Core Rules

Ruleset and Gamestate

This is the Ruleset for BlogNomic; all Ants shall obey it. Section One consists of the "core rules" of BlogNomic, covering basic proposal mechanics; Section Two contains the rules of the current dynasty; and Section Three contains the glossary, which exists solely to clarify the remainder of the ruleset.

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

Admins may correct obvious spelling and typographical mistakes in the Ruleset at any time, including replacing Spivak and gender-specific pronouns with the singular "they".

Ants

Anybody may apply to join BlogNomic (if they are not already playing) by registering at http://blognomic.com via the Register link in the sidebar, and then making a post announcing their arrival. An Admin shall add them to the roster in the sidebar and the GNDT, at which moment they become an Ant.

An Ant may leave the game at any time by posting an entry to the BlogNomic weblog requesting such an action. An Ant may only change their name as a result of a proposal approving the change.

Some Ants are Admins, responsible for updating the site and the Ruleset, and are signified as such in the sidebar. Ants who wish to become Admins may sign up with a username for the Ruleset Wiki, and submit a Proposal to make themselves Admins. Existing Admins may be removed from their posts by Proposal, CfJ, or voluntary resignation. New admins shall be given the GNDT configuration password when they become admins.

Some Ants are Idle, and shall be marked as such in the sidebar. For the purposes of the Ruleset, excluding Rules 1.1, 1.2, 1.8 and 1.10, Idle Ants are not counted as Ants. Admins may render an Ant Idle if that Ant has asked to become Idle or if that Ant 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 by announcing that they have done so in a blog post. Admins may de-Idle an Ant at their request, and Idle Admins may de-idle themselves at any time, unless the idle Ant in question asked to become (or rendered themselves) Idle within the previous 4 days, and within the current dynasty. The Ant’s personal gamestate retains the values it had immediately prior to their going Idle. If one or more values would be undefined, it is set to the value new Ants receive, if such a value exists.

Proposals

Any Ant may submit a Proposal to change the Ruleset or Gamestate, by posting an entry in the "Proposal" category that describes those changes, except that:

An Ant cannot submit a non-Core Proposal if that Ant already has two or more non-Core Proposals pending.
An Ant cannot submit a Proposal if that Ant already has three or more Proposals pending.
An Ant cannot submit a Proposal if that Ant has already submitted three or more Proposals that day.

Proposals can either be Pending, Enacted, or Failed. When a Proposal is first put forward, it is considered Pending. A Proposal may not also be a Call for Judgment.

Voting

Any Ant may cast their 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, DEFERENTIAL (only if the Votable Matter is a Proposal), or VETO (only if the Votable Matter is a Proposal and the Ant is the Sandbox Master).

If the Ant who authored a Votable Matter has not cast a Vote on it, their Vote is counted as FOR. If an Ant uses more than one Voting Icon in comments on a Votable Matter, their Vote is the last voting icon they use. If an Ant leaves the game or goes Idle, their Vote is no longer valid. If an Ant Votes against their own Proposal, this renders the Proposal self-killed and that Vote may not be changed.

A Vote of DEFERENTIAL is a Vote of no opinion, or of faith in the decision of the Sandbox Master. The Vote will count as the same as the Sandbox Master’s Vote. If the Sandbox Master casts a Vote of DEFERENTIAL on a Proposal, it serves the purpose of cancelling any previous Vote on that Proposal that was cast by the Sandbox Master and counts as an explicit Vote of abstention. If there is no Sandbox Master, or the Vote is made by the proposal’s author on their own proposal and the Sandbox Master does not Vote on it, a Vote of DEFERENTIAL counts as an explicit Vote of abstention, and has no effect except possibly to void earlier voting icons by that voter on that proposal.

If no Sandbox Master has Voted on a Proposal, a Vote of DEFERENTIAL on that proposal does not count as a Vote for the purposes of rule 1.5.

Resolution of Proposals

The oldest pending Proposal may be enacted by any Admin (and the Ruleset and/or Gamestate updated to include the specified effects of that Proposal) if either of the following is true:-

It has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, has been open for voting for at least 12 hours, and has not been vetoed or self-killed.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, it has continuously been a proposal for that time, it has more than 1 valid Vote, more than half of its Votes are FOR, and it has not been vetoed or self-killed.

The oldest pending Proposal may be failed by any Admin, if any of the following are true:-

It has enough AGAINST Votes that it could not be Enacted without one of those Votes being changed.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and half or fewer of its Votes are FOR.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and has fewer than 2 valid Votes.
The Ant who proposed it has Voted AGAINST it.
The Sandbox Master has Voted to VETO it.

Whenever an Admin marks a proposal, CfJ, or DoV as enacted or failed, they must also mark their name, and report the final tally of Votes (or the fact that it was self-killed or vetoed).

Proposals the Sandbox Master has Voted to VETO are considered vetoed, and such a Vote cannot be changed. Proposals the author has Voted against are considered self-killed unless the Sandbox Master has Voted VETO on them, or they have fulfilled one of the other requirements to fail a proposal before the author’s self-kill Vote is placed. Immediately after enacting a proposal that causes a rule with no name to be added to the ruleset, unless the proposal specifically states that the rule should have no name, the enacting admin can change the rule’s title to give it a name, so long as doing so does not change the meaning of any part of the ruleset, nor change any properties of the rule (such as specific words in the title) that the ruleset specifically cares about.

Calls for Judgment

If two or more Ants actively disagree as to the interpretation of the Ruleset, or if an Ant feels that an aspect of the game needs urgent attention, then any Ant may raise a Call for Judgment (abbreviated CfJ) by posting an entry in the “Call for Judgment” category. The post shall go on to describe the issue, and measures that shall be taken to resolve it.

All Ants may cast Votes on that CfJ to indicate agreement or disagreement with the position taken in that CfJ. Unfailed CfJs continue until they reach a Quorum of FOR Votes, a Quorum of AGAINST Votes, or if there is no hiatus going on, until four days have passed since they were posted, and if there is a hiatus going on until two days have passed since they were posted. After this time, if more than half the cast Votes are FOR Votes, the CfJ may be enacted by any Admin by updating or correcting the Gamestate and Ruleset as specified. Otherwise, the CfJ fails. A Failed CfJ has no further effect.

Any CfJ that has no effect on the ruleset or gamestate may be automatically failed by any admin.

Gamestate Tracking

Proposals, Calls for Judgment, and other official posts, as well as specific gamestate information, shall be tracked by the BlogNomic blog at http://blognomic.com. Any Ant 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.

If no Ant has commented on it, an official post may be altered or removed by its author; otherwise this can only be done as allowed by the Ruleset. However, despite this, official posts can never be changed from one category to another, or changed to be a different sort of official post, if they have been posted for more than fifteen minutes. The Admin processing an official post is allowed to append to the post to reflect its new status. Anything appended to a post in this way must be placed in the Admin field of the post, and the post's Status must be changed to reflect its status.

A non-official post may not, through editing of the blog or otherwise, be changed into an official post, with the following exception: Whilst a non-official post has been posted for less than fifteen minutes and has no comments, the author may change the categories as they wish.

Voting and comments are accessible through the link at the bottom of every post.

Specific parts of the Gamestate data shall be tracked by the Generic Nomic Data Tracker at http://blognomic.com/gndt/generic.cgi?nomic=blog. Any Ant may update any Ant's data via the GNDT, whenever the Ruleset permits it.

All updates to the GNDT are logged. Actions that change gamestate directly (defined in other rules) can normally be performed simply by applying their effects to the GNDT, which updates the gamestate accordingly, unless another rule specifies some other method of performing them; one GNDT update may contain one or more actions, or one action may be split over multiple GNDT updates, as long as it’s clear what is happening and the actions are otherwise legal. The GNDT merely represents the Gamestate, and is not the same thing. In the event that the Gamestate and the GNDT are different, any Ant may correct the GNDT to comply with the Gamestate.

If an Ant feels that the GNDT was altered such that it no longer matches the gamestate (such as by performing an action which was against the Rules (as they were at the time of the alteration), or by any other means), they may simply undo the effects of that alteration. Instead of repeatedly reverting and re-reverting a disputed GNDT update, Ants are encouraged to raise a Call for Judgment instead. Ants shall be assigned a password for the GNDT when they join the Nomic.

Dynasties

BlogNomic is divided into a number of Dynasties. Each Dynasty is headed by a single Ant, known as the Sandbox Master.

The Sandbox Master may Vote to VETO any Proposal.

Victory and Ascension

If an Ant (other than the Sandbox Master) believes that they have achieved victory in the current Dynasty, they may make a post to the Blognomic weblog in the Declaration of Victory category, detailing this.

Upon doing so, the game immediately goes into Hiatus, if it hasn’t already. During this time, the only game actions that may be taken are those covered by Rules “Ants”, “Voting”, “Calls for Judgment”, “Gamestate Tracking” and “Victory and Ascension”.

Every Ant may cast Votes on that DoV to indicate agreement or disagreement with the proposition that the poster has achieved victory in the current Dynasty.

A DoV may be enacted if any of the following is true:

It has been open for voting for 12 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and either the Sandbox Master has Voted FOR it or it has no AGAINST Votes.
It has been open for voting for at least 24 hours, has a number of FOR Votes that exceed or equal Quorum, and has a number of against Votes fewer than half of Quorum, rounded down.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours, at least Quorum Ants have Voted on it, and more than half of its Votes are FOR.

A DoV may be failed if any of the following are true:

It has been open for voting for 12 hours and has enough AGAINST Votes that it could not be Enacted without one of those Votes being changed.
It has been open for voting for at least 48 hours and cannot be legally enacted.

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

When a DoV is enacted, all other active DoVs are failed, and a new Dynasty begins with the Ant who made the DoV as its Sandbox Master. That Ant may pass this role to another Ant at this point by making a post to that effect, if they wish. The Hiatus continues until the new Sandbox Master makes an Ascension Address by posting an entry in the “Ascension Address” category - this should specify the Sandbox Master’s chosen theme for the new Dynasty, and may optionally specify that the terms Ant and Sandbox Master will be replaced with theme-specific terms throughout the entire ruleset, and/or a number of dynastic rules to keep. Upon posting such an Ascension Address, the ruleset is updated to reflect any changed terms, and any dynastic rules which were not listed to be kept are repealed.

A DoV may not be started in the period between an enacted DoV and that DoV’s Ascension Address. When a DoV is failed, if it has a number of AGAINST Votes that exceed Quorum, the Ant who posted it cannot make another DoV until after 120 hours (5 days) have passed since the time their DoV was failed.

A Declaration of Victory may not also be any other type of Official Post unless the rules concerning that type of Official Post explicitly state otherwise.

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 Ant’s behaviour or actions are otherwise deemed unacceptable (socially or otherwise), a proposal or CfJ may be made to reprimand or punish the perpetrator or, in cases of extreme or repeated violations, remove them from the game and bar them from rejoining.

A single person should not control more than one Ant within BlogNomic.
An Ant 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 Ant should not deliberately exploit bugs or unexpected behaviours in the software running the game (ExpressionEngine, MediaWiki or the GNDT).
An Ant should not edit their own blog comments once posted, nor those of any other Ant.
An Ant should not edit the "Entry Date" field of a blog post.
An Ant should not make a DoV primarily to delay the game by putting it into Hiatus.
An Ant should not do any action meant to make the game unplayable (for example, changing multiple keywords to the same word in an ascension address).

Seasonal Downtime

Blognomic goes into hiatus every year on December 24th, and remains in hiatus until December 27th. During this time no game actions may be taken except those described in the rules entitled “Voting,” “Gamestate Tracking” and “Call for Judgement”.

Dynastic Rules

NPCs

Creatures are gamestate objects which have rows in the GNDT but do not count towards quorum and cannot vote on proposals. The current creatures in the game are listed as subrules of this rule. An NPC can be a Friend, an Enemy, or Neutral. Thus must be noted in the subrule describing an NPC. The text of NPC subrules shall contain what happens when that NPC is provoked (even if it is nothing,) or it may state that that NPC cannot be provoked.

Provoking NPCs

As a weekly action, and ant who is in the same location as an NPC may provoke that NPC.

The Queen

The queen counts as an ant for all dynastic rules unless the dynastic rule states otherwise, although she cannot take an action unless the ruleset indicates another ant may take the action on her behalf. The Queen is part of the Mature Queen caste but does not have the caste’s normal food limit. Instead, the Queen may have up to 50 food. This represents the colony’s food supply. The Queen is a Friend. The Queen cannot be provoked.

The Spider

The Spider is always Above Ground. When provoked, the Spider assaults a random Ant who is above ground (which may be the provoker) and reduces that Ant’s health by 10. If this causes an Ant to become dead, the Spider gains 1 food. The Spider is an Enemy.

Carrying

Each Creature and Ant may carry may carry a single object at a time from the following list - this carried object is tracked in the GNDT column 'Carrying'. Carryable objects are:-

Leaf. A small section of leaf cut from a larger plant.
Sugar. A speck of sugar-rich matter found in the environment.
Crumb. A small item of less nutritious matter.
Twig. A small stub of a leaf stalk.
Mould. A section of fibrous mould grown within the colony.
Egg. A single ant's egg.

As a daily action, an Ant who is above ground may Follow a Trail by spending food equal to that Trail’s Distance. An Ant who Follows a Plant trail may reduce its Size by one to start carrying a Leaf or a Twig. An Ant who Follows a Filling Trail may reduce its Size by one to start carrying a Crumb. An Ant who Follows a Tasty Trail may reduce its Size by 1 to start carrying Sugar, and/or reduce its Size by 1 to increase their Food to 5.

As a weekly action, and only when the Queen has 15 food or more, an Ant who is Underground and is able to carry Eggs may reduce the Queen’s food by 10 to start carrying an Egg.

Dropping and Using

To 'drop' an object is to cease carrying it. To 'give' an object to another Ant or Creature is to cease carrying it, and make that Ant or Creature start carrying it. An Ant may drop the object they are carrying at any time. Any Ant may give the object they are carrying to another Ant, provided that the latter is not currently carrying anything and is able to carry the object.

An Ant who is Underground may drop a Leaf to start carrying Mould. Any Ant may drop Mould or a Crumb to distribute up to 5 food among all Ants in their location, including themself, or drop Sugar to distribute up to 8 food. An Ant may drop an Egg to change the Caste of any Worker in their location (including themself) to Soldier, Drone or Virgin Queen.

As a weekly action, an Ant who is carrying a Twig may decrease their CP by 5 to smack another Ant and reduce their (the other Ant’s) health by 5.

As a weekly action, an Ant who is carrying a Twig may increase their CP by 5 to smack an Enemy NPC and reduce their (the NPC’s) health by 5. If the NPC’s health is reduced zero (0) or less, the ant that smacked the NPC shall increase their CP by 5. If the NPC’s health is 1 or greater after being smacked, it shall be provoked as stated in the subrule for that NPC.

Upstairs, Downstairs

Each Ant or Creature is either Underground, Above Ground or Flying. This is tracked in the GNDT under the column entitled “Location”. New Ants start Underground, and newly created Creatures start Above Ground unless otherwise specified.

If not specifically forbidden by another rule, as a daily action an Ant may change their Location to Above Ground or Underground, but not more than three times in any seven-day period. A Creature may not have its location changed unless such a change is specifically mandated by another rule.

If an Ant has been Flying for 7 days without interruption any Ant may change their health to 0. That Ant is not considered killing the flying Ant nor making it die directly.

Food

Each ant and creature has an amount of food which is tracked in the GNDT and which may not exceed the limit for their Caste, or 5 if the Ant of Creature has no Caste. At any time, an ant may spend a positive amount of food and add the same amount to another Ant in the same Location, unless this action would make the latter exceed their maximum. However, an Ant may transfer exactly 6 food from themself to a Worker other than themself who possessed exactly 6 food before this action to change the latter's Caste to Honeypot. This action may only be performed if both Ants are Underground.

Whenever an Ant idles or leaves the game, all food they held is transferred to the Queen (up to her maximum), and they do not regain it if they de-idle. Whenever an Ant joins the game or de-idles, 4 food or all the Queen's food, whichever is smaller, is transferred to them from the Queen.

As a weekly action, an Ant who is Underground may transfer up to 3 food from the Queen or a Honeypot Ant to themself.

As a daily action, any Ant which has zero food may decrease the amount of food of one Ant in the same location by one, thereby increasing its own amount of food to one. The CP value of the receiving ant is decreased by one and the CP value of the giving ant is increased by one, at the same time.

Starvation

As a weekly action, and only if it hasn’t been done before this week, any Ant may decrease each Ant’s food by two.

When all Ants, including the Queen, have exactly zero food, the colony starves. If this happens, all proposals are failed and all dynastic rules are repealed, and a new dynasty begins with no Sandbox Master.

Trails

The Trails wiki page contains the trails the ant colony has found that lead to useful resources. Each trail entry must detail a Name, Type, Size and a Distance from the colony. When a Trail’s Size is reduced to 0, remove its entry from the page.

As a weekly action, an Ant who is Above Ground and who has at least 1 Food by spending 1 food may search the surroundings by rolling DICEX, where X is 5 plus the amount of existing Trails. If the result is 3 or less, they succeed, and may create a new Trail. If the result is 4 or 5, they get lost and lose 1 additional Food. If the result is greater than 5, they find a resource that has already been discovered, and nothing happens.

To create a Trail, roll DICE6. On a 1, 2 or 3, the type of the new Trail is Plant. On a 4 or 5, the type is Filling. On a 6, the type is Tasty. Then, roll DICE6 to determine the Size and DICEB to determine the Distance, where B is 2 plus the amount of other Trails of the same Type. Finally, choose a Name for the new Trail and list it on the Trails page.

If possible an ant which discovers a new trail may immediately start to carry an object according to the type of that trail as described in rule “Carrying”.

Castes

All Ants have a Caste, which is tracked in the GNDT and determines their role in the Colony. New Ants start as Workers. The different Castes are:

Worker. By far the most numerous inhabitants of the colony, these small females carry out most daily tasks of the colony, including foraging, brood care and nest upkeep. Workers may have up to 6 food. Workers start with a health of 15.
Soldier. These larger females with giant heads are primarily concerned with the defense of the colony, but they will generally act as workers if no enemies are nearby. Soldiers are limited to 4 food maximum, and their large mandibles make them unfit for carrying anything but Leafs, Twigs and Crumbs. Soldiers start with a health of 30.
Honeypot. These ants have been gorged with food by workers, and essentially serve as living food storage. Honeypot ants may not carry anything and may not go Above Ground. They may have up to 50 food. Honeypots start with a health of 8. Honeypot Ants may not change their own food value through any means but the following: as a weekly action, a Honeypot Ant may transfer up to 5 food from themself to another Ant who is Underground. If a Honeypot Ant ever has 6 food or less, they become a Worker.
Drone. The only males in the colony, these small winged ants are cared for by the others and prepared for the nuptial flight, where they will attempt to mate with virgin queens. Drones may have up to 5 food, and can only carry Sugar, Crumbs and Mould. Drones start with a health of 10. If they own 5 food and Weather is not snowy, Drones may change their location from "Above Ground" to "Flying" by spending 5 food.
Virgin Queen. These winged fertile females have not yet mated, and are awaiting the nuptial flight so that they can mate and start a new colony. Virgin Queens may have up to 7 food and may not carry anything. Virgin Queens start with a health of 8. If they own at least 3 food and Weather is not snowy, Virgin Queens may change their location from "Above Ground" to "Flying" by spending 3 food. When Virgin Queens are in Flying location with one or more Drones, they may Mate with one of them. They change their Caste to Mature Queen and their location to Above Ground. They shall change the partner Drone's Caste to Worker, their Location to Underground, increase their CP by 15 and change their Antribute to Obediant, if not already.
Mature Queen. The mother of and most important ant in the colony, this queen has been fertilized and no longer has wings. As her sole purpose is to reproduce, a Mature Queen may not carry anything. Mature Queens may have up to 50 food. Mature Queens start with a health of 40.

Health

Each ant and creature has a stat called health which is tracked in the GNDT in a column also called health.

If an ant’s health is ever zero, the ant is said to be dead and their food value is immediately set to 0. An ant which is dead may not take any actions outlined in dynastic rules of the ruleset with the exception of the following sentence. If an ant has been dead for 24 hours, they may reset all of their stats tracked in the GNDT to that of a new ant and are no longer dead.

An Ant’s health can never exceed its starting health as defined in the Rule “Castes”. When the Cast of an Ant is changed, set its health to the starting health of the new caste. Same applies also for Creatures.

Товарищ

Each ant has an amount of Comradery points (CP) which may hold any integer value and is tracked in the GNDT. All ants start with zero CP. For any positive amount food which an ant gives to another ant or a Creature, the CP of the giving ant may be increased by 1 for each unit of food. For any positive amount food which an ant receives from another ant or a Creature, the CP of the receiving ant must be decreased by 1 for each unit of food.

Double Antendre

Each Ant has an Antribute, which is tracked in the GNDT. New Ants start as Reincarnant. The different Antributes are:

Obediant.
Delinquant. Whenever an Obediant Ant starts carrying a Twig, they become Delinquant.
Inantimate. Whenever an Ant becomes dead, they also become Inantimate.
Reincarnant. Whenever an Ant ceases to be dead, they become Reincarnant.
Expectant. Mature Queens are always Expectant.

If an Ant de-idles, their Antribute is set to Reincarnant instead of retaining its earlier value.

Weather

The Weather wiki page contains the history of all the weather conditions, with their submission date/time. The current Weather is the last submitted in the Weather page. If the Weather has never been changed on the current week, any Ant may change it by rolling DICE3.

- on 1 the Weather becomes Sunny;

- on 2 Rainy;

- on 3 Snowy.

They shall then add to the top of the Weather page the new weather condition and sign it with current date/time (use --~~~~).

Victory

The Queen and the Sandbox Master are not Ants for the purposes of this rule.

One Ant may be the Ascendant. If, at noon on the 17th of February, there is an Ascendant, that Ant has achieved victory. If more than one Ant meets the requirements below at that time or there is no Ascendant, instead all instances of "the 17th of February" in this rule are changed to that date plus three days, so that the 1st of January would become the 4th of January (assume it is not a leap year when determining this date).

If exactly one Ant is Expectant, that Ant is the Ascendant.
Otherwise, if there are Obediant Ants, the Obediant Ant with the highest CP is the Ascendant.
Otherwise, if there are no Obediant Ants and there are Delinquant Ants, the Delinquant with the lowest CP is the Ascendant.
Otherwise, if there are neither Obediant ants nor Delinquant Ants, there is no Ascendant.

Glossary

Keywords

A keyword defined by a rule supersedes the normal English usage of the word. A keyword defined in this glossary supersedes that defined by a rule. (eg. A rule specifying "bananas are blue" cannot be overruled by posting a dictionary definition or a photo of a banana, and a rule specifying "every day is Sunday" will be overruled by the glossary entry below.)

Can: "is able to"

Comment: A blog comment published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com

Core Proposal: A Proposal whose changes 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 Ants.

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

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

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

Dynastic Proposal: A Proposal whose only changes are the creation, deletion, and/or amendment of dynastic rules and/or gamestate defined by dynastic rules.

Effective Vote Comment (EVC): An Ant's Effective Vote Comment with respect to a given Proposal means that Ant’s Comment to that Proposal (if any) that contains that Ant’s Vote on the Proposal that is given effect in accordance with Rule 1.4 when the Proposal is Resolved, not including explicit Votes of abstention..

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

Gamestate: Any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of.

IRC Channel: The Blognomic IRC channel is located at #nomic on the slashnet network (irc.slashnet.org).

May: "is permitted to"

Post: A blog post published to the BlogNomic weblog at blognomic.com

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

Resolve/Resolution: If used in a context of Proposals, Call for Judgements or Declarations of Victory, the world “Resolve” means to perform the act, as an Admin, of enacting or failing a Proposal, a Call for Judgement or a Declaration of Victory. The world “Resolution” means then the act of doing so. If used in another context, the meaning of both “Resolve” and “Resolution” is the standard English meaning of these words.

Shall: "is required to"

Should: "is recommended that"

Story Post: A Story Post is an Official Post that is not a member of any specific category of Official Posts mentioned or defined in a Core Rule (excluding Official Post).

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.

Votable Matter: The word “Votable Matter”, means a Proposal, a CFJ or a DoV.

Vote: The word “Vote”, used as a noun, means a Vote that is cast in accordance with Rule 1.4 “Voting”. The word “Vote”, used as a verb, means the act of casting such a Vote.

Voting Icons: For use in voting, a check box http://blognomic.com/images/vote/for.gif shall represent a Vote FOR, an X http://blognomic.com/images/vote/against.gif shall represent a Vote AGAINST, an IMP http://blognomic.com/images/vote/imperial.gif shall represent a Vote of DEFERENTIAL, and an Imperial Seal http://blognomic.com/images/vote/seal.gif shall represent the Imperial Veto.

Week: References to a week as an entity rather than as a duration (e.g. “At the beginning of each week”, or “already happened this week”), unless otherwise stated, refer to a period of time between the beginning of a Monday and the end of the following Sunday.

Weekly Action: If a game action is a Weekly Action, each Ant able to perform it may take that action once each week, but not more than once every twenty-four hours.

Wiki: The BlogNomic Wiki at http://blognomic.com/wiki/index.php?title=Main_Page

Clarifications

Numbers and Variables

Unless otherwise specified, game variables defined to hold numeric values can hold only non-negative integers, and any action that would set those values below zero instead sets them to zero. 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, when “X” is a number, to spend X of a numeric value “V” means to subtract X from V (i.e. replace V with V-X); 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 the amount A's V was reduced by to B's V. Unless otherwise specified, a rule that allows Ants to transfer a numeric value only allows them to transfer that value from themselves to another Ant (of their choice unless otherwise stated).
An Ant who has a choice in whether to take an action defined by a dynastic rule may not take that action if both of the following conditions are true: a) the action's effects are limited to changing values tracked in the GNDT and/or similar gamestate-tracking entities (such as a wiki page), and b) the action would change one or more of those values to an illegal value.
If a rule implies that the result of any calculation should be an integer (for instance, by attempting to store that result in, or add it to, a gamestate variable that can only hold integers), the result of the calculation is instead the result rounded towards 0.
If a number or other game variable is selected 'at random' or 'randomly' from a range of possible values, its value shall always be taken from a uniform probability distribution over the entire range of possible values, unless otherwise specified.

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.
Where a Proposal would amend the effects of Proposal Enactment, this does not apply to its own enactment unless explicitly stated (eg. a proposal proposing that enacted proposals earn their author a banana when enacted would not earn a banana for its own author, when enacted).
Rules which trigger upon the Enactment or Failure of a Proposal are the responsibility of the Admin who Enacts or Fails it.

Time

For the purpose of all rules, time in Blognomic is in GMT.
All references to time must be either specific or defined within the ruleset to be considered achievable in the gamestate. Abstract concepts of time (e.g. "dinnertime", "twilight") cannot be achieved until they fulfil one of these criteria.
Where the month, day and/or year of a calendar date are ambiguous (eg. "04/10/09"), it shall be assumed that the date is in a day/month/year format.

Spelling

Superficial differences between the spelling of geographic versions of English, e.g, British English, American English and Australian English shall be construed as irrelevant for the purposes of play.

Names

Within the ruleset, a word only refers to the name of an Ant if it is explicitly stated that it refers to an Ant's name.

Ruleset 87

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