Ruleset 105

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Editors 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.

Editors 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”.

Editors

Any human may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already playing) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post making clear their wish to be an Editor. An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT, at which moment they become an Editor.

An Editor may leave the game at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. An Editor may not rejoin the game within two weeks after having left. An Editor may only change their name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

Some Editors are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Editors 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 Editors

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

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

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

An Admin may render an Editor Idle if that Editor has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Editor 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. An Admin may Unidle an Editor if that Editor 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 Editor who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous four days, and within the current dynasty.

Dynasties

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

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

When an Editor casts an explicit vote AGAINST their own Proposal, this renders the Proposal Self-Killed, even if the author later changes their Vote. The Mogul may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Mogul casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Mogul later changes their Vote.

If an Editor other than the Mogul casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Mogul. When the Mogul 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 Mogul’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 could not be Enacted without either one of the Votes AGAINST it being changed, or the set of Editors being changed, or by awaiting the passage of time.
• 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.

Votable Matters

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

Each Editor 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 Editor’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-Editor never has a Vote, even if they were an Editor 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).

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

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Editors actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Editor feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Editor 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 an Editor (other than the Mogul) 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 “Editors”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Editor 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 Mogul 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 it could not be Enacted without either at least one of the Votes AGAINST it being changed, or the set of Editors being changed, or by awaiting the passage of time.
• 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 Editor who made the DoV as its Mogul. That Editor may pass this role to another Editor at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Mogul makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Mogul's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Editor and Mogul 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 has a number of AGAINST Votes that exceed Quorum, the Editor 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 an Editor'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 Editor within BlogNomic.
• An Editor 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 Editor should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
• An Editor should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Editor.
• An Editor should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
• An Editor should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• An Editor 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

Editors

Each Editor is in charge of a single Newspaper. A Newspaper may have a Name (of no more than 20 letters), which is tracked in the GNDT. If a Newspaper has no Name, its Editor may give it any Name not already in use by another Newspaper.

Stances

A Newspaper may have one or more Stances on the Subjects of War, Science, Government, Business, Sport and Celebrity. Each Stance must be either Pro or Anti, and a Newspaper’s Stances are tracked in a GNDT field (eg. “Pro-War, Anti-Science”).

If a Newspaper has fewer than two Stances, its Editor may assign it a new Stance on a Subject different from that of any of its existing Stances, unless this would result in the Newspaper having two Stances which are the same as two of the Stances of an existing Newspaper.

An Editor may, at any time, blank his or her Newspaper’s Stances and Name, and set all of its Reputation Scores to zero.

If more newspapers have a Pro Stance on a Subject than have an Anti Stance on that Subject, then that Subject is considered to be Supported. If more newspapers have an Anti Stance on a Subject than have a Pro Stance on that Subject, then that Subject is considered to be Condemned.

The Spectrum

Each Stance and each Newspaper has a relative political position, which is referred to as its Wingedness. A Stance or Newspaper’s Wingedness can be Right Wing, Left Wing or Centrist; a Newspaper can also potentially be Hard Right, Hard Left, Centre-Right, or Centre-Left. Each Wingedness containing “Right” is opposite each Wingedness containing “Left”, and vice versa.

The Wingedness of a Newspaper is determined by the Wingedness of its Stances (R = Right Wing, L = Left Wing, C = Centrist, U = undefined):

• RR -> Hard Right
• R or RU -> Right Wing
• RC -> Centre-Right
• RL or CC or C or CU -> Centrist
• LC -> Centre-Left
• L or LU -> Left Wing
• LL -> Hard Left
• otherwise undefined

The Wingedness of each Stance is initially undefined; however, whenever an Editor can prove the Wingedness of a Stance held by their own Newspaper under the terms of this rule then they may update this Rule to note that fact. Once the Wingedness of a Stance has been noted in this rule it cannot be changed. A Stance’s Wingedness can be defined only if such a definition can both be proved as a result of one of the following criteria and cannot be disproved by any of them:

• If the Pro- or Anti- position of a Stance has a defined Wingedness that is either Right Wing or Left Wing then the opposing position of that Stance must be either Centrist or the opposite Wingedness.
• If three Newspapers have an undefined Stance, and each of those Newspapers has another Stance that shares the same Wingedness, AND no Newspaper has the same undefined Stance in conjunction with a Stance of the opposite Wingedness, then the undefined Stance may be defined as possessing that Wingedness.
• A Stance may not have any Wingedness if it can be proved to have two or more Wingednesses under the terms of the other items in this list.
• Any Pro Stance on a Subject with a Public Opinion that is equal to or greater than 75, or any Anti Stance on a Subject with a Public Opinion that is equal to or less than -75, is Centrist.
• If the Pro- or Anti- position of a Stance has a defined Wingedness that is Centrist then the opposing position of that Stance must be either Right Wing or Left Wing.
• Any Anti Stance on a Subject with a Public Opinion that is equal to or greater than 75, or any Pro Stance on a Subject with a Public Opinion that is equal to or less than -75, is either Right Wing or Left Wing.
• If no Stance has had its Wingedness proved within the past 72 hours, then any Editor can prove the Wingedness of a Stance by announcing the Stance and its Wingedness.

The current Wingedness of each stance is detailed below:

• Anti-Business is Left Wing.
• Pro-Science is Right Wing.

The World

There are Locations, which are listed in this rule below. Each Location is assigned an Importance (reflecting the newsworthiness of events relating to that Location), which is an integer greater than 0 and less than or equal to 100. The base value of each Location’s Importance is set forth in parentheses next to the Location’s name in this rule, and the actual value may be subject to adjustments as provided in the Ruleset or Gamestate. The text strings “List begins” and “List ends” denote the beginning and end of the list of Locations, but are not part of the list of Locations. The list of Locations follows:

List begins
United Kingdom (100), United States (95), Libya (90), Egypt (85), China (80), France (75), Israel (70), Afghanistan (65), Syria (60), Germany (55), Japan (50), Italy (45), Greece (40), Ireland (35), Russia (30)
List ends

The Wire

No more than once every 48 hours, the Mogul may Check the Wire by performing the following actions in sequence:-

• Generating four Events. Each Event has a randomly-selected Subject (from those Subjects listed in the rule “Stances”), a randomly-selected Location (from those Locations listed in the rule “The World”), a tone (selected at random) of either Positive, Negative or Neutral, and a Description (written by the Mogul).
• Posting all of those Events in a blog post titled “From the Wire”. This is known as a Wire Post.

Running a Story

If a Wire Post exists which is less than 72 hours old, any Editor may run a Story on one of that Wire Post’s Events (if they have not yet run a Story on any of the Events in that Wire Post) by responding to it with a comment that indicates the Event’s Location and Subject, and includes a Headline of the Editor’s choice. Upon doing so:-

• If the Editor’s Newspaper’s Stance on that Event’s Subject is “Pro” and the Event is Positive (or the Stance is “Anti” and the Event is Negative), the Editor may immediately increase their Newspaper’s Journalistic Integrity by 1.
• If the Editor’s Newspaper’s Stance on that Event’s Subject is “Pro” and the Event is Negative (or the Stance is “Anti” and the Event is Positive), the Editor may immediately increase their Newspaper’s Balance by 1.
• If the Editor’s Newspaper has a Stance on that Event’s Subject and the Event is Neutral, the Editor may choose either Understandibility or Humor, and immediately raise or lower their Newspaper’s score in that area by 1.
• If the Importance of a Event’s Location and the Public Opinion of that Event’s Subject total 100 or more, then that Event is Popular. If an Editor runs a Story on a Popular Event, then they may immediately raise or lower any of their Newspaper’s Reputation scores by 1.

If the Importance of a Event’s Location and the Public Opinion of that Event’s Subject total 0 or less, then that Event is Boring. An Editor may not run a Story on an Event if the Event is, at that time, Boring.

Reputation

Each Newspaper has a Reputation Score in the following areas: Journalistic Integrity, Balance, Understandability, and Humor. These scores are integers between -5 and 5 inclusive, and are zero by default. They are tracked in a single column in the GNDT called “Reputation” as a comma separated list in the order listed in this rule.

Public Opinion

Each Subject has a “Public Opinion” value, being an integer greater than -101 and less than 101. The Public Opinion of each Subject is tracked in this rule as follows:

• War: 0
• Science: 30
• Government: -20
• Business: -10
• Sport: -20
• Celebrity: 0

As a weekly action, the Mogul may Reflect Opinion by adding 10 to the Public Opinion of each Subject which is Supported (to a maximum of 100), and deducting 10 from the Public Opinion of each Subject which is Condemned (to a minimum of -100).

Sharp Practices

There exist a number of Sharp Practices that an Editor can perform. They are described in the subrules to this rule. Any time an Editor performs a Sharp Practice, they must increase their Skeletons In The Closet (tracked in the GNDT as ‘Skeletons’, defaulting to zero) by 1.

Phone hacking

Phone Hacking is a Sharp Practice that can be undertaken as a weekly action. When an Editor Hacks a Phone, they may Make a Wire Post as described in the rule entitled The Wire, containing a single Event, with a Subject of the Editor’s choosing and with a tone that must be Negative.

Using Inside Sources

Using Inside Sources is a Sharp Practice that can be undertaken by an Editor whenever they run a Story, no more than once per Story. If that Story would increase a Newspaper’s Journalistic Integrity or Balance by 1, it instead increases that value by 2.

Departmental Firing

Departmental Firing is a Sharp Practice that can be undertaken at any time. When undertaken by an Editor, that Editor may remove one or more Stances from their Newspaper.

Biased Polling

Biased Polling is a Sharp Practice that can be undertaken as a weekly action. When an Editor undertakes Biased Polling, they may add or subtract 10 to or from the Public Opinion on any subject.

Mudslinging

As a weekly action, an Editor may make a comment to the GNDT saying “Rumour Mill” and increase the Skeletons of any other Editor by 1, unless doing so would result in the targeted Editor having more than 5 Skeletons.

Inquiries

As a weekly action, and if no Inquiries have been called within the past 72 hours, then any Editor may Call an Inquiry by reducing their Journalistic Integrity by 1, choosing a Newspaper to investigate (the “Guilty” Newspaper, which must be a Newspaper which has a number of Skeletons higher than that of each other Newspaper), taking any surname from this list and making a post with a title “The [Surname] Inquiry”, where [Surname] is the chosen Surname. This is known as an Inquiry Post, and it must mention the name of the Guilty Newspaper and a list of two or more Subjects (the “Scope” of the Inquiry).

An Inquiry Post is treated as if it were a Wire Post containing one Neutral Event for each Subject in the Inquiry’s Scope, each with a Location of United Kingdom. A Newspaper may not run a Story on an Inquiry Post if it is the Guilty Newspaper named in that post.

If an Inquiry Post is more than 72 hours old and it has not already announced its Findings, then any Editor may announce its Findings by posting a comment to this effect on the Inquiry Post. Upon doing so, the Guilty Newspaper loses 1 Skeleton and has its Journalistic Integrity halved (rounding towards zero).

Scoop of the Century

A Newspaper’s Reach is the sum of its Reputation Scores, modified as follows:

• If it has two Stances with opposite Wingedness, then its Balance counts double.
• If its Stance is Hard Right or Hard Left, then its Journalistic Integrity counts double and its Humor is inverted (i.e. multiplied by -1).
• If the Editor has one or more Skeletons in the Closet, their Newspaper’s Reach is decreased by the number of those Skeletons.

If an Editor’s Newspaper has Reach of at least 14 then that Editor has achieved victory.

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 Editors.

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Editor able to perform it may take that action once each day, but not more than once every ten hours.

Day

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

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)

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

Flavour Text

When posting a blog entry, an Editor 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.

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

Quorum

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

Resolve/Resolution

If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the world “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.

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 Editor able to perform it may take that action once each week, but not more than once every twenty-four hours.

Weekly Communal Action

If a game action is a Weekly Communal Action, it can be performed by any Editor, but only if it has not been performed (by any Editor) already in the same week.

Wiki

The BlogNomic Wiki at http://blognomic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

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 Editor 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. No entry may be more than one of the following official types of post: Votable Matters, and Idling Post.

If no Editor has commented on it, an official post may be altered or removed by its author; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. 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 Editor may update any Editor'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 Editor may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Editor 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, Editors are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Editors 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 Editor 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 Editors to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Editor (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• An Editor 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.
• If a game variable has no defined starting value for new Editors, or for existing Editors upon the variable’s creation, then that starting value is zero (for numerical variables) or blank (for a text string or list).
• 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.
• 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.

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 an Editor if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Editor'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 a Core Rule, or if both of them are a Dynastic Rule, the part with more limited scope applies. (e.g. if the rules “Editors may Kick each other” and “Editors may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Editors may not Kick each other.)
4. If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Editors may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Editor may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Editors may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)