Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Activists 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; Section Three contains rules which apply in special cases; and Section Four 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.

Activists may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset and their own Pending Proposals at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular “they”.

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

Activists

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Idle Admins can enact and fail Votable Matters.

Dynasties

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

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

A Votable Matter is Popular if any of the following are true:

It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has more than 1 valid Vote cast on it, and more valid Votes cast on it are FOR than are AGAINST.

A Votable Matter is Unpopular if any of the following are true:

The number of Activists who are not voting AGAINST it is less than Quorum.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and it is not Popular.

Enacting and Failing

Votable Matters 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 should mark their name, and are highly encouraged to report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was self-killed or vetoed). Comments cannot be made on Enacted or Failed Votable Matters.

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

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

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

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 all of the following are true:

It is Popular.
It has been open for voting for at least 12 hours.
It has not been Vetoed or Self-Killed.

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

It is Unpopular.
It has been Vetoed or Self-Killed.

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

A Pending CfJ may be Enacted by any Admin if all of the following are ture:

It is Popular.

A Pending CfJ may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

It is Unpopular.
It specifies neither changes to the Gamestate or Ruleset nor corrections to any gamestate tracking entities.

When a CfJ is Enacted, the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct the GNDT and other gamestate tracking entities, as specified in the CFJ.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If an Activist (other than the Veteran) 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.

If the game is not already in Hiatus and there is a pending DoV, 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 “Activists”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Activist 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 by any Admin if any of the following is true:

It is Popular, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Veteran has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
It is Popular, and it has been open for at least 24 hours.

A Pending DoV may be Failed by any Admin if any of the following are true:

It is Unpopular, and it has been open for at least 12 hours.

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

When a DoV is enacted, all other pending DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins with the Activist who made the DoV as its Veteran. That Activist may pass this role to another Activist at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Veteran makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Veteran's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Activist and Veteran 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 Activist 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 Activist's behaviour or actions are otherwise deemed unacceptable (socially or otherwise), a proposal or CfJ may be made to reprimand or punish the perpetrator or, in cases of extreme or repeated violations, remove them from the game and bar them from rejoining.

A single person should not control more than one non-Idle Activist within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Activist and any Idle Activists.
An Activist 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 Activist should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
An Activist should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Activist.
An Activist should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
An Activist should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
An Activist should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).
An Activist should not roll dice in the GNDT that are clearly associated with a particular action in the Ruleset, but with the intention to not use these rolled values to the best of their ability to resolve that action.
An Activist should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.

Dynastic Rules

Loyalty

The Loyalties in this world are Peace, Violence, Police and Government.

An Activist’s Identity is a string tracked in the GNDT, defaulting to nothing. At any time an Activist with a blank Identity may set their Identity to any string. For the purposes of all rules other than this one, an Activist’s Identity string is considered to be blank.

An Activist may prove their Loyalty by demonstrating that their Identity is the Hash of a grammatical English sentence of no more than 20 words which includes the name of a single Loyalty and no others. (The Hash of a sentence is the MD5 hash generated for it at [1].) A “Protestor” is an Activist who has proven a Loyalty to Peace, a “Militant” is one who has proven a Loyalty to Violence, a “Cop” is one who has proven a Loyalty to Police and a “Spook” is one who has proven a Loyalty to Government.

An Activist with a blank Identity may not take dynastic actions other than the ones in this rule.

Proposal Enactment

During the current dynasty, enacting a Proposal is an atomic action.

Reports

A Report is a list of Activists’ names, each Activist appearing no more than once in the list, and each name being immediately followed in brackets by a Loyalty, which is that Activist’s Suspected Loyalty. A Report should also include a single whole number at the end, to prevent rival Activists from guessing at its contents.

An Activist may File a Report by posting the hash of it in a blog comment.

Any Activist may Reveal a Report which has already been Filed, by posting the original text of the Report in a blog comment. Once it has been revealed, the Accuracy of such a Report is equal to the number of Activists listed in it whose Loyalty has not been shown to be different from the list’s Suspected Loyalty for them. The Accuracy of an unrevealed Report is zero.

If a Filed Report (the Copy) has the same hash as a Report that was Filed earlier than it, then the Copy may not be Revealed.

The Plan

The Plan has the following qualities, tracked in this rule:

Location: City Hall
Date: 22nd of November 2018
Team: Brendan, Derrick, Kevan, Pokes and Trigon
Equipment: Tech, Weapons
Cover story: X Express Window Cleaning
Chance of success: 48%

The Plan’s chance of success is a percentage between 0% and 100%. If an action would increase it above 100%, it is instead set to 100%. If an action would increase it below 0%, it is instead set to 0%.

If a pending proposal includes a proposed amendment to this rule, then votes cast on that proposal by Activists with blank Identities are ignored when determining whether the proposal is Popular or Unpopular.

Activities

Each Activist may be pursuing a single Activity, tracked in the GNDT and defaulting to not pursuing any Activity. The Activities are Planning, Recon, Training, Construction, Sabotage, Leading, Absence and Recovery.

An Activist who is not pursuing Absence or Recovery may change their own Activity as a daily action. An Activist may not change their Activity to Leading in this way if another Activist is Leading.

If no Activist has yet done so this dynasty, an Activist may call a Meeting by posting a blog entry to this effect. When a Meeting is called, the Plan’s chance of success is increased by X%, where X is five times the number of Activists pursuing Planning.

If no Activist has yet done so this dynasty and if the Plan’s Location is not undefined, then an Activist who is pursuing Recon may Take Photos by posting a blog entry to this effect, gaining 1 Heat, and changing their Activity to Absence. This increases the Plan’s chance of success by 5%.

If an Activist is pursuing Absence, they may switch to pursuing to any other Activity as a Weekly Action.

If a meeting has been called but a montage has not been called OR if only one montage has been called and there are less than 6 activists, any activist may call a montage.

Recon, Training, Construction, and Sabotage and considered preparatory actions.

When a montage is called, The plan’s chance of success is increased by X%, where X is the number of activists pursuing a preparatory action times the number of unique preparatory actions currently pursued by activists.

An Activist who is pursuing Construction may Build by posting a blog entry to this effect, gaining 1 Heat, and changing their Activity to Absence. This increases the Plan’s chance of success by 5% if it is less than 25%. When an Activist Builds, they may add the word “Placards”, “Weapons” or “Tech” to the Plan’s Equipment (removing the word “undefined” if it is there).

If the Plan’s Equipment includes the word “Weapons”, an Activist who is pursuing Training may Spar by posting a blog entry to this effect and changing their Activity to Absence. This increases the Plan’s chance of success by 5%.

The Big Day

If no qualities of the Plan are undefined, then the Plan is Ready. If the Plan is Ready and the current calendar date is the Plan’s Date, then it is the Big Day. Otherwise it is not. If the Plan is Ready and the current calendar date is after the Plan’s Date, then the Aftermath is in effect. Otherwise it is not.

If it is the Big Day, then the only dynastic actions that can be taken by Activists are the Revealing of Reports, the Proving of Loyalties and the Raising of the Banner. If the Aftermath is in effect, no dynastic actions may be taken except for calculating Impact.

If no Activist has Raised the Banner, any Activist may do so by rolling DICE100 and making a blog post describing the result. If the result is less than or equal to the Plan’s Chance of Success, then the Day is Won; if it is greater than the Plan’s Chance of Success then the Day is Lost.

During the Aftermath, an Activist’s Impact is an integer which may go below zero and which can be calculated by summing the following factors for that Activist:-

+X, where X is twice the accuracy of the most recent Report filed by the Activist.
+2 if the Activist is a Protestor who has never pursued Training.
+2 if the Activist is a Militant who has never pursued Recon.
+2 if the Activist is a Cop who has never pursued Construction.
+2 if the Activist is a Spook who has never pursued Sabotage.
-1 for each point of Heat that the Activist has
-7 if the Activist has no Identity, or set their Identity for the first time within the past 10 days
+1 if the Activist is a Protestor.
+3 if the Day is Won and the Activist is a Protestor or Militant
+3 if the Day is Lost and the Activist is a Cop or a Spook
+1 if the Plan’s Equipment includes Weapons and the Activist is a Militant or a Spook
+1 if the Plan’s Equipment does not include Weapons and the Activist is a Protestor or a Cop
-1 for each point of Suspicion that the Activist has

If the Aftermath is in effect and if a single Activist has a higher Impact than every other Activist, then that Activist achieves victory. If the Aftermath is in effect and if multiple Activists are tied for highest Impact, that tie is broken by lowest Suspicion; if still tied it is broken by lowest Heat; if still tied it is broken by whoever was most recently Leading; if still tied then any Activist may resolve it at random (if no Activist has already done so) - the winner of such a tie achieves victory.

If the Veteran has achieved victory, he may nominate an Activist: that Activist achieves victory.

Heat and Suspicion

Each Activist has an amount of Heat, tracked in the GNDT and defaulting to zero. Heat represents how much police attention an Activist has attracted.

If an Activist has proven their Loyalty to the Police or Government, they may reduce their Heat to zero at any time.

Each activist has an amount of suspicion, tracked in the GNDT and defaulting to zero. Suspicion represents the suspicion other rebels have about the activist.

If an Activist has proven their Loyalty to Peace or Violence, they may reduce their Suspicion to zero at any time.

If an Activist’s name is listed as part of the Team, then they may - at any time - increase their Heat by 1 to lower another Activist’s Heat by 1, or increase their Suspicion by 1 to lower another Activist’s Suspicion by 1.

Orders

An order has a name, and a requirement. An activist for whom the requirement is true has “fulfilled” the requirement.

Valid orders are:

Change Activity to [X]: The Activist’s activity is [X], where [X] is a valid activity
[*]Construct [X]: The Activist has taken a Build action that added [X] to the plan’s equipment, where X is “Placards”, “Weapons”, or “Tech”; or that the Plan’s chance for success is not less than 25%

The Speaker

If a single Activist is the only Activist who is Leading, then they are the Speaker. If an Activist has been Leading for 48 hours or more during which dynastic actions are allowed, any Activist may increase that Activist’s Suspicion by 1 and change that Activist’s Activity to no activity.

Once per 48 hours, an activist who is the speaker may make a “Command” by making a blog with exactly one Activist’s name and the name of exactly one valid order, setting their own Activity to no activity, and setting the Activity of an Activist other than themselves to Leading. The activist named in the blog post may “comply” with the Command by posting a comment with the text “command completed!” if they fulfill the order’s requirement. If the Commanded Activist makes a comment with “command denied” or does not comply with the command within 48 hours (excluding any periods of time during which dynastic actions are not allowed), they have rejected the command: any Activist may increase the Commanded Activist’s 1 Suspicion for this (if no Activist has already done so for this rejection).

Weekends

Dynastic actions may not be taken on Saturdays or Sundays.

Scrambling

An Activist may call to Scramble, at any time, by making a blog comment to that effect. An Activist should only call to Scramble if they feel that a piece of revealed, hidden information was outside of their own expectation of what that information could have been. If a quorum of Activists have called to Scramble, then no Activist is ever considered to have ever achieved victory in the current dynasty.

The action of calling to Scramble may be taken during Hiatus, may be taken during the Big Day and may be taken while the Aftermath is in effect.

Radio Silence

If it is the 21st of November, the only dynastic action which may taken by Activists is Filing a Report. Any hash included in a blog comment made on the 21st of November is considered to be a Filed Report.

Special Case

Special Case Rules can be active or inactive and default to active. The status of a Special Case rule is notated in the title of that rule ending in ”[X]” where X is the word Active or Inactive, denoting that Rule’s status. When a new dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may state any existing Special Case Rules that are set to inactive; any Special Case Rules not set in the Ascension Address become Active.

The text of Special Case Rules that are inactive shall be interpreted, for the purpose of play, to mean nothing.

Tags [Active]

Votable matters have zero or more tags. Tags are added by adding it to the title of a votable matter with the format “[X]” where [X] is the tag, for example “[Core] Wording Fix”. Votable Matters require the [Core] tag in order to make changes to the Core Rules, the [Special Case] tag in order to make changes to the Special Case Rules and the [Appendix] tag in order to make changes to the Appendix Rules. Votable Matters other than DoVs require the [Victory] tag in order to grant victory to an Activist.

Atomic Actions [Active]

When an Activist performs an Atomic Action, they must complete all its steps; they must complete them in order; and they may not take any other dynastic action, or achieve victory, until all such steps are complete. All of the steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, as well as the steps of an Atomic Actions that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.

An Atomic Action may direct the performer to skip some of its steps, which the performer should do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.

If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Activist must redo the Atomic Action. In redoing an Atomic Action, the Activist uses any legal steps that were already completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones.

For instance if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a die in the GNDT and then doing steps based upon it’s result the Activist would have to reroll the die if they rolled the wrong one if the first place and any steps that depended upon the result of that die; however if all they did was take an illegal action later on, the die is still used in the redone action.

For the purposes of determining the ordering or legality of game actions the time of an Atomic Action shall be the time that it is completed. For Atomic Actions that are redone, the time of completion is the last redone step.

This rule cannot be overruled by the Dynastic Rules.

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

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”.

Dormancy [Active]

If there are fewer than five Activists, then BlogNomic is Dormant. While BlogNomic is Dormant, actions defined by dynastic rules may not be taken, and proposals may not be submitted.

No Orphan Variables [Active]

An Orphan Variable is a dynastic gamestate variable which has neither a location in which it’s tracked, nor a manner in which it it can be determined from other gamestate variables, specified in the Ruleset.

An Activist may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.

Imperial Deferentials [Inactive]

If the Veteran has voted DEFERENTIAL on a proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Activists have voted FOR the proposal than have voted AGAINST it) or AGAINST (in all other cases).

Dynastic Distance [Inactive]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, The Veteran is not an Activist.

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 Activists.

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

Daily Communal Action: A Daily Communal Action is a Daily Action that can only be performed by one Activist per day.

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

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

Dynastic Action: an action that is defined in the Dynastic rules.

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

Effective Vote Comment (EVC): An Activist’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter means that Activist’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Activist’s Vote on that Votable Matter.

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

Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All GNDT columns that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention are assumed to be Gamestate, as are all Wiki Pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention except for dynastic histories and discussion pages.

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

Resolve/Resolution: If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting or failing a Votable Matter. The world “Resolution” means then the act of doing so. If used in any other context, the meaning of both “Resolve” and “Resolution” is the standard English meaning of these words

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

Shall: "is required to"

Should: "is recommended that"

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

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

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

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

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

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

Table of Contents: The directory of section headings that is generated by the MediaWiki software for most pages in the wiki.

TOC: Table of Contents.

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

Voting Icons: For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, a DEF http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and a crossed-out circle http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent a vote to VETO.

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 Activist 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 Activist 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 Activist may post to the blog at any time, but may only make official posts to the blog when the Ruleset allows it. Posts following the format specified by a rule are considered official posts. Any single official post cannot be of two different types of official post unless a rule explicitly states otherwise.

An official post may only be removed as allowed by the Ruleset. An official post may be altered by its author if it is less than two hours old and either no Activist has commented on it or (if it is a Votable Matter) if all comments on it contain no voting icons; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post's Status must be changed to reflect its status. An official blog post that has the status of Enacted or Failed cannot change categories. An official blog post’s status may never be altered except in accordance with the rules that define that official post.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following two exceptions: Firstly, whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish. Secondly, if a post by a New Activist is not in any category but follows the wording of a Proposal, in that it has written changes the gamestate and or ruleset, and if it has been posted for less than six hours, then any admin may change it to be in the Proposal category. A New Activist is defined as an Activist who has been an Activist for fewer than seven days or an Activist that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

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 Activist may update any Activist's data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.

All updates to the GNDT are logged. For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as the GNDT or a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of an Activist’s action is (and can only be) applied by editing that data in that place. One GNDT or wiki update may contain one or more alterations, or one alteration may be split over multiple updates, as long as it is clear what is happening and the alterations are otherwise legal. The GNDT merely represents the Gamestate, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and the GNDT are different, any Activist may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Activist 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, Activists are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Activists 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, GrActivist, 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.

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 Activist 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.

If a number or other game variable is selected 'at random' or 'randomly' from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified. This value must be determined by an appropriate DICE roll in the GNDT, unless otherwise specified. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Activist making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the GNDT.

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 Activists to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Activist (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
An Activist 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 game variable has no defined starting value, then that starting value is the nearest legal value to zero that it may take (for numerical variables, defaulting to positive if tied), blank (for a text string or list that may be blank), the alphabetically earliest legal text string it may take (for a text string which may not be blank, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”), or the list which is alphabetically earliest from the set of lists with the fewest elements (for lists which may not be blank, and considering each list to be a single unpunctuated text string, with the digits 0 through 9 considered to precede “A”).
Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in the GNDT remain valid. (for example, if X appears in a formula referring to a value that is a non-negative integer, X must be used as a non-negative integer)
DICEN cannot be rolled in the GNDT if N is 22 or more digits long.

Rules and Proposals

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 the admin enacting a proposal reaches a step which cannot be applied immediately (eg. “two days after this proposal enacts, Activist 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.
An Activist may not take more than one dynastic game action at the same time (excluding any actions which have been ongoing for more than three hours).

Spelling

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 Activist if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Activist's name.
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.
Subrules can be referred to by a name which incorporates name of the rule they are a subrule of. Example: a subrule of the rule “Gin” is a “Gin Rule”, however the rule “Gin” is not a “Gin Rule” because it’s not a subrule of the rule “Gin”.
When referring to a proposal, the name used in reference to a specific proposal may be simplified by not including braces and any text between the opening and closing braces. i.e. a proposal named “Changes [Core]” could instead be referred to by the name “Changes”.

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 “Activists may Kick each other” and “Activists may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Activists may not Kick each other.)
If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Activists may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Activists may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Activists may not Punch Spacemen on Friday.)
Special Case Rules have equal precedence as Dynastic Rules, unless that Special Case Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule.

Ruleset 162

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