Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Workers 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 Worker may update it to do so.

Workers

The process of applying for access to the BlogNomic blog is outlined in the FAQ. A human with access to the blog who is not already a Worker may make a blog post making clear their wish to be a Worker (plural form Workers); in response, an Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar, at which moment they become a Worker.

A Worker may only change their name as a result of a Proposal approving the change.

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

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

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

When a Worker 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 Worker Idled in a different Dynasty), the Worker is given the default value for new Workers, if such a value exists.

An Admin may render a Worker Idle if that Worker has asked to become Idle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), or if that Worker has not posted an entry or comment in the past 168 Hours (7 days). In the latter case, the Admin must announce the idling in a blog post. Admins may render themselves Idle at any time, but should announce it in a post or comment when they do so. An Admin may Unidle a Worker if that Worker is Idle and has asked to become Unidle in an entry or comment from the past 96 hours (4 Days), and Idle Admins may Unidle themselves at any time, unless the Worker who would be Unidled asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the past 96 hours (4 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 resolve Votable Matters as if they were not idle.

Dynasties

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

An Interregnum is the period between dynasties, after a DoV has been enacted and before an Ascension Address has been posted. During an Interregnum the game is in hiatus; additionally, no DoVs may be made, and no Worker may achieve Victory. However, dynastic actions that are specifically permitted to be carried out during an Interregnum may be carried out.

Votable Matters

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

Votes

Each Worker may cast one Vote on a Votable Matter by making a comment to the Official Post that comprises that Votable Matter using a voting icon of FOR, AGAINST, or DEFERENTIAL. Additional voting icons may be permitted in some cases by other rules. A valid Vote is, except when otherwise specified, a Vote of FOR or AGAINST. A Worker’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-Worker never has a Vote, even if they were a Worker previously and had cast a valid Vote.

If a Worker other than the Factory casts a vote of DEFERENTIAL, then the Vote of DEFERENTIAL is an indication of confidence in the Factory. When the Factory 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 Factory’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. Exception: Proposals which would change the text of a Core, Special Case or Appendix rule if enacted cannot be Popular on this basis.

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

The number of Workers 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 have a status, which can either be Pending, Enacted, Failed, or Illegal. When a votable matter is first put forward is considered Pending (which is tracked as having no status in the current blog software), and it remains Pending until it is Resolved.

A votable matter is resolved by an admin setting its status through use of the “status” field in the blog post editing form. When 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 resolved Votable Matters.

A votable matter may not be resolved except as directed by the ruleset, and the status of a resolved votable matter, once resolved, is determined by the votes cast upon it, as assessed by the rules that govern the specific kind of votable matter (as well as any other considerations regarding the legality of the votable matter, such as the stipulations put forward in the Appendix rule Official Posts). When a Failed proposal has been Vetoed it may optionally have the Vetoed status upon resolution, which is considered to be the same as Failed for the purposes of all other rules.

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

Proposals

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

Special Proposal Voting

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

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest Pending Proposal may be Enacted by any Admin 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.

When a Proposal is Enacted, its stated effects are immediately applied in full; the Admin Enacting it shall update the Gamestate and Ruleset, and correct any gamestate-tracking entities, as specified in the Proposal.

Calls for Judgement

If two or more Workers actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if a Worker feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Worker 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 a Worker (other than the Factory) 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 Worker 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 Factory 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 Worker 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, the Worker who posted the DoV becomes Factory, and the game enters an Interregnum. When a DoV is enacted then all game actions that led up to it are considered to be upheld.

If the game is in an Interregnum then the new Factory must either Pass the Mantle, by making a post naming another Worker - in which case the Factory ceases to be the Factory and the Worker so named becomes the Factory - or start a new dynasty by completing the following Atomic Action:

Make an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category. This should specify the Factory’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and it may optionally specify new dynasty-specific terms as outline in the rule "Synonyms", and/or list a number of dynastic rules to keep (if none are specifed then the entire Dynastic Ruleset is repealed).
Update the Ruleset to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

Once this Atomic Action has been completed the Interregnum ends and the new dynasty begins.

Fair Play

The following are BlogNomic’s rules of fair play. If any of these rules are found to have been broken, or if a Worker’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. Workers 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 Worker within BlogNomic, and should announce publicly if they control both a non-Idle Worker and any Idle Workers.
A Worker should not “spam” the BlogNomic blog. What counts as spamming is subjective, but would typically include posting more than ten blog entries in a day, more than ten blog comments in a row, or posting a blog entry of more than 1000 words.
A Worker should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or other blognomic.com scripts).
A Worker should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Worker.
A Worker should not edit the “Entry Date” field of a blog post.
A Worker should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
A Worker should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an Ascension Address).
A Worker 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. A Worker must use their own name in the Dice Roller, when rolling dice.
A Worker should not deliberately and unreasonably prolong the performance of a game action once they have started it.
A Worker should not use a core, special case or appendix rules scam to directly or indirectly cause a Worker to achieve victory.

Dynastic Rules

Energy Cycles

Each Worker has an amount of Energy, a publicly tracked non-negative integer that defaults to 2.

Each Worker, except for Bots, can be Clocked In or Clocked Out (by default, they are Clocked In). This status is tracked by appending an asterisk to the Energy of Clocked Out Workers on the dynastic tracking page. Clocked Out Workers cannot perform actions that are defined by the rule “Machines”, by subrules of that rule, or by the rule “Clientele”. A Worker can set themself to be Clocked Out at any time.

If it has been at least 60 hours since the last Cycle, or if it has been at least 24 hours since the last Cycle and all non-Bot Workers without Dustsheets are Clocked Out, any Worker may perform an Atomic Action named “Cycle” with the following steps:

Remove all Boxes
For every Worker, if their Energy is less than 2, set it to 2.
Each Non-Bot Worker becomes Clocked In
For each Worker with no Hot Machines, replace a Clink in their Line (if they have one) with a Dustsheet
For each machine, set its heat to Cold.
For each Client who has more than one Want, randomly remove Wants from their collection of Wants until they have one or fewer Wants remaining.
For each Client, roll a DICE3, subtract 1, and add that many Wants to their collection of Wants, choosing randomly from the list in “Clientele” (skipping Wants that the Client already possesses).

Machines

Each Worker may have up to six Machines in their Line; this is tracked as an ordered list that defaults to one Dustsheet machine. A Worker may add a new, Cold instance of a Machine to any position in their Line by paying that Machine’s Cost. A Worker may Activate a Cold or Warm Machine they have by paying its costs, setting its heat to Hot, and executing its effects. A Worker may Demolish a Cold Machine they have by removing it from their Line.

A Machine has a Heat status that can be Hot, Warm, or Cold (and is Cold by default); this status is tracked by placing an apostrophe (‘) mark next to the name of each Warm Machine in each Worker’s list of Machines and an asterisk (*) next to the name of each Hot Machine in each Worker’s list of Machines.

A type of Machine can be High-Tech or Low-Tech, defaulting to Low-Tech. A Machine type’s High-Tech status is tracked by a bullet point reading “High-Tech” in its listing in the Ruleset. If a Machine is High-Tech, Workers may not add it to their lineup or activate it unless they have its name in their Tech list.

The list of available types of Machine (which any Worker can arrange in alphabetical order, if it is not already) is as follows:

Axe

Cost: one Box with an even value
Effect: gain two Boxes whose values are each half those of the box used to activate this Machine

Baker

Cost: one Cog
Effect: For each Flour you have, remove that Flour and gain one Thing called Bread.

Chime

High-Tech
Cost: 10 Things with different names, none of which are listed in the effect of Wastebin
Effect: achieve victory if the Worker owning this machine holds at least 11 Prototypes; otherwise, gain two Prototypes.

Clink

Cost: one Box
Effect: Gain Cogs equal to the value of the Box used to activate this machine.

Compactor

Cost: one or more Things
Effect: Gain a Box containing the number of Things used to activate this Machine.

Crusher

Cost: one Energy and one non-Crusher Machine
Effect: Gain the smallest possible valid payment for the Cost of the Machine spent to activate this Machine (and any Widgets that were attached to it); any Things gained this way are named “Scrap” if not specified.

Dustsheet

Cost: None when activated; one Box when being added to a Line
Effect: Replace this Machine with a Cold Clink

Glue Gun

Cost: two Boxes
Effect: gain a Box whose value equals the sum of the values of the boxes used to activate this Machine

Greenhouse

Cost: one Seed plus one Energy
Effect: The type of Seed used to activate this Greenhouse is recorded in parentheses after this machine's name and heat status marker (if any).

Harvester

Cost: two Cogs
Effect: for each Hot Greenhouse you own, gain a Crop corresponding to the Seed last used to activate it, plus a Seed of the type last used to activate it.

Mill

Cost: one Cog
Effect: For each Wheat you have, remove that Wheat and gain one Thing called Flour.

Press

Cost: one Energy
Effect: Gain a Box containing any number from 1 to 5.

Printer

Cost: one Box
Effect: Gain a number of Things called Paper equal to half the value of the Box used to activate this Machine (rounded up).

Prototyper

Cost: a Box with value greater than (and not equal to) the number of Prototypes the Worker owning this machine holds, plus a number of Cogs equal to the number of Prototypes the Worker owning this machine holds
Effect: gain one Prototype.

Seeder

Cost: one Cog
Effect: Gain a Seed corresponding to a Crop of your choice.

Spin

Cost: one Energy
Effect: Roll DICE10 and gain a Box containing the result of that roll.

Storage

Cost: One box
Effect: Gain whatever box was most recently spent to purchase or activate this machine, prior to the current activation. (The value of that box is tracked in parenthesis after this machine's name and heat status marker (if any))

Sugarcuber

Cost: one Cog
Effect: For each Thing called Sugar you have, remove that Thing and gain one Thing called Sugarcube.

Wastebin

Cost: one Energy
Effect: Gain up to four Things, each with one of the following names at random: Ashtray, Boot, Candle, Dust, Earplug, Fishbone, Gum, Hair, Insect, Jamjar, Kettle, Lint, Mitten, Napkin, Odor, Pushpin, Quilt, Razor, Sponge, Toy, Umbrella, Valve, Whisk, Xylophone, Yardstick, Ziploc

Widgets

Any Worker may Attach a new Widget to one of the Machines they have by paying its Cost. Widgets are listed in brackets immediately after their attached Machine’s name and (if present) Heat status mark and/or parenthesized recorded information, e.g. “Storage* (3) [Cooling Widget]”. A Machine can only have one Widget Attached to it at any point in time. If a Worker would Attach a Widget to one of the Machines they have that already has a Widget Attached to it, that Worker first removes the already existing Widget from that Machine, then adds the new Widget in the previous Widget’s place.

A type of Widget can be High-Tech or Low-Tech, defaulting to Low-Tech. A Widget type’s High-Tech status is tracked by a bullet point reading “High-Tech” in its listing in the Ruleset. If a Widget is High-Tech, Workers may not add it to any Machine in their lineup unless they have its name in their Tech list.

A Widget has an Effect. A Widget’s Effect is listed underneath a Widget’s cost. Whenever the criteria listed in the Widget’s Effect are met, the Worker that has that Widget can and must execute that Widget’s Effect.

Cooling Widget: Cost: 10 Cogs; Effect: Whenever the Machine this Widget is Attached to is Activated when it is Cold and would be made Hot, it is made Warm instead.

Boxing Widget: Cost: 5 Cogs; Effect: Whenever you would gain a box containing a number as a result of you Activating the Machine this Widget is Attached to, you gain a box of that number plus one instead.

Products

The amount of Cogs a Worker has is publicly tracked in the Dynastic Tracking page.

Each Worker has zero or more Boxes, each containing one number, publicly tracked as a list of numbers. A Box’s value is equal to the contained number, and Boxes containing the same number are fungible.

Each Worker has a number of Prototypes (abbreviated to “Proto” on the dynastic tracking page), a publicly tracked nonnegative number.

Each Worker can have a number of Techs up to their number of Prototypes. A Tech is the name of a High-Tech Machine or Widget, recorded in a publicly tracked Tech list (which defaults to blank) corresponding to a Worker. A Worker may add a High-Tech Machine or Widget to their Tech list at any time by paying its Cost.

Things

Workers have an amount of Things, which is publicly tracked. Things have a name, defaulting to "Bugged Thing", and are tracked in the Things column for Workers by having their names listed (eg. "Coffee, Backache, Pink Slip").

A Thing may optionally have an Effect, listed below. A Worker can pay a Thing to get the Effect listed for that Thing’s name.

Sugarcube: Gain 1 Box with an integer value of your choice between 1 and 7, inclusive
Bread: Gain 1 Energy.
Corn: Gain 2 Cogs.

Each Worker may only have at most 10 Things. When a Worker would otherwise gain a Thing but already has 10 Things, they do not gain that Thing (If they had fewer than 10 Things, but then gain a number of Things that would cause them to have more than 10 Things at the same time, they choose which subset of those new Things to gain such that they have 10 Things). If a worker has more than 10 Things, any Worker may random select one of that Worker’s things and remove it.

A Crop is a type of Thing. The following Things are Crops:

Sugar
Wheat
Corn

A Seed is a Thing corresponding to a particular Crop, named “X Seed”, where X is the name of the Crop it corresponds to.

Clientele

There are three Clients, the Square Masses (syn. “Masses”), the Cube Elite (syn. “Elite”) and the Tesseract Vatican (syn. “Vatican”).

Clients have a collection of (publicly tracked) Wants, defaulting to having none. A Client is Satisfied with a Worker if the Worker is currently fulfilling all of the Client’s Wants. A Worker who is Clocked In can Submit a Report: upon doing so they gain Cogs per Client that is Satisfied with them, and become Clocked Out. The number of Cogs gained depends on the number of Wants in the Client's collection: 2 Cogs for 1 Want, 4 Cogs for 2 Wants, and 7 Cogs for 3 or more Wants.

Wants are the following:

Workers' Rights: The Worker has at least 1 Energy.
Eco-Friendliness: The Worker has activated 3 or less Machines during the current Cycle.
Efficiency: The Worker has more Hot Machines than they have non-Hot Machines.
Productivity: The Worker has gained 5 or more Boxes in the current Cycle.
Small Product: The Worker has a Box containing 1 or lower.
Large Product: The Worker has a Box containing 8 or higher.
Asceticism: The Worker has more Machines than they have Things.
Surplus: The Worker has at least 5 Things.
Competence: For every Bot, the Worker has more Boxes, more Cogs, or more Prototypes than that Bot.
Loyalty: For at least one other Client, the Worker does not fulfill any of their Wants (ignoring those Wants that are also held by this Client).

Bots

Bots are Workers for the purposes of dynastic rules only. Bots start with the same default values which other Workers have. Each Bot has a name, and a set of behavior that describes how the bot operates. Bots are tracked alongside the other Workers on the dynastic tracking page, but their rows are given a background color of #cff to help signify they are a bot.

The list of bots and their behavior is below:

Name: Sharebot. Behavior: Provided they have not already done so since the last Cycle, any Worker may cause Sharebot to perform any action which Sharebot is legally allowed to perform.
Name: Sleepybot. Behavior: Sleepybot cannot perform any actions
Name: Cogbot. Behavior: If no Worker has done so since the last Cycle, a Worker may turn on Cogbot. When Cogbot is turned on it performs the following atomic action: Cogbot first activate its cold spin machines until it either has no more cold spin machines or no more energy. Cogbot then activates its cold clink machines, always using its largest value box, until it either has no more cold clink machines or no more boxes. When choosing between which machine to activate out of those which fit the criteria for a given step, Cogbot always chooses the machine earliest in its machine list
Name:Monkeybot Behavior: Each Worker may cause Monkeybot to perform an action identical in all respects (except for the results of any Dice rolls or required random selections) to any action that Worker has already performed in the current Cycle, provided that Monkeybot is legally allowed to perform the action.

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 "[Rare]", 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 core rules titled “Workers” and “Victory and Ascension” (with the exception of Voting in DoVs) may not be taken.

Dormancy [Active]

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

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

If the Factory has voted DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, that vote is instead considered to be valid and either FOR (if more Workers have voted FOR the Proposal than have voted AGAINST it) or AGAINST (in all other cases). However, in either case, votes of DEFERENTIAL made by other Workers on the same Proposal are not considered to be valid.

Dynastic Distance [Active]

For the purposes of dynastic rules which do not deal with voting, the Factory is not a Worker.

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

The gamestate tracking page for this dynasty is the Factory Layout page of the wiki. Unless otherwise stated, all publicly tracked gamestate information is tracked on it. A Factory may change the wiki page referred to in this rule to a different page as part of their Ascension Address, provided that page did not exist at the time the Ascension Address was posted and does not begin with the word “Ruleset”.

No Collaboration [Inactive] [Rare]

If “Dynastic Distance” is also active, the Factory is not considered a Worker for the purposes of this rule. The Factory is always permitted to inform the Traitor of their role if the Special Case rule “The Traitor” is active.

Workers may not privately communicate with each other about dynastic gameplay or votable matters that affect the dynastic ruleset or gamestate. Private communications are considered to be anything that any other Worker could not reasonably be privy to, perceive, or understand. Discussion conducted in plain English on the BlogNomic wiki and blog, and the #currentdynasty or #general channels of the BlogNomic slack, are not considered to be private communication. Idle Workers (or people who are not yet Workers) also face the same restrictions if they intend to become an active Worker during the course of the dynasty. The use of creative strategies to circumvent this rule may be considered to be a scam for the purposes of determining whether an infraction of Fair Play has taken place.

A mentor and mentee may still privately converse with each other, but should keep their conversations away from discussion specific gameplay strategy.

If information which was not allowed to be discussed is still privately discussed, the Workers who were part of the conversation should make a post to the blog disclosing what information was discussed as their earliest convenience.

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 Worker 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 Worker 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 Worker 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 Worker 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 Workers.
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): A Worker’s Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Votable Matter is that Worker’s Comment to that Votable Matter, if any, that contains that Worker’s Vote on that Votable Matter.
Commentary: When posting a blog entry, a Worker 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 or gamestate is defined as being “flavour text”, it retains its context, but is not considered to have any meaning beyond being a string of characters. Workers 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), 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 Workers is half the number of Workers in that subset, rounded down, plus one. If the word Quorum is used without qualifying which subset of Workers it is referring to, it is referring to a Quorum of all Workers.
Resolve/Resolution: If used in a context of a Votable Matter, the word “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting, failing, or marking illegal 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. The resolution of a votable matter is tracked by reference to its status in the blog post edit form. If otherwise legally applied, the application of any status through the blog post editing form is sufficient to consider that votable matter to have been correctly resolved, but a resolved votable matter should have the correct status wherever possible; if any admin believes that a resolved votable matter has an incorrect status then they may correct it.
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. Workers 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 Worker 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. Dynastic rules cannot define posts in the “Call for Judgement” category to be a type of official post other than a Call for Judgement, and this restriction cannot be overridden by dynastic rules.

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 4 hours old and either no Worker 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 Worker 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 Worker is defined as a Worker who has been a Worker for fewer than seven days or a Worker 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, except for the legal enactment of a CFJ. An illegal CFJ cannot cause itself to become legal.

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 a Worker’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 Worker may correct the representations to comply with the Gamestate.

If a Worker 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 Worker, if doing so would not require the correcting Worker to make any decisions on behalf of the original Worker.

Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed alteration, however, Workers 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.

A Worker 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.
A list of comma-separated values in curly brackets (eg {x,y}) will return one of the values at random.

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 a Worker with such access. Only a Worker with such access may Enact that Proposal. If that Proposal does not name a Worker 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 roll in the Dice Roller, unless otherwise specified, and which value the roll result corresponds to must be reasonably inferable from the nature of the roll and any comments supplied by the Worker making the roll before or while making the roll. If a selection is explicitly specified as being “secretly” random, the Worker 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 a Worker 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.
If a rule allows the Worker performing an Atomic Action to skip some of its steps, the skipped steps are considered to have been completed.
If a Worker 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 Worker must redo the Atomic Action; for that purpose, the Worker 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 Worker 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,” “pay” 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” or “pay” 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, paid, lost, gained, or transferred, a Worker can spend or pay from only their own values, and a rule that allows Workers to transfer or pay a numeric value to another Worker only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to that other Worker (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
If a Dynastic Action is defined as having a cost X of numeric value V, or defines a requirement to spend, pay, or lose X of numeric value V to accomplish an effect or multiple effects, then the arithmetic effects of spending or payment and the act of carrying out those effects are considered to be subsequent steps in an Atomic Action, with the spending or payment step taking place before the effects step unless stated otherwise.
A Worker 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.
If a piece of information is described as being tracked secretly or privately by the Factory (including secretly random selections), then that information may only be revealed by the Factory when the ruleset allows it. If a Worker should already know such a piece of information (in that the Factory has already told them it, or vice versa, and there is no way that the information could have been changed since then), the Factory may repeat it to them.

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, Worker 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 Worker 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.
A Worker 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 and formatting

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.
Workers 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”.
A Worker may reformat a list of items in the dynastic ruleset to have bullet points or other appropriate list markup, if doing so would not change the order of that list, nor how any rules interpreted its content.

Names

Within the Ruleset, a word only refers to the name of a Worker if it is explicitly stated that it refers to a Worker’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 and wiki pages (other than the Ruleset) 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 and any text between a pair of opening and closing braces, 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;
If a Core Rule explicitly says it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Core Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has precedence over that Core Rule;
If a Special Case Rule explicitly says that it cannot be overruled by a Dynastic Rule, that Special Case Rule has precedence over a Dynastic Rule, otherwise a Dynastic Rule has equal precedence as that Special Case Rule;
If two contradicting parts have equal precedence, the part with more limited scope applies (e.g. if the rules “Workers may Kick each other” and “Workers may not Kick each other on Tuesdays” exist, and it is Tuesday, Workers may not Kick each other);
If two contradicting parts have the same scope, or have scopes that only overlap where they contradict each other, the negative rule applies (e.g. with “Workers may Punch a Spaceman on Friday” and “Workers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday”, then Workers may not Punch Spacemen on Friday).

Mentors

A Worker may have another Worker as a Mentor. Workers who are willing to act as a Mentor are listed on the Mentorships wiki page, and are said to be “Tenured”. An Admin may add or remove their own name, or the name of a Worker who has requested a change on their own behalf, from this list at any time.

If an unmentored Worker requests a Mentor, or a new Worker has joined the game and has no Mentor, the Factory should select a Tenured Worker and ask them to take that Worker on as a Mentee; if they accept, then such a Mentorship is established. The Factory 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 Factory should announce it in a blog post. A Worker may dissolve a Mentorship they are part of at any time, by announcing this in a blog post.

If there is no Factory, any Worker who has been active in at least three previous dynasties may act as Factory 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 Worker 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 Workers.
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.

Synonyms

A dynasty may provide extra theming by using alternative terms for words like “Worker” and “Factory”.

Each term in this list is synonymous with the term in parentheses

Worker (Player)
Factory (Emperor)

When a new Dynasty is started, the Ascension Address may specify new terms for each entry in the above list, provided the newly chosen term does not appear anywhere in the ruleset outside of this rule (though if it only appears in rules which are being removed as part of the Ascension Address, it is fine), and that doing so would not cause two terms in the above list to become synonymous with each other. Doing so causes the old corresponding value (including regional spelling variations) to be replaced by the new value everywhere in the ruleset except in any of the parenthesis in the above list.

Ruleset 190

Contents

Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

Workers

Idle Workers

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

Energy Cycles

Machines

Widgets

Products

Things

Clientele

Bots

Special Case

Seasonal Downtime [Active]

Dormancy [Active]

Imperial Deferentials [Active]

Dynastic Distance [Active]

Dynastic Tracking [Active]

No Collaboration [Inactive] [Rare]

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 and formatting

Names

Prioritisation

Mentors

Things that a mentor must do

Things that a mentor should do

Things that a mentor should not do

Synonyms

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