Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Architects 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.

Architects 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 Architect may update it to do so.

Architects

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

If an Architect other than the Supervisor casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Supervisor. When the Supervisor 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 Supervisor'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 Architects 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 Architect may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the “Proposal” category that describes those changes (unless the Architect already has 2 Proposals pending, or has already made 3 Proposals that day).

Special Proposal Voting

When an Architect 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 Supervisor may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a proposal; when the Supervisor casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Supervisor 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 Architects actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Architect feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Architect 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 Architect (other than the Supervisor) 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 “Architects”, “Votable Matters”, “Calls for Judgement”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Architect 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 Supervisor 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 Architect who made the DoV as its Supervisor. That Architect may pass this role to another Architect at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Supervisor makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Supervisor's chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Architect and Supervisor 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 Architect 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 Architect'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 Architect within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Architect and any Idle Architects.
An Architect 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 Architect should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
An Architect should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Architect.
An Architect should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
An Architect should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
An Architect 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 Architect 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 Architect should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
An Architect should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly achieve victory

Dynastic Rules

Sites

Each Architect has their own Site, tracked in the wiki page Moon Sites. A Site is a 7x7 grid of squares, where each square is either empty (with a Symbol of “.”) or contains a Module. Squares default to being empty.

Modules and their Symbols (in brackets) are:-

Corridor (+)
Debris (%)
Dock (D)
Hydroponics (H)
Life Support (L)
Power (P)
Research (R)
Quarters (Q)
Storage (q)

Squares are adjacent if they share an edge. Modules are adjacent if the squares they are in are adjacent.

A module is connected to another module if they are adjacent, or if they are both docks adjacent to squares without modules and on the same site, or if one is adjacent to a corridor or dock connected to the other module.

A module connected to a quarters is “Maintained”.

If a column or row of seven non-Corridor Modules exist in an Architect’s site, that Architect may replace one of those Modules with a Corridor module.

If at any time an Architect’s site has no empty Squares, any Architect may remove three modules of their choice from that site.

A building is a group of contiguous modules that do not have any other modules contiguous with them.

Drops

Figure 1

A Block is an arrangement of four Modules, in one of the seven shapes depicted in Figure 1.

If no Drop post exists, the Architect who’s name is first in the Bidding Queue may make a blog post unambiguously describing the shape and Module arrangement of a single Block of their choice, listing the Modules in the order of the numbers on the shape’s depiction. (eg. “An T-Block of Dock, Corridor, Power, Dock.”) Such a blog post is known as a Drop post. Whenever an Architect makes a drop post, they must move their name to the end of the Bidding Queue.

If a Drop post exists and an Architect has not already done so for that Drop post, they may add all of the Modules of its Block to their Site, one Module per square, overwriting the previous contents of that square: Modules which are adjacent on the Block must be similarly adjacent on the Site, although the Block may be rotated 90, 180 or 270 degrees. Adding a Block in this way is known as Building. When an Architect Builds, they must make a comment to that effect on the Drop post whose Block they Built.

If all Architects have commented on a Drop post, or if a Drop Post is more than 36 hours old, any Architect (or the Supervisor) may close that Drop post with a comment to that effect. Upon doing so, it ceases to be a Drop post.

When a Debris Module would be added to a site, the square instead becomes (or remains) empty.

When the Supervisor makes a Drop post, the shape and composition of its Block must be determined at random.

Bidding Queue

The Bidding Queue is a comma separated list of the names of all active Architects, stored at the top of the wiki page “Moon Sites”. When an Architect joins or unidles, their name is appended to the end of the Bidding Queue.

If a particular Architect’s name has been first in the Bidding Queue for the previous 36 hours and no drop post has existed during that time, any Architect may move that name to the end of the Bidding Queue.

If an Architect has not posted an entry or comment in the last five days, any Architect (or the Supervisor) may move that Architect’s name to the end of the Bidding Queue, if it is at the front.

Thermostat

Each Architect has the following statistics tracked in the GNDT, using their abbreviations for names.

temperature (TEMP) which is an integer which may be negative, tracked in degrees Celsius, with a default of -20 and an ideal of 20’
oxygen (OXY) which is tracked as a percentage of oxygen to air, with a default of 0% and an ideal of 21%
food (FOOD) which is tracked as a positive integer of Kilo Calories, defaulting to 0.

Any Architect may Monitor any Architect’s statistics at any time, by performing the following atomic action (“Modules” referring only to Maintained Modules on the Monitored Architect’s Site in this case):-

Setting the Monitored Architect’s Temperature to 20 (if there is a Power Module) or -20 (if there are no Power Modules)
Reducing the Monitored Architect’s Temperature by 2 for every edge of a corridor module shared with an empty square or the edge of the grid
Increasing the Monitored Architect’s Temperature by 5 for every Power Module, including the first
Move the Monitored Architect’s temperature by 3 towards the ideal temperature for every Life Support Module. If this would increase the temperature above the ideal or decrease it below the ideal, instead set the temperature to the ideal.
Setting the Monitored Architect’s Oxygen to the percentage of non-empty Squares on their Site (rounding down) which contain either a Life Support Module or a Hydroponics Module. (If there are no non-empty Squares on the site, the Monitored Architect’s Oxygen instead becomes 0%.)
Setting the Monitored Architect’s Food to twice the number of Hydroponics and Dock Modules

As a daily action, the Supervisor may Monitor a random Architect’s statistics, as if they were an Architect themselves. After doing so, the Supervisor may Evacuate that Architect’s Site if it is Unsafe, as if they were an Architect themselves.

Civil Titles

Each Architect holds zero or more Civil Titles, tracked in their section of the Moon Sites wiki page. If a particular Civil Title applied only to a single Architect’s Site at the time that the previous Drop Post was closed, that Architect may hold that title (removing it from any other Architects who hold that title) by updating the Moon Sites wiki page to that effect.

The Civil Titles are:

“City Hall” is a Civil Title applied to the Site with the largest number of contiguous Quarters modules
“State of the Art” is a Civil Title applied to the Site with the lowest ratio of unmaintained modules to maintained modules, with ties being first broken by the architect with the most modules
“The Cool House” is a civil title held by the architect with the smallest total difference between their Temperature and Oxygen values and the Ideal Oxygen and Temperature Values. Ties are first broken by the architect with the smaller difference between their temperature and ideal, and then by the architect with the lower temperature.
“Public Gardens” is a Civil Title applied to the Site with the largest number of contiguous maintained hydroponics modules
“Jailer” is a Civil Title applied to the Site with the greatest number of buildings with maintained modules on their site.
“Playground” is a Civil Title applied to the Site with the largest number of contiguous Corridor modules.
“The Cube” is a Civil Title applied to the Site with the largest-area rectangle shape of non-empty squares (irrespective of the squares outside of that rectangle)
“Outpost” is a Civil Title applied to the Site which contains the fewest types of Module (and which contains at least one Module)

Health and Safety Regulations

An Architect’s Site is deemed Unsafe if any of the following are true:

Their Temperature is greater than 50 or less than 0
Their Oxygen is less than 20% or greater than 75%
Their Temperature is greater than 40 and Oxygen is greater than 50%
Their Food is less than the number of Quarters modules

If an Architect’s Site is Unsafe, any Architect may Evacuate it by replacing all Quarters Modules on that Site with Storage Modules. If an Architect’s Site is not Unsafe, that Architect may Repopulate it by replacing any number of Storage Modules on that Site with Quarters Modules.

If a Site has a Quarters Module adjacent to a Power or Dock Module, any Architect may replace that Quarters Module with a Storage Module.

A Site is Safe if (and only if) it is not Unsafe.

Research Victory

An Architect’s Research Rating is equal to the number of Maintained Research Modules on their Site, plus 3 for each Civil Title they hold.

If the date is on or after the 20th of June 2019, new Drop posts may not be made. If the date is on or after the 20th of June 2019, and no Drop post has existed for 36 hours, and an Architect who has Monitored their own statistics in the previous two minutes has both a Safe Site and a higher Research Rating than every other Architect, then that Architect has achieved victory.

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 Architect.

Atomic Actions [Active]

When an Architect 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 Architect must redo the Atomic Action. In redoing an Atomic Action, the Architect 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 Architect 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 Architects, 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 Architect may not take any dynastic actions that are contingent on the specific value of an Orphan Variable.

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

If the Supervisor has voted DEFERENTIAL on a proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Architects 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 Supervisor is not an Architect.

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 Architects.

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

Flavour Text: When posting a blog entry, an Architect 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) and any images contained within those Wiki 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 Architects is half the number of Architects in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Architects it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Architects.

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. Architects 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 Architect 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 Architect 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 Architect 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 Architect 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 Architect 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 Architect is defined as an Architect who has been an Architect for fewer than seven days or an Architect 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 Architect may update any Architect'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 Architect’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 and wiki merely represent the Gamestate, and are not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Architect may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Architect feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as the GNDT or the wiki) 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 alteration, Architects are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement instead. Architects 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.

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 Architect 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 Architect 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, an Architect can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Architects to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Architect (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
An Architect 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, Architect 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 Architect 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.
The terms "Architect" and "Player" are synonyms.

Names

Within the ruleset, a word only refers to the name of an Architect if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Architect'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 “Architects may Kick each other” and “Architects may not kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Architects may not Kick each other.)
If two parts with the same scope contradict each other, the negative rule applies. (e.g. with “Architects may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Architects may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Architects 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 167

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