Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Cooks 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.

Cooks 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”.

Cooks

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

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

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

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

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

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

An Admin may render a Cook Idle if that Cook has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past four days, or if that Cook 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 Cook if that Cook 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 Cook 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 Cook, known as the Restaurant Manager. If there is no Restaurant Manager, the Dynasty is a Metadynasty.

Votable Matters

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

Each Cook 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 Cook’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-Cook never has a Vote, even if they were a Cook 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 Cook may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Cook already has 2 Proposals pending, or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

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

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

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

The Restaurant Manager

The Restaurant Manager (aka the Manager) is not considered a cook for the purposes of dynastic rules.

Ingredients

Ingredients are items from the following list. An Ingredient’s properties are chosen by the Restaurant Manager, are fixed, and may be listed in brackets after their name in this list. (If an Ingredient has no properties listed, the Restaurant Manager should update this rule to include them.)

Minced Meat (Sweetness 1, Sourness 0, Umami 5, Spicyness 2)
Chilli Pepper (Sweetness 1, Sourness 0, Umami 0, Spicyness 5, Vegetarian)
Tomato (Sweetness 3, Sourness 3, Umami 2, Spicyness 1, Vegetarian)
Eggplant (Sweetness 2, Sourness 1, Umami 3, Spicyness 0, Vegetarian)
Sugar (Sweetness 5, Sourness 1, Umami 3, Spicyness 0, Vegetarian)
Lemon (Sweetness 4, Sourness 5, Umami 0, Spicyness 0, Vegetarian)
Potato (Sweetness 3, Sourness 0, Umami 1, Spicyness 0, Vegetarian)

Taste Buds

Every Ingredient has the following Valued Properties with integer values from 0 to 5::

Sweetness
Sourness
Umami
Spicyness

An Ingredient may or may not have one or more of the following Additional Properties:

Vegetarian

Recipes

A Recipe consists of a name, a list of three to six Packages, and a list of between one and six Steps in sequence. A Step may either be: adding a quantity of one of the Package types listed in the Recipe, or using a piece of Equipment. A Recipe must use exactly the Packages mentioned in its list of Packages in its Steps.

A Step is considered to add a quantity of a Package if it mentions the name and a quantity of that Package, or one of a Package if it only mentions the name of a Package without a quantity. If the text of a Step also includes one (and only one) of the following verbs, then that Step has the corresponding effect when applied:

Chop: If this Step would add any Spiciness to the Recipe, it adds one additional Spiciness.
Reduce: If this Step would add any Umami to the Recipe, it adds one additional Umami.
Drain: If this Step would add any Sweetness to the Recipe, it adds one less Sweetness.
Sprinkle: If this Step would add any Sourness to the Recipe, it adds one less Sourness.
Garnish: This Step does not affect the Valued Properties of the Recipe (but still affects Additional Properties).

The first step of a Recipe must always add a Package type. Only the final step of a Recipe may be a Garnish.

Recipes have the same Valued Properties as Ingredients do but with integer values from 0 to 10. These are calculated by starting them all at zero, then applying the Recipe’s Steps in sequence. When a Step adds a quantity of a Package, it increases the Valued Properties of the Recipe by the Valued Properties of the Ingredient that corresponds to that Package, multiplied by the quantity being added. When a Step uses a piece of Equipment, the effect(s) of that Equipment are applied to the Recipe in the order they are listed (unless the Cook who posted the Recipe does not possess that piece of Equipment at this time). If a Step would reduce a Recipe’s Valued Property below zero, it instead becomes zero; if it would increase a Recipe’s Valued Property above 10, it instead becomes 10.

A Recipe has the Additional Property of Vegetarian until a Step causes a non-Vegetarian Ingredient to be added to it, at which point it ceases to be Vegetarian.

Review

The Restaurant Manager may post a Review if the previous one is Ready, and if there are no active Tasting posts which are Ready. A review is a Story Post that has the word “Review” in its title. In the Review he has to announce the name of the new Reviewer, chosen by the Manager: if any Reviewers have not Praised Cooks, the chosen Reviewer must be one who has never Praised a Cook. He also has to announce how the last Reviewer rated the Entry Recipes of each Cook. Each Cook may post Recipes as comments beneath the newest Review blogpost. The last such post of each Cook is called the Entry Recipe and is rated in the next Review.

A Review is Ready if it is more than 48 hours old, or if every Cook has posted a Recipe to it.

When the Restaurant Manager posts a Review, if any Cooks used Consumable Equipment in their Recipes, those Consumable Equipments are removed from those Cooks.

If the Restaurant Manager has made an error in a Rating the newest Review, he should post a comment to the review mentioning the mistake and reveal the correct Rating. While doing so, the Restaurant Manager should correct all Gamestate as if the error had never happened. If such an error was made in an earlier Review, the Restaurant Manager should post a comment in that Review mentioning the error, but not revealing the corrected Rating and not changeing Gamestate. All Cooks should carefully check each Review and point out possible errors to the Restaurant Manager.

Interviews

When posting a Review, the Restaurant manager should disclose one of the Characteristics (a single Sweet Spot, Vegetarianism, or Favourite Ingredient if appliable) of the next Reviewer. They should pick which characteristic to reveal at random among the characteristics they have not yet revealed this way.

Analysis

Only once the critic has left the restaurant may the Cooks themselves taste-test their concoctions. When posting the Ratings for the Entry Recipes of each Cook, the Restaurant Manager shall also post the Valued Properties and Additional Properties of each Entry Recipe so reviewed.

Sous

A Cook may, instead of submitting a Recipe for review, choose to be Sous to another Cook. They may make this choice by posting a non-Recipe comment to a Review announcing that they are Sous to X, where X is the name of another Cook who does not have anyone currently Sous to them. This is called a Volunteer Comment. Any earlier Entry Recipe they have submitted is no longer a valid Entry Recipe, and they may not later post another Volunteer Comment or Entry Recipe on the same Review.

When posting an Entry Recipe, if a Cook has a Sous Cook, they may use any piece of Equipment possessed by that Sous Cook as if it were their own. When the next Review is posted, a Sous Cook earns the same rating as the Cook to whom they are Sous. All existing Sous-Cook relationships are then dissolved.

If a given Cook has already received a 5-star rating from a given Reviewer, they may not be Sous to anyone when preparing Recipes for that Reviewer.

Awards

Each Cook has an Awards field, tracked as a positive number, including and defaulting to zero, in the GNDT. In each Review, the Restaurant Manager declares the Entry Recipe with the most stars “Winner of the Day”. If more then one Entry Recipe has the most Stars, then of those with the most Stars the one with the most Plusses is declared “Winner of the Day”. If there are several with the most Stars and the most Plusses, then there is no “Winner of the Day”. The Cook who has submitted the “Winner of the Day” gets an Award.

Equipment

The wiki on the page entitled “Cooking Equipment” contains a list of types of Equipment that a Cook can possess, as well as the inventories of each Cook. Whenever a Cook acquires or loses a piece of Equipment, they must update this page accordingly.

Each piece of Equipment may have a number of effects on a Recipe, listed in brackets after the item’s name (in both the list and the inventories) on the Cooking Equipment page. By default, a piece of Equipment has no effect. Valid effects are:-

+X Property (where X is a number from 1 to 3): The Valued Property is increased by X.
-X Property (where X is a number from 1 to 3): The Valued Property is decreased by X.
Remove Property: The Valued Property is set to zero.
Double Property: The Valued Property is doubled.
Flambée: The Recipe’s Valued and Additional Properties are not posted when it is taste-tested.

Where “Property” appears in the title of an effect in the list above, it should be replaced with the name of a Valued Property when given to a piece of Equipment.

If a Cook possesses a piece of Equipment which has no effect (the “Mystery” Equipment), they may discard any single piece of Equipment they Possess to give the Mystery Equipment any legal effect. (This effect applies to all instances of that Equipment possessed by Cooks.) If a Cook possesses no Equipment, they may gain any ten pieces of Equipment, so long as each gained piece has no effect.

There are two types of Equipment: Utensils and Consumables. Consumables are denoted on the Cooking Equipment page by an asterisk next to their name. When a Consumable Equipment would have an effect added to it under the previous rule, the Cook who would add it may instead add up to three effects to that Equipment, in a specific order of their choosing.

Supply chain

Due to a mix-up in shipping, all the Ingredients currently being supplied to the restaurant are of foreign and mysterious origin. These are the labels on the Packages currently in the restaurant’s inventory:

Shouting Man
Coy Sun
String Of Numbers
The Bee
Exploding Chair [Chilli Pepper]
Girl On Bicycle
Melted Cube
Blushing Fork
Shiny Shoes
Boy With Hedgehog

Each type of Ingredient corresponds to at least one Package; more than one Package may correspond to the same Ingredient. The Restaurant Manager shall maintain a private list of these correspondences, which are fixed. If a Tasting Contest has revealed that a particular Package corresponds to a particular Ingredient, and if nobody has done so already, then any Cook (or the Restaurant Manager) may add that Ingredient in square brackets after the name of the Package in the above list; such Packages are considered to be Known.

If a Recipe refers to an Ingredient by name, and that Ingredient corresponds to a Known Package, then the Ingredient reference is instead considered to be a reference to a Package that corresponds to that Ingredient, on the above list. (If multiple Packages correspond to the Ingredient, it is considered to be a reference to the one which appears earliest in the list.)

Taking Stock

Once per dynasty, the Restaurant Manager may Take Stock: upon doing so, he or she selects five different Packages at random (from those which are not currently the subject of a Tasting Contest) and reveals in a blog post the Ingredient that each corresponds to. For the purpose of all other rules, this process is considered to be a Tasting Contest.

The Restaurant Manager may not post a Review within 24 hours of Taking Stock.

The Reviewers

There are six Reviewers:

Antonio Fusilli
Bruce Haggis
Chiaki Ramen
Dominique Labaguette
Esmeralda Paella
Mad-Tongue Moody

Some Reviewers are Special. Reviewers who are not Special are Regular. Each Reviewer has a Sweet Spot for each of the existing Valued Properties. A Sweet Spot is an integer comprised between 0 and 10 included. Each Reviewer may be Vegetarian. Each Reviewer has one Favourite Ingredient, which is one of the Ingredients listed in rule Ingredients. All the characteristics of the Regular Reviewers (Sweet Spots, Vegetarianism, Favourite Ingredient) are fixed and they shall be kept track of by the Restaurant Manager, who should reveal them only when allowed by the Ruleset. If one or more of a Reviewer’s characteristics has not been determined yet, the Restaurant Manager may and should privately determine it using a method of their choice. Mad-Tongue Moody is a Special Reviewer. His Characteristics are well known to the staff of every Restaurant in Town, and they are:

All his Sweet Spots are 10
He is not Vegetarian.
His favourite Ingredient is Chilli Pepper.

Opposition Research

Once per Dynasty, the Restaurant Manager may Solicit Interviews. Upon doing so, the Restaurant Manager makes a new Story Post explaining that the local Reviewers have been profiled in a trade journal and have given some idea of their respective tastes. They then list the name of each regular Reviewer and two of their characteristics, chosen randomly by a private method of the Restaurant Manager’s choice. The Restaurant Manager may not post a Review within 24 hours of Soliciting Interviews.

Fame

Each Cook has a “References” field, tracked as a string in the GNDT, consisting in the first letters of the names of the Reviewers that have Praised that Cook. A Reviewer is considered to have Praised a Cook if they have ever awarded one of that Cook’s Recipes a rating that included three or more stars.

Ratings

A rating is a String comprised of exactly 5 characters, that can be any combination of plus signs (+), minus signs (-), or asterisks (*) (alias: Stars). Possible spacing and the order of characters in a Rating are irrelevant, and should be kept consistent between ratings (eg: by putting all the asterisks fist and all pluses at the end).

The Restaurant Manager shall follow some set rules on how to determine the Rating based on the Recipe and on the Characteristics of the current Reviewer. These rules are applied in the following order and are as follows:

1. The Rating defaults to - - - - -.
2. For each Valued Property of the recipe that is exactly equal to the Reviewer’s Sweet Spot for that Valued Property, one minus is changed to a Star.
3. For each Valued Property of the recipe that exceeds the Reviewer’s Sweet Spot for that Valued Property, one minus is changed to a Plus.
4. If the Recipe contains the Reviewer’s Favourite Ingredient and the Rating contains 4 or more Stars, set the Rating to * * * * *.
4. If the Recipe contains the Reviewer’s Favourite Ingredient and the Rating contains at least one Plus, one Plus is changed to a Star.
6. If the Recipe does not have the Additional Property Vegetarian and the Reviewer is a Vegetarian, replace all but two Stars with Minuses.

Good Graces

If a Cook submits an Entry Recipe which receives a * * * * * rating from a given Reviewer, they have gained an Insight on that Reviewer. Within the next five days after the Review containing this rating is posted, they may send a private message to the Restaurant Manager, informing them that the Reviewer’s tastes have changed and that one of their Sweet Spots (of the Cook’s choice) has increased or decreased by 1. The Cook then no longer has an Insight. Upon receiving this message, the Restaurant Manager should privately update the Reviewer’s Sweet Spot as indicated and rate Recipes according to that updated characteristic in future Reviews. A Reviewer’s Sweet Spot cannot be set to above 10 or below 0 by this method.

Victory

Any Cook who has received Praise from five Reviewers, and who has more Awards than any other Cook with Praise from five Reviewers, has achieved victory.

Money

The Restaurant has an integer, non negative amount of Money - its Funds - measured in Starbucks and kept track of in the GNDT, in the References field of the Restaurant Manager. The Restaurant Funds default to 0.

If nobody has done so since the last Review was posted, the Manager or any Cook may increase the Restaurant funds by as many Starbucks as total Stars that were awarded in that Review.

The Cashier

The single Cook who was rated the fewest Stars (among those Cooks who were rated at all) in the most recent Review receives the chore of attending the Cash Register, and is thus the Cashier.

If the Cashier has not done so since the last Review was posted, the Cashier may take a single Expensive Action by deducting that Expensive Action’s price from the Restaurant Funds and then noting that they are taking that Action in a comment to the most recent Review (this comment shall also include the object(s) of the Action, if that action requires any).

Expensive Actions are listed here, together with their price in Starbucks and effects:

Invite a Reviewer as Special Guest. Price: 5 Starbucks. Effect: When posting the next Review, the Restaurant Manager shall choose that Reviewer as the new Reviewer (rather than using a method of their choice, as stated by rule “Review”).
Buy new Equipment. Price: twice the number of Active Cooks, in Starbucks. Effect: the Cashier adds a piece of equipment of their choice to each Cook’s inventory (they need not be identical pieces of Equipment). If a Cook has already 10 pieces of inventory, they receive nothing.
Hang Curtains. Price: 8 Starbucks. Effect: Cooks may submit Recipes to the next Review as private messages to the Manager, as if they were commenting to the Review. (Volunteer Comments must still be comments)
Employ a food taster on a Package. Price: 10 Starbucks. Effect: When posting the next Review, the Manager may and should publicly reveal the content of that Package.
Employ a journalist to ask a specific Reviewer about one specific Characteristic of theirs. Price: 12 Starbucks. Effect: When posting the next Review, the Manager may and should publicly reveal that characteristic of that specific Reviewer.

Tasting Contest

Cooks occasionally challenge one another to gulp down mouthfuls of the bland and cryptically-labelled food products, to see if they can work out what they are.

If no Tasting post is active, any Cook may make a Tasting post with a subject line “Tasting: [Box]”, where “[Box]” is the name of a single randomly chosen Package (excluding those which the Manager has revealed the nature of in previous Tasting posts). Upon being posted, this post becomes active.

While a Tasting post is active, any Cook may send a private message to the Restaurant Manager stating what Ingredient they believe its Package corresponds to: this is known as their Best Guess for that post. If a Cook submits more than one private message in this way, only their most recent such message is their Best Guess for it.

A Tasting post is Ready if it is more than 48 hours old, or if every Cook has either made a Best Guess for it or sent a private message to the Manager saying that they do not intend to make a guess. If a Tasting post is Ready, the Restaurant Manager may resolve it, applying and announcing one or more results as follows:

If any Best Guesses for this post correctly identified the Ingredient which corresponds to the post’s Package, the Manager shall reveal that Ingredient and give each Cook who made such a Best Guess 1 Award.
If the Ingredient that corresponds to the Package is Chilli Pepper, the Manager shall reveal this fact, and any Cook who made a Best Guess on this post is considered Absent for the purposes of the most recent Review: this fact should be noted in comments on the most recent Review. If a Cook is Absent for a Review, any Recipes they have posted to that Review are ignored.

The post then ceases to be active.

Generous Tips

Any Cook who was not a Cook on the 6th of May 2015 is not considered to be a Cook for the purposes of the remainder of this rule.

Each Cook has a Success score equal to twice the number of Reviewers who have praised him or her, plus the number of Awards the Cook has received.

A number of Customers exist equal to the total Success scores of every Cook. Each Customer Favours a single Cook, such that the number of Customers who Favour a particular Cook is equal to that Cook’s Success score.

If no Cook has already done so, any Cook may select a Customer at random. Upon doing so, the Cook who that Customer Favours 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 Cooks.

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

Flavour Text: When posting a blog entry, a Cook 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 Cooks is half the number of Cooks in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Cooks it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Cooks.

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 Cook 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 Cook 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 Cook 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 Cook 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 Cook may update any Cook'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 Cook may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Cook 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, Cooks are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Cooks 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 Cook 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 Cooks to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Cook (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
A Cook 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, Cook 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 Cook if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Cook's name.

Prioritisation

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

The Appendix has precedence over any Rule;
A Dynastic Rule has precedence over a Core Rule, unless that Core Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
If both contradicting parts are Core Rules, or if both of them are Dynastic Rules, the part with more limited scope applies. (e.g. if the rules “Cooks may Kick each other” and “Cooks may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Cooks may not Kick each other.)
If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Cooks may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Cooks may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Cooks may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)

Ruleset 126

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