Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Electors shall obey it.

It comprises four Sections: 1) the “core rules” of BlogNomic, covering the essential elements of gameplay; 2) the rules of the current Dynasty; 3) rules which apply in special cases; and 4) the appendix, which complements and clarifies the Ruleset.

The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset.

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

Electors

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

An Elector may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

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

Idle Electors

If an Elector is Idle, this is tracked by their name being removed or concealed in the list of currently active Electors in the Sidebar. For the purposes of all Gamestate and the Ruleset, excluding Rules “Ruleset and Gamestate”, “Electors”, “Dynasties”, “Fair Play”, "Mentors" and any of those Rules’ subrules, Idle Electors are not counted as Electors.

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

When an Elector 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 Elector Idled in a different Dynasty), the Elector is given the default value for new Electors, if such a value exists.

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

Votable Matters

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

Votes

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

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

Special Proposal Voting

When an Elector 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 Doge may use VETO as a voting icon to cast a Vote on a Proposal; when the Doge casts a vote of VETO on a Proposal, this renders the Proposal Vetoed, even if the Doge 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 Electors actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Elector feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Elector 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 true:

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 any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the CfJ.

This Rule may not be overruled by Dynastic Rules.

Victory and Ascension

If an Elector (other than the Doge) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a Declaration of Victory (abbreviated “DoV”) detailing this, by posting an entry in the “Declaration of Victory” category.

Every Elector may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty. If there is at least one pending DoV, BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

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

It is Popular, it has been open for at least 12 hours, and either the Doge 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.

If a DoV is Failed and it had at least one AGAINST vote, the Elector who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was Failed.

When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed, and a new Dynasty begins in which the Elector who made the DoV becomes the Doge.

The new Doge will make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. This should specify the Doge’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify that the terms “Elector” and “Doge” will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire Ruleset (where the replacement terms are different, and neither includes any words in a form in which they already appear in the non-dynastic Ruleset), and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep. When such an Ascension Address is posted, the Ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed. Between the enactment of the DoV and the completion of any changes to the ruleset and gamestate mandated in the Ascension Address, no new DoV may be made and BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Before an Ascension Address has been posted for a new Dynasty, the Doge may pass the role of Doge to another Elector by making a post to that effect.

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 Elector’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. Electors should vote against any DoV that relies on having broken a fair play rule.

A single person should not control more than one non-Idle Elector within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Elector and any Idle Electors.
An Elector 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 Elector should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
An Elector should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Elector.
An Elector should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
An Elector should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
An Elector 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 Elector should not roll dice 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 Elector must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
An Elector should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
An Elector should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly achieve victory.

Dynastic Rules

The Elective Monarchy

During the Fourteenth Dynasty of Josh, the rule Victory and Ascension has no effect. The Electors, as a singular collective entity, have achieved Victory.

Each Elector has a score for Political Power, which is a integer that defaults to 10 and which is privately tracked by the Doge. An Elector whose Political Power is at or below 0 is considered to be Ostracized. When an Elector joins the Dynasty for the first time, unless all other electors are Ostracized, their Political Power becomes the median Political Power of all other non-Ostracized Electors. Electors also have a Political Heft, which either 0, if they are Ostracized, or is their Political Power expressed as a percentage of the sum of the Political Powers of all non-Ostracized Electors. An non-Ostracized Elector may transfer any positive integer amount of their own Political Power to another Elector at any time, provided this does not cause the Elector performing the transfer to become Ostracized, either by making a Story Post which clearly specifies the transferred amount and its recipient, or by sending a Private Message to both the recipient of the transfer and the Doge which clearly specifies the transferred amount.

At any time, an Elector may post a Declaration of Victory (DoV). While it is open, each Elector may Vote on that DoV to indicate support or opposition. The Doge may not process changes to any Elector's Secret Faction while a DoV is pending.

The Doge may only vote on a DoV according to the following conditions:

If the elector who posted the DoV has no Secret Faction, or their Secret Faction is different than it was at the time of the most recent Masquerade post, the Doge must vote AGAINST the DoV
If the sum of the Political Hefts of all Electors whose EVC on that DoV is FOR is greater than or equal to 50%, the Doge should vote FOR the DoV.
If the sum of the Political Hefts of all Electors whose EVC on that DoV is AGAINST is greater than 50%, the Doge should vote AGAINST the DoV.
If none of the previous conditions are met, the Doge may not vote on the DoV.

A pending DoV may be enacted by any admin if the Doge has voted FOR it. If the Doge is an Admin, then they should immediately enact a pending DoV after casting a vote of FOR on it.

A pending DoV should be failed by any admin if 24 hours have elapsed since it was posted and the Doge has not voted FOR it, or at any time if the Doge has voted AGAINST it.

If a DoV is Failed, the Elector who posted it may not make another DoV during the same Season. After a DoV is failed, the Doge should decrease the Political Power of each Elector whose EVC on the DoV was FOR by 1.

When a DoV is Enacted, all other pending DoVs are Failed. The Doge will then disclose which Electors are in the same Secret Faction as the Elector who posted the DoV, and the Political Hefts of each Elector in that Secret Faction. One of the named Electors is randomly selected by the Doge, with each Elector’s chance of being selected being proportionate to their relative Political Heft, and a new Dynasty begins in which the Elector who was selected becomes the Doge.

The new Doge will make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. This should specify the Doge’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify that the terms “Elector” and “Doge” will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire Ruleset (where the replacement terms are different, and neither includes any words in a form in which they already appear in the non-dynastic Ruleset), and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep. When such an Ascension Address is posted, the Ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed. Between the enactment of the DoV and the posting of the Ascension Address, no new DoV may be made, Proposals may not be submitted or Resolved, and Dynastic Actions may not be taken except for the posting of an Ascension Address or passing of the role of Doge by the new Doge.

Before an Ascension Address has been posted for a new Dynasty, the Doge may pass the role of Doge to another Elector by making a post to that effect.

Timings

All actions that require the sending of a private message are considered to have taken place at the time of the date-stamp on the message as it is received in the recipient’s inbox. In the event that two Electors undertake such an action at the same time, the action defined earliest in the ruleset happens first; if multiple uses of the same action happen simultaneously then they are resolved in order of the performers’ Scandal, from lowest to highest, with further ties being broken by alphabetical order of name.

Factions

Each Elector may have a Faction, which is publicly tracked and which defaults to “-”, and a Secret Faction, which is secretly tracked by the Doge and which defaults to “-”. An Elector may change either piece of information to any surname on the list of Italian surnames wiki page, either by changing their Faction directly in the tracking document as a Daily Action, or by private messaging the Doge to change their Secret Faction as a Daily Action. Faction and Secret Faction names are flavour text.

A Faction or Secret Faction of “-” is considered to have a no value, and for the purposes of determining whether Electors have the same values for the Factions or Secret Factions a value of “-” is not considered to match other values of “-”.

Each Elector’s Political Power is one higher for each other Elector in the same Secret Faction as themselves. The Doge is responsible for maintaining this modifier as information changes.

The Masquerade

If they haven’t done so in the preceding 96 hours, the Doge should stage a Masquerade by performing the following atomic action:

Evaluate which Elector has received the most Winnower Nominations in the season that has just elapsed, with an Elector’s Interpretation always overriding their public Nomination, breaking any ties secretly and randomly. Make them the Winnower. For each Elector whose Nomination was overridden by an Interpretation, evaluate if the cost for Nominating the Elector (as calculated at the time the nomination took place) named in their Interpretation would be higher than the cost that they paid for their public Nomination; if it would then ensure that the difference is captured as a pending Scandal change to be enacted later in this rule.
Increase by 1 the Political Power of each Elector whose Faction is the same as the Winnower’s, unless that Faction is Prominent.
Increase by 2 the Political Power of each Elector whose Secret Faction is the same as the Winnower’s.
Posting a Story Post blog entry which contains a Guest List, and a list of the names of any Electors who Scandal has been changed by the Doge since the last Masquerade, including the amount by which the Doge changed the Scandal of each relevant Elector. It must also include the name of a randomly chosen Elector who will become the Winnower for that Masquerade, and the two Electors chosen to gain or lose Power by the previous Winnower.
Enact changes to Scandal in the gamestate.
Increase the Season Number by 1

The Guest List is a list of Electors, which contains only the following identifying information about them:

Their Secret Faction (if they have one)
Their Political Power
Their Mask

Each Elector’s Mask is chosen afresh for each Masquerade by the Doge, in a secretly random manner from the following list: Arlecchino, Bauta, Columbina, Medico, Moretta, Pantalone, Volto and Zanni. However, if an Elector is the Winnower, they always wear a Medico mask; if they have a Faction of “-” and are not the Winnower, they always wear an Arlecchino mask.

The period of time between two Masquerades is known as a Season. An action that can only be undertaken once per player per Season is called a Seasonal Action. The first 48 hours of a Season are known as its Preamble.

The Season Number is an positive integer value which is publicly tracked.

Ethics of the Nobility

No Elector is under any obligation to uphold any promise made in public or in private at any time.

Each Elector has a value for Scandal, which is an integer that is publicly tracked and which defaults to zero. A positive value for Scandal denotes an aggregate lack of trust, while a negative value for Scandal denotes the opposite. If an Elector’s Scandal is more than half their Political Power, that Elector is Ostracized.

Once during a Season's Preamble, each Elector may send the Doge a Rumour by private message, outlining an offence that has been carried out against them (where an offence is a betrayal, a breach of trust, a broken promise, or similar) and naming the Elector who carried it out. The Doge must then, at their earliest opportunity, post it to the blog as a Rumour Post (in the story post category), anonymising the name of the originator of the Rumour but including it as a sha256 hash. The Rumour Post must unambiguously identify the Rumour’s subject.

Each Elector may then make a Response, where a Response must comprise of both of the following elements: a public statement (made in a comment to the Rumour Post) setting out briefly what their response to the Rumour will be, and a private message to the Doge giving a Scandal score change between -1 and 2, inclusive. The sum of all relevant Response-changes to Scandal which are sent to the Doge within the same Season of the posting of the Rumour then accrues to the Scandal of the Rumour’s subject, though this accrual is not effective until the next time the Doge stages a Masquerade.

At any time, a Faction’s Scandal is the sum total of the Scandal of all Electors who have it as their Faction; all Factions which have the highest Scandal are Prominent Factions, and any Electors who has their Faction set to a Prominent Faction is a Patrician. A Patrician is always considered to be Ostracized.

Winnowing

At any time, exactly one Elector or idle Elector is the Winnower. The Winnower is named in Masquerade posts, and each time a new Winnower is named the old Winnower ceases to be such.

Once per Season, each Elector may privately message the Doge stating their Scandal of the Winnower, as a numerical value between -1 and 2, inclusive. That Scandal accrues to the Winnower that week.

If they haven’t done so since the most recent Masquerade, the Winnower may name two other Electors: one who will gain 5 Political Power, and one who will lose 2 Political Power. These will be publicly named in the next Masquerade post, and the changes to Political Power must be made by the Doge at their first convenience.

Winnower Elections

As a Seasonal Action, an Elector can make a Winnower Nomination.

Casting a Winnower Nomination in an Atomic Action with the following steps:

Make a comment to the most recent Masquerade post, which must contain only the text “Nominating x”, where x is the name of another Elector who has not been named the Winnower at the previous three Masquerades.
Pay the Nominating Cost. The Nominating Cost is to gain 2 Scandal, multiplied by 2 for every previous Winnower Nomination that the Nominator has made for the Nominee in previous Seasons, plus 1 for every other Elector (excluding the Nominator and the Nominee) in the same Faction as the Nominee.
Optionally, send an Interpretation to the Doge, which is a DM containing the text “Interpretation: x” where x is the name of an Elector with the same restriction as above.

Proposte

As a Daily Action, an Elector may create a Story Post with a title that begins with the text “Proposta:” and then (in said title) specifies by name two or more other Electors; this is considered to be a Proposta, and its creator is its Proporre. At the Doge’s convenience, the Doge should process each such Proposta in the order in which they were posted, as follows:

If all the Electors named in the title of a Proposta have the same Secret Faction when the Doge processes it, then the Doge should change the Proporre’s Secret Faction to match them.
The Doge must then comment on the Proposta, saying that it has been received, and whether the Proporre’s Secret Faction has been changed or not.

Once the Doge has processed and commented as above on a Proposta, it ceases to be a Proposta.

Aria

If at any time a single Secret Faction contains Electors with a combined Political Heft of more than 50% then the Doge should, at a time of their choosing within 24 hours of this having come to pass, make a story post announcing that the prima donna’s aria has started.

Special Case

Special Case Rules can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes "[X]", where X is either Active or Inactive, then its status is X. Otherwise, its status is its Default Status.

Special Case Rules have a Default Status, which can be Active or Inactive. If the title of a Special Case Rule includes an asterisk, (*) its Default Status is Inactive, otherwise, its Default Status is Active.

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may list any number of existing Special Case Rules to be set to a status other than their respective Default Status. All other Special Case Rules are set to their respective Default Status.

The text of a Special Case Rule that is Inactive is flavour text.

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

On the 24th, 25th and 26th of December, BlogNomic is on Hiatus. In addition, game actions defined by the rules titled “Electors” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.

Dormancy [Active]

If there are fewer than five Electors, BlogNomic is on Hiatus.

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

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

Dynastic Distance [Active]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Doge is not an Elector.

The Traitor [Inactive]

The Traitor for a particular Dynasty may be an Elector (including an idle one), or may be nobody, and it defaults to being nobody. The Traitor’s identity in the current Dynasty is tracked privately by the Doge, and the Doge should not share this information with Electors other than the Traitor.

If there is no Traitor for the current Dynasty, and BlogNomic is not on Hiatus, the Doge may secretly randomly select an Elector (other than the Doge) and privately inform them that they are the Traitor for the current Dynasty.

A Traitor is under no obligation to honour any informal promises they have made with other Electors, nor to tell the truth to them, and is encouraged to betray other Electors in order to achieve victory.

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Chamber of the Great Council page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. A Doge may change the wiki page referred to in this rule to a different page as part of their Ascension Address.

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. (e.g. 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.)

Imperatives

Can: “is able to”
Shall: “is required to”
Should: “is recommended that”

Time

Daily Action: If a game action is a Daily Action, each Elector 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 Elector 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.
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 Elector 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 Elector per week.

Other

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 Electors.
Dice: References to “DICEX” or “YDICEX” refer to X-sided dice and Y amount of X-sided dice, rolled using the Dice Roller.
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 Elector’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Elector’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Elector’s Vote on that Votable Matter.
Commentary: When posting a blog entry, an Elector 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.
Flavour Text: If a part of the ruleset is defined as being “flavour text”, it is gamestate and remains part of the ruleset document, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Electors are not required to obey flavour text and may not perform any action defined by it, and any statements that flavour text makes about gamestate are ignored.
Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of. All wiki pages that the Dynastic Rules explicitly mention (except for dynastic histories and discussion pages) and any images or Templates contained within those Wiki Pages are assumed to be Gamestate.
Hiatus: If BlogNomic is on Hiatus, Dynastic Actions may not be taken (except where the rule defining the action explicitly requires it to be taken during Hiatus or after a DoV's creation or enactment), and Proposals may not be submitted or Resolved. If multiple rules require BlogNomic to be on Hiatus at any given time, BlogNomic will continue to be on Hiatus until no rules require it.
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 Electors is half the number of Electors in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Electors it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Electors.
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 subrules of other rules.
Slack: The BlogNomic Slack is located at blognomic.slack.com. Electors 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 (e.g. #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.
Uphold: To Uphold an illegal action is to retroactively declare the attempt to take it to have been successful, and to declare that all attempted game actions taken after it were attempted as if the Upheld action had been successful.
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.
Wiki: The BlogNomic Wiki at http://wiki.blognomic.com

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

Votable Matters and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Elector 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 Elector 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 Elector 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 Elector is defined as an Elector who has been an Elector for fewer than seven days or an Elector that has unidled in the past seven days after being idle for at least 3 months.

Any post that is or is made illegal as a result of an infraction against any of the prohibitions set out in this rule continues to be an Official Post but may no longer have any effect on the ruleset or the gamestate. If it is a Votable Matter then it is Unpopular, regardless of any other performance against criteria set out in the core rules. When it is resolved it may be marked as Illegal by the resolving admin. A post that is illegal in this manner cannot subsequently be made legal by any means.

Representations of the Gamestate

For gamestate which is tracked in a specific place (such as a wiki page), any alteration of that gamestate as a result of an Elector’s action is (and can only be) applied by editing that data in that place. One 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 wiki merely represents the Gamestate tracked there, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and its representations are different, any Elector may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Elector feels that a representation of the gamestate (such as a wiki page) does not match the gamestate, they may either:

Undo the effects of any alteration that led to it, if that alteration did not follow the rules at the time it was made.
Alter the representation to match what they believe to be the correct application of an incorrectly-applied alteration. This may include completing incomplete actions on behalf of the original Elector, if doing so would not require the correcting Elector to make any decisions on behalf of the original Elector.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Electors are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgement.

The historical fact of the occurrence of a defined game action is itself considered to be gamestate, tracked in the history of whatever resource is used to track the gamestate modified by that action, where possible, or in the wiki page Gamestate Modifications if this is not possible.

Orphan Variables

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

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

Random Generators

The Dice Roller at https://blognomic.com/dice/roll.php 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 CARD command will return a card with a random suit (either Hearts, Diamonds, Spades or Clubs) and a random value (either Ace, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, Jack, Queen, King). A card with a value that is either Jack, Queen or King is a face card.

Any changes to the potential outcomes of the Dice Roller’s random result commands must be made by Proposal.

If a Proposal proposes a change to this rule that would require server-level access to the BlogNomic site to fully enact its effects, that Proposal must name an Elector with such access. Only an Elector with such access may Enact that Proposal. If that Proposal does not name an Elector with such access, that Proposal is Illegal.

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 Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Elector making this determination may do so using a private method of their choosing, instead of the Dice Roller.

Atomic Actions

An Atomic Action combines otherwise separate game actions into a single action.

All steps of an Atomic Action are considered one action, including the steps of an Atomic Action that is itself a step of a parent Atomic Action.
When an Elector 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 the steps are complete.
An Atomic Action may direct the Elector performing it to skip some of its steps, which the Elector must do and in which case the skipped steps are considered completed for this rule.
If an Elector arrives at a step in an Atomic Action and they cannot perform that step, they undo all the steps they have performed of that Action and are considered never to have performed that Action.
If one or more steps of an Atomic Action were done incorrectly, the Elector must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Elector uses any legal steps that have already been completed in the illegal Atomic Action and only redoes the illegal ones. (For example, if an Atomic Action consists of rolling a dice and then doing steps based upon its result, the Elector would have to reroll the dice only if they rolled the wrong one in the first place, and would then have to repeat any steps that depended upon the result of that dice; however, if they rolled the dice correctly but took an illegal step later on, the result of the original dice roll would still be used in the redone step.)
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.

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 Elector can spend only their own values, and a rule that allows Electors to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Elector (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
An Elector 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 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 a default value but no defined starting value, then its default value should also be considered a starting value. If a game variable has neither a default value nor a starting value, then both may be considered to be 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”).
If the rules that define a game variable are amended, and some previously valid values become invalid as a consequence, any existing variables whose current values would become invalid are instead set to their starting value.
Invalid values for game variables can never be used, even if the values stored in a gamestate-tracking entity 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 Dice Roller if N is greater than one million.

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 (e.g. 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 (e.g. “two days after this Proposal enacts, Elector 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.
If a dynastic rule has no text and no subrules, any Elector may delete it from the ruleset.
A rule may be accompanied by one or more illustrations, and an illustration may have a caption. In all situations, unless otherwise explicitly stated, an illustration and a caption to an illustration must be treated as flavour text.

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 (e.g. “04/10/09”), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.
An Elector 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.
Electors 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”.

Names

Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of an Elector if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Elector’s name.
If a rule would ever have no name, it is instead given the name of the proposal that created it, or (if this is not possible) the name “Unnamed Rule”.
The names of rules are flavour text.
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”.
When referring to a Rule, the name used in reference to a specific Rule may be simplified by not including braces, any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, and, in the case of Special Case Rules, any asterisks, as long as such a reference would be unambiguous.
Where a proposal refers to a second proposal by name, it is assumed to refer to the most recently posted proposal of that name which pre-dates the first proposal.

Prioritisation

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

The Appendix has precedence over any other 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;
A Special Case Rule has equal precedence as a Dynastic Rule, unless that Special Case Rule explicitly says it can’t be overruled by a Dynastic Rule;
If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Electors may Kick each other” and “Electors may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Electors may not Kick each other);
If two contradicting parts have the same scope, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Electors may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Electors may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Electors may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

An Elector may have another Elector as a Mentor. Electors who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. An Elector may add or remove their own name from this list at any time.

If an unmentored Elector requests a Mentor, or a new Elector has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Doge should select a Tenured Elector and ask them to take that Elector on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The Doge should take care to consider game balance when selecting a potential mentor.

A relationship between a mentor and a mentee is a Mentorship. The members and starting dates of all active Mentorships are tracked on the Mentorships wiki page, and whenever a new Mentorship is established, the Doge should announce it in a blog post. An Elector may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

If there is no Doge, any Elector who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Doge for the purposes of this rule.

Things that a mentor must do

A mentor must do the following:

Make pro-active contact with their mentee when appointed, and explain the dynamics of the Mentorship system;
Be available to answer any questions that their mentee may have about the game, including explaining the rules, common standards and etiquette of play, proofreading posts and clarifying game events;
Introduce their mentee to the various platforms of the game, including the wiki, Slack, and end-of-dynasty notifications through the Facebook group or Twitter;
If possible, give their mentee a nudge if it appears that they are at risk of becoming Idle;
If they themselves go idle, communicate with their mentee to either continue to support them as an idle Elector or arrange a handover to another mentor if requested.

Things that a mentor should do

The following sets out suggested best practice for Mentorship relationships:

The Mentorship lasts for four weeks or until the next Ascension Address, whichever occurs latest. It can continue informally for longer but after this threshold the mentor is no longer bound by any of the conditions set out in the parent rule to this rule, or any of its subrules.
The mentor can and should advise the mentee on how to proceed in the mentee’s own best interests. This can include making connections with other Electors.
The mentor should consider copying the mentee in on private, game-related communications, where it does not unfairly prejudice their own interests. The mentee should keep this information private without explicit consent from the mentor.
The mentor and mentee may work together to achieve victory. If a mentor achieves victory with support of their mentee then they should, if the mentee wishes it, pass the baton to the mentee.

Things that a mentor should not do

The following sets out a list of things that a mentor should not do in their relationship with their mentee. All of these are considered to be Fair Play rules, as per the rule Fair Play.

The mentor should not sock-puppet, bully, coerce or otherwise manipulate the mentee into performing any game actions.
The mentor should not seek to dissuade the mentee from pursuing other alliances.
A former mentor should not seek to use the fact of a prior Mentorship to influence the former mentee on an ongoing basis.

Ruleset 185

Contents

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

Electors

Idle Electors

Dynasties

Votable Matters

Votes

Enacting and Failing

Tags

Proposals

Special Proposal Voting

Resolution of Proposals

Calls for Judgement

Victory and Ascension

Fair Play

Dynastic Rules

The Elective Monarchy

Timings

Factions

The Masquerade

Ethics of the Nobility

Winnowing

Winnower Elections

Proposte

Aria

Special Case

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

Dormancy [Active]

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

Dynastic Distance [Active]

The Traitor [Inactive]

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

Appendix

Keywords

Imperatives

Time

Other

Gamestate Tracking

Official Posts

Representations of the Gamestate

Orphan Variables

Random Generators

Atomic Actions

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

Rules and Proposals

Time

Spelling

Names

Prioritisation

Mentors

Things that a mentor must do

Things that a mentor should do

Things that a mentor should not do

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