Ruleset 117

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Infecteds 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.

Infecteds 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”.

Infecteds

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 a Infected. An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT, at which moment they become an Infected.

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

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

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

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

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

An Admin may render an Infected Idle if that Infected has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Infected 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 make a post announcing it when they do so. An Admin may Unidle an Infected if that Infected 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 Infected 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 EVC 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 Infected, known as the Overlord. If there is no Overlord, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

Votable Matters

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

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

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

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

If an Infected other than the Overlord casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Overlord. When the Overlord 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 Overlord'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 Infecteds 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 Infecteds actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Infected feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Infected 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 Infected (other than the Overlord) 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 “Infecteds”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Infected 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 Overlord 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 Infecteds 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 Infected who made the DoV as its Overlord. That Infected may pass this role to another Infected at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Overlord makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Overlord's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Infected and Overlord 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 Infected 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 Infected'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 Infected within BlogNomic.
• An Infected 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 Infected should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
• An Infected should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Infected.
• An Infected should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
• An Infected should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
• An Infected 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

Glorious Overlord

The Alien is an entity that is treated as an Infected for all purposes. The Alien may never be idled.

Mutation

Each Infected has numerical scores for Mutation, Size, Brain and Limbs, tracked in the GNDT and defaulting to zero, 4, 4 and 4 respectively. Size, Brain and Limbs are known as Phenotypes.

At any time, an Infected whose Mutation is less than 10 may increase their Mutation by 1 in order to Mature. When an Infected Matures, they must decrease one of their Phenotypes by 1 and then increase one of their Phenotypes (which may be the same one) by 2.

If one Infected has a lower Mutation than every other Infected, he or she is known as the Survivor.

The numerical scores of all Phenotypes and Mutation must be non-negative integers.

Hold Items

There exist a set of Items which can be Held by Infecteds. Each Item has a Bulk and a Grip rating. Only Items listed as subrules to this rule can be Held. The Bulk and Grip of each Item and the method for acquiring each Item will be listed in their subrule. Unless otherwise stated, an Infected can discard a non-Bodily Item at any time.

If the total Bulk of all Items held by an Infected exceeds their Size, and/or if the total Grip of all Items held by an Infected exceeds their Limbs, that Infected is considered to be Burdened. An Infected may not acquire an Item if they would be Burdened after having acquired it. If an Infected is Burdened, any Infected may randomly select a non-Bodily Item held by that Infected: that Item is discarded.

Each Infected’s currently Held Items are kept track of using the GNDT.

If a Proposal adds one or more subrules to this rule, and makes no other changes to the ruleset, then it is known as an Invention Proposal.

Rock

Item Name: Rock
Bulk: 1
Grip: 1
Method for acquiring: If an Infected is Roaming, they may gain a Rock at any time.
Effect: None

Shovel

Item Name: Shovel
Bulk: 1
Grip: 2
Method for acquiring: If an Infected is an Occupant of the Supply Room, and is not currently Holding a Shovel, they may gain a Shovel at any time.
Effect: While an Infected is Holding a Shovel, that Infected may use two identical voting icons when voting on a Hive Proposal; if they do, their vote on that proposal counts twice.

Tool Box

Item Name: Tool Box
Bulk: 2
Grip: 1
Method for acquiring: If an Infected is an Occupant of the Supply Room, and is not currently Holding a Tool Box, they may gain a Tool Box at any time.
Effect: While an Infected is Holding a Tool Box, that Infected may use two identical voting icons when voting on an Invention Proposal; if they do, their vote on that proposal counts twice.

Egg

Item Name: Egg
Bulk: 1
Grip: 2
Method for acquiring: If the Alien is Roaming, any Infected may have the Alien gain an Egg, unless the Alien would be Burdened after having done so. If an Infected Occupies the same Chamber as the Alien, and the Alien has an Egg, that Infected may move 1 Egg from the Alien to themselves.
Effect: None

Teleportation Ring

Item Name: Teleportation Ring
Bulk: 0
Grip: 0
Method for acquiring: If an Infected is an Occupant of the Supply Room and is not currently Holding a Teleportation Ring, they may gain a Teleportation Ring at any time.
Effect: If an Infected is Holding a Teleportation Ring, as a Daily Action they may attempt to Teleport by rolling DICE3 and discarding up to 3 Diamonds. If the result is less than or equal to the number of Diamonds they discarded, the Infected may become an Occupant of any Chamber or become Roaming, and then ceases to be an Occupant of any Chamber they were occupying previously. If the result is greater than the number of Diamonds they discarded, they cease to become an Occupant of any Chamber and are Roaming.

Diamond

Item Name: Diamond
Bulk: 0.2
Grip: 0.2
Method for Acquiring: If an infected is Holding a Tool Box and a Rock, they may discard the Rock to roll DICE4. If the result is 1, they gain a Diamond.
Effect: None.

Hatchling

Item Name: Hatchling
Bulk: 2
Grip: 0
Method for acquiring: An Infected may remove an Egg from their Possession to gain a Hatchling; upon doing so, all other Eggs and Hatchlings held by that Infected are removed from play.
Effect: If an Infected is holding a Hatchling, they may - prior to taking any game action defined by the dynastic rules - consider any one of their Phenotypes to be increased by 2 for the duration of that action.

Claw

Item Name: Claw
Bulk: 0
Grip: 1
Method for acquiring: An Infected may increase their Mutation by 1 to gain a Claw.
Effect: Each Claw provides +1 Attack. Claws are Bodily Items.

Fangs

Item Name: Fangs
Bulk: 0
Grip: 0
Method for acquiring: An Infected may increase their Mutation by 1 to gain Fangs, if they have no Fangs.
Effect: If an Infected with Fangs causes an Infected's Phenotype to be reduced under the rule "Conflict", the Infected with Fangs may gain 1 Size or 1 Brain. Fangs are a Bodily Item.

Races

Each Infected has a trait known as Race that depends on their Limb and Size Phenotypes.

• If an Infected has 0 Limbs and a Size of 0, their Race is Bacteria.
• If an Infected has 0 Limbs and a Size of 1-5, their Race is Blob.
• If an Infected has 0 Limbs and a Size of 6 or more, their Race is Big Blob.
• If an Infected has 1-5 Limbs and a Size of 0, their Race is Flagellate.
• If an Infected has 1-5 Limbs and a Size of 1-5, their Race is Human.
• If an Infected has 1-5 Limbs and a Size of 6 or more, their Race is Monster.
• If an Infected has 6 or more Limbs and a Size of 0, their Race is Paramecium.
• If an Infected has 6 or more Limbs and a Size of 1-5, their Race is Insect.
• If an Infected has 6 or more Limbs and a Size of 6 or more, their Race is Alien.

Communication

One Infected may be the Communicant, their identity being tracked in the next sentence. The current Communicant is: Kevan.

The Communicant may cast the Alien’s vote for them on a proposal by making a comment on that proposal with exactly six voting icons in a row, followed by an http://blognomic.com/images/vote/arrow.gif - this comment does not count as a vote by the Communicant. The voting icon which appears most frequently in the row is considered to be the Alien’s vote on that proposal, and must correspond to the Alien’s Opinion on that proposal.

The Alien has a Distress Call and a Mobbing Call, both of which are English words tracked privately by the Communicant, and initially undefined. If the Calls are undefined, the Communicant may choose new words for them. When an Infected ceases to be the Communicant, both Calls become undefined.

If a Proposal contains a Mobbing Call and no Distress Call, the Alien’s Opinion of the proposal is that it should vote FOR. If a Proposal contains a Distress Call and no Mobbing Call, the Alien’s Opinion of the proposal is that it should vote AGAINST. If neither of these is the case, the Alien’s Opinion is that it should vote DEFERENTIAL.

If an Infected has more Brain than any other Infected (other than the Alien), then that Infected may make a blog post whose title includes the word "Communicant" and which announces this occurrence. Upon doing so, they become the new Communicant and must update this rule to reflect this.

If the Communicant has been the Communicant for all of the previous 120 hours, and if the Alien has cast no votes FOR or AGAINST in that time, and if the Alien’s Brain has not been Atrophied in that time, then any Infected may Atrophy the Alien’s brain by making a blog post announcing such an event, and reducing the Brain of both the Communicant and the Alien by 1.

The Chambers

The Alien is psychically encouraging the construction of a number of mysterious Chambers, listed as subrules to this rule. An Infected may either occupy a single Chamber, or be Roaming; by default each Infected is Roaming. Infected who occupy a Chamber are tracked in a list at the end of that Chamber’s rule, as “Occupants: [list of occupants]”.

If a Proposal creates or modifies a single subrule of this rule, and makes no other changes to the ruleset, then it is known as a Hive Proposal. If an EVC on a Hive Proposal includes the word “Dig” it is a Dig Vote, otherwise it is not. The Alien’s Vote is always a Dig Vote. When a Hive Proposal adds or modifies a Chamber rule, every Infected whose vote for the Proposal was FOR and also a Dig Vote becomes an Occupant of that Chamber, and ceases to occupy any Chamber they were occupying previously. If a Hive Proposal enacts with no Dig Votes which are also FOR votes, its proposed change to the ruleset does not occur.

When a Hive Proposal which the Alien voted AGAINST enacts, the Alien becomes Roaming if it wasn’t already. Each Chamber is either on the Surface, or below one or more other Chambers (known as its "Entrances"); if a Chamber does not specify that it is below any others, it is on the Surface. The Infected who made the proposal that enacted this rule may at any time randomly select an Infected (other than the Alien) who voted in favour the proposal that enacted this rule, whether or not their currently occupied Chamber has an Entrance; upon doing so, the selected Infected achieves victory and any Chamber with no Entrance is considered to be on the Surface. If a Hive Proposal would create or modify a Chamber which - following the Proposal's enactment - would not be on the Surface, then Dig Votes on that Proposal from Infecteds who are neither occupying that Chamber nor any of the Chambers which would be its Entrances are not considered to be Dig Votes.

Supply Room

An Infected may not Mature while they are an Occupant of the Supply Room.

Occupants: Murphy, Babylon

Crash Site

An Infected at the Crash Site may activate the genetic backup system in the ship’s still-functioning medical bay: upon doing so, that Infected’s Mutation, Size, Brain and Limbs are set to zero, 4, 4 and 4 respectively, and they lose all Items they are Holding.

Occupants:

Evil AI Interface Room

An Infected at the Evil AI Interface Room with a Brain of six or more may use two identical voting icons when voting on a Dynastic Proposal that is neither a Hive nor an Invention Proposal; if they do, their vote counts twice.

Occupants:

Lava Vent

Whenever one or more Infecteds enter the Lava Vent, a Lava Flow occurs if there has not already been a Lava Flow that day. When a Lava Flow occurs, every Infected who is Roaming loses 1 Limb (to a minimum of zero).

Occupants:

Crawlspace

Any Occupant of the Crawlspace who has a Size of 5 or more may not take any action defined by a dynastic rule.

Occupants: The Alien

The Royal Chamber

The Royal Chamber is below the Crawlspace. If the Alien is in the Royal Chamber, any Infected in the Royal Chamber may move it to the Crawlspace. If there are exactly two Infected in the Royal Chamber and one of them is named Kevan, then either of those Infecteds may roll DICE10 in the GNDT with a comment of “Swarming”, if neither has already done so this dynasty. On a result of 1-6, the Infected named Kevan achieves victory; on any other result, the other Infected in the Royal Chamber achieves victory.

Occupants: Kevan, Benzene

Conflict

Each Infected has a number of Attacks, defaulting to one. If an Infected has both a greater Size and more Attacks than a specific Infected (the “Beta”) who they share a Chamber with, they may reduce any one of the Beta’s Phenotypes by 1 and change the Beta to be Roaming.

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 Infecteds.

Daily Action

If a game action is a Daily Action, each Infected 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 Infected’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Infected’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Infected’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

Flavour Text

When posting a blog entry, an Infected 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, including all Wiki Pages, or GNDT columns, which the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention.

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

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 Infected 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 Infected, but only if it has not been performed (by any Infected) 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 Infected 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 Infected 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 Infected may update any Infected'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 Infected may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Infected 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, Infecteds are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Infecteds 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 Infected 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 Infecteds to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Infected (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
• An Infected 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 Infecteds, or for existing Infecteds 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.
• Unless explicitly stated otherwise, a wiki page shall be blanked when it becomes gamestate.
• 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, Player 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 an Infected if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Infected'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 “Infecteds may Kick each other” and “Infecteds may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Infecteds may not Kick each other.)
4. If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Infecteds may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Infecteds may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Infecteds may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)