V and add X to B’s V. Unless otherwise specified, only positive amounts can be spent, lost, gained, or transferred, and a rule that allows Councillors to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Councillor (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• A Councillor who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action's effects are limited to changing values tracked in the GNDT and/or similar gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one or more of those values to an illegal value.
• If a rule implies that the result of any calculation should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the calculation is instead the result rounded towards 0.
• If a number or other game variable is selected 'at random' or 'randomly' from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified. This value must be determined by an appropriate DICE roll in the GNDT, unless otherwise specified.
• If a game variable has no defined starting value, then that starting value is the nearest legal value to zero that it may take (for numerical variables, defaulting to positive if tied), blank (for a text string or list that may be blank), the alphabetically earliest legal text string it may take (for a text string which may not be blank, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”), or the list which is alphabetically earliest from the set of lists with the fewest elements (for lists which may not be blank, and considering each list to be a single unpunctuated text string, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”).
• Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in the GNDT remain valid. (for example, if X appears in a formula referring to a value that is a non-negative integer, X must be used as a non-negative integer)

Rules and Proposals

• If a new rule is created by a proposal and its location is not noted in that proposal, that new rule is to be placed in the Dynastic Rules.
• If a wiki page becomes gamestate as a result of a proposal enacting, that page shall - unless otherwise specified - be reverted to whatever state it was in at the time of that proposal's submission (and if the page did not exist at that time, it shall be blanked).
• Where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (eg. a proposal proposing that enacted proposals earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
• Rules which trigger upon the Resolution of a Votable Matter are the responsibility of the Admin who Resolves it.
• Unless otherwise specified, a new Dynastic rule shall be placed at the end of the Dynastic Rules.
• If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead named “Unnamed Rule”.
• The names of rules are not themselves rule text and have no effect other than being rule names.
• If the admin enacting a proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (eg. “two days after this proposal enacts, Councillor A gains 1 point”), that step is ignored for the purposes of enactment. Once a proposal has been enacted, it can have no further direct effect on the gamestate.

Time

• For the purpose of all rules, time in Blognomic is in UTC.
• All references to time must be either specific or defined within the ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. "dinnertime", "twilight") cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
• Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (eg. "04/10/09"), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.

Spelling

• Superficial differences between the spelling of geographic versions of English, e.g, British English, American English and Australian English shall be construed as irrelevant for the purposes of play.

Names

• Within the ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Councillor if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Councillor's name.

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 Rule;
2. A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
3. 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 “Councillors may Kick each other” and “Councillors may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Councillors may not Kick each other.)
4. If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Councillors may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Councillors may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Councillors may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)