Rule 205/9
When Score Changes Take Effect
Malenkai (Randy Hall)
Score changes take effect as specified below, depending on the category of the score change. If the category cannot be determined for some reason, the score change is deemed to take effect when it is publically knowable.
1) Score Changes Managed by Officers
a) All score changes take effect when the officer in charge of managing or reporting on an activity which could produce a score change, announces the effect which results in the score change.
b) [For example, if a player fails to deliver judgement in a certain time, the penalty for that failure is not scored until the officer responsible for managing and reporting CFJs announces this fact. Another example is polls taken where the result of the poll dictates a scoring change. That change occurs when the results of the poll are publically released.]
c) Officers must announce all score changes they are responsible for notification of in the order which they are made aware the occurrence. They must do so within 3 days.
d) The Scorekeeper is not considered an office for the purpose of this section (1). This section (1), defers precedence to R 207.
e) [Examples of current rules in this category are: 213, 374, 212, 593 (-20), 404, 1307 (-10), 909 (-12, -3), 913 (-10 only), 927.]
2) Score Changes Triggered by Player Actions and Public Announcements
a) If a score change is due to some other effect, such as the result of a public posting, proposal retraction, or CFCJ penalty, etc, the score change is said to occur at the time of the public post.
b) [Examples of current rules in this category are: 423, 217, 578, 593 (-5 only), 730 (+6 only).]
3) Rule Based Triggered or Mandated Score Changes
a) If the score change is due to an event occurring (such as a player reaching a certain score, or the adoption of a proposal), this score change is said to occur an infinitesimal amount of time after it is possible for the public to be aware of the event occurring. All score changes due to a single event occur simultaneously.
b) [For example, if there exists a trigger whereby a player has 80 points added to their score if they reach -60 points, and they have -58 points, and make a public proposal retraction which causes a loss of 2 points, they gain 80 points an infinitesimal amount of time after that post. The public may not actually know this at the time, but it is possible for them to know it].
c) [Examples of current rules in this category are: 207, 901, 207.2, 913 (except the -10), 919, 866, 962.2]
4) Scoring Changes Based on the Content of an Adopted Proposal
a) If a Score change is called for based on the content of a Proposal, or an effect generated from that proposal, it is deemed to have occurred simultaneously with any score changes mandated by R 207. It is the duty of the Scorekeeper to announce such score changes.
b) [Examples of current rules in this category are: 207.1]
5) Scoring on Changes to Rules Which Cause Score Changes
If a Rule describes a score change that would normally come about as the result of the passage of a Proposal, then that score change is considered to occur an infinitesimal amount of time before any of the rule changes or effects listed in that Proposal occur. (For instance, if a Modest Proposal passes which changes the score for a Modest Proposal passing from 5 to 4, that Proposal would score 5 points, since that scoring would occur before the score change.)
6) Exceptions, Errors, and Omissions
a) No score changes can occur simultaneously for a given player, except where the rules explicitly say they can. If it appears that they do, they shall be categorized into the above categories, and occur in the order the above categories occur in this rule. If that still leaves any apparent simultaneous score changes, the score changes will occur in the order of largest absolute value first. If that still leaves a tie, however, the tied score changes shall occur at the same time.
Retroactive score changes are not permitted, but corrections to the scores are allowed when an error is discovered. This section (6) has precedence over sections 1 thru 5, where there is a conflict.
7) Rule Precedence
This rule has precedence over all other rules dealing with scoring, except that it defers precedence to R 207, and except where specific clauses above defer precedence.
Rule 206/7
Keep 'Em In The Game
Mitchell Harding
Any player whose score is below -60 automatically has it reset back to 0. Any player whose score reaches exactly -60 has their score changed to 20.
Rule 207/28
Scoring When A Proposal's Voting Results are Reported
I. Timing of these score changes
All the following scoring changes are applied at the time the Proposal's tabulated voting results are officially reported, unless the new rule or effect calls for an instantaneous change to 1 or more players' score, in which case the score changes detailed in this rule are applied an infinitesimal amount of time after those effects are applied.
II. Timing when results are reported simultaneously
If more than one Proposal's tabulated voting results are officially reported at the same time, the scoring changes are applied in numerical order of the Proposals, with an infinitesimal amount of time separating each application.
III. Scoring on Proposals
If a Modest proposal is accepted, the player who proposed it receives 5 points. If a Grandiose proposal is accepted, the player who proposed it receives 16 points. If a proposal which is neither Modest nor Grandiose is accepted, the player who proposed it receives 10 points.
If a Modest proposal is rejected, but meets quorum, the player who proposed it loses 4 points. If a Grandiose proposal is rejected, but meets quorum, the player who proposed it loses 12 points. If a proposal which is neither Modest nor Grandiose is rejected, but meets quorum, the player who proposed it loses 7 points.
A proposal can only be declared to be Modest or Grandiose as defined by the Rules.
All players who voted on any proposal receive one point.
IV. Effect of Proposals which do not meet Quorum
If a proposal does not meet quorum, each player eligible to vote on it who abstained on the proposal shall lose 5 points and receive a Puppet Head (a nontradeable entity), if e does not already have one. A player with a Puppet Head may get rid of it by saying "Memo to myself: Do the dumb things I gotta do. Touch the puppet head." [They Might Be Giants, "Put Your Hand Inside The Puppet Head", "They Might Be Giants"] in a public message. After a player has possessed a Puppet Head for seven consecutive days, e immediately becomes a non-voting player. The Puppet Head is then destroyed.
V. Newbie Author Bonus/Soft Penalty
Newbies shall receive a bonus equivalent to the points which would be gained by anti-voting[one point for Modest proposals, five points for Grandiose proposals, three points otherwise] whenever one of their non-Modest proposals is accepted or any one of their proposals is rejected.
VI. Null Proposals
If an accepted proposal does not become a new rule or generate at least one valid effect under Rule 104, then it is a "Null Proposal". No points are scored by any player via the preceding provisions of this rule from the acceptance of a Null Proposal.
VII. Boring Proposals
A proposal is Boring if and only if at least half of the votes cast on the proposal were Baa! votes. The above provisions notwithstanding, no points are scored by any player as a result of a Boring proposal being accepted or rejected.
Rule 207.1/13
That's just silly
Bascule (Matt Black)
If an accepted proposal contains the phrase "contains monosodium glutamate" and the phrase is not part of a comment, then the player who submitted the proposal is said to be silly, and shall score 5 points. However, if the proposal was also distributed by the Promoter on April First (All Fool's Day), the player is instead said to be foolish, and shall score 10 points.
Any player who scores points in the above manner may publicly announce, in the seven days following the proposals acceptance, "The new silly phrase is ****", where **** is a three word phrase. All quoted instance of the phrase "contains monosodium glutamate" in this rule will be replaced by the three word phrase chosen by that player.
Rule 207.3/6
Foolishness
IdiotBoy (Matt Miller)
If a player submits a proposal which meets the following conditions, then proposal is a Foolish Proposal:
a) The first line of the proposal is "I was young and foolish then, I feel old and foolish now."
b) The rest of the text of the proposal is a previously submitted and rejected proposal, altered in no way from this previously submitted proposal except in the updating of numerical rule pointers.
c) The player submitting the proposal was the author of the previous proposal.
Whenever a Foolish Proposal is accepted or rejected, all scoring effects from rule 207 related to its acceptance or rejection shall be doubled.
Rule 209/4
Modesty and Pride
Brinjal (Simon Clarke)
A proposal is considered to be Modest if and only if the author of the proposal prefaces the proposal with the words "This is a Modest proposal".
A proposal is considered to be Grandiose if and only if the author of the proposal prefaces the proposal with the words "This is a Grandiose proposal".
If a proposal appears to be designated as both Modest and Grandiose, or it cannot be determined which designation should hold sway, the proposal is declared invalid, and removed from voting consideration.
The sentence that declares a Proposal to be Modest or Grandiose is considered "furniture" for the purposes of Rule 207.
Rule 210/10
Literature
Vynd (John McCoy)
I. Some special proposals are literature. These are, of course, the proposals in which actual literature is quoted. To be considered a piece of literature, a proposal must meet the following requirements:
A) The proposal must contain in its body [as opposed to title] one or more quotations from sources listed on the Literature list. This quotation must be an exact copy of words found in, written, uttered or otherwise communicated by the source, enclosed in quotation marks. It must contain one of the following:
(i) a complete sentence or series of consecutive sentences totalling 7
words or more [i.e. if a player has two sentences of six words in
length it is a phrase of consecutive sentences totaling seven or more
words].
(ii) a continuous phrase of at least 14 words in length
(iii) a phrase that is not found in any other piece of literature.
[The reasoning for these limitations is to try and stop people from trying to pass off "to be" as a quote from Hamlet, and the like. There are however some short snippets that are very unique to individual pieces and this takes that into account.]
It is up to the player who submitted the proposal to find proof that his quote is indeed literature, and up to any player to find another piece of literature that also contains the quote. All such proofs are adjudicated by the scorekeeper, unless the scorekeeper submitted the proposal, in which case it should be adjudicated by the President. If the scorekeeper and president are the same person then it will be adjudicated by any other random active player (as selected by the OiCoRT).
B) The source of the quotation must be cited in brackets [like this] immediately following the quotation itself. This citation should include the author or orator of the quotation, and also the work and page number(s) [or scene, act, lines, stanzas, etc] where it can be found, if applicable. [Note that I am deliberately not making any penalty for failing to cite a quotation, beyond the fact that it won't let your proposal qualify as literature. I considered including a "plagiarism" penalty here, but I think it's better to have the quote uncited than to not have them at all because so and so couldn't remember the page number for the line he's thinking of].
C) Even if the quotation meets the above requirements, it is invalid if it is does not actually become part of a Rule, or a Rule in and of itself. Quotations are invalid if they are contained within double curly braces as described in Rule 346, unless the entire text of the proposal is in double curly braces. [In other words, the quote has to actually go into the ruleset, as opposed to being Self Deleting text.]
II. Whenever a proposal that is literature passes, its author gains X points. X is either, the number of sentences, or series of sentences, quoted according to section I of this rule, or the total number of words quoted according to section I divided by 14, whichever is smaller. [That is, for each sentence or phrase which is eligible to be literature the author scores one point, taking the lower total if there are more than two ways in which such a phrase is eligible, i.e. two complete sentences making a total of fourteen words would only score one point.]
III. A proposal is a Great Work if it meets the following requirements:
a) All of the text that is amended to a Rule, or becomes part of a new rule, consists entirely of quotations and citations as described in section I.
b) It creates at least one new rule, or makes at least one amendment to existing rules, and these amendments and new rules must include a total of at least 42 words quoted as described in section I.
c) It is not Modest.
If a proposal that is a Great Work passes, then the player who authored the Great Work will gain A$200 in royalties, in addition to any other bonus or penalties caused by the passage of the proposal. All players who voted against a Great Work that was accepted will lose 7 points, for their poor taste, in addition to any other bonuses or penalties caused by the passage of the proposal. Great Works that do not pass have no special effects.
IV. The Literature list is not a Rule, nor part of a Rule, but rather a document on which is kept the list of sources that can be quoted as Literature by following the procedures described in this rule. Entries on the Literature list can be either Artists of Works. They must follow the format of: Artist (or Work): name of Artist ; descriptive information. Artists can be any individual, or any group of people who collaborated to produce quotable material [For example, The Police]. Works are some type of recording of words. Collections of connected works [such as the Star Wars trilogy] are permissible as a single entry, but not collections of unconnected works [such as an anthology of work by several authors]. Descriptive information is information that helps to clarify exactly who or what a given entry on the list refers to [Artist: The Police ; band with Sting as lead singer. ; or Artist: George Washington ; First President of the USA]. Any entries on the Literature list which do not abide by this rule, and follow the format described above, are invalid and cannot be quoted from. Inclusion of descriptive information is, however, optional.
It is a duty of the Web-Harfer to maintain a publicly available copy of the Literature list, and to link it with this Rule. He is encouraged, but by no means required, to maintain links to sites about the various sources on the list.
This Rule takes precedence over all other Rules dealing with Literature, the Literature list, and Great Works.
V. Any player may issue a CSR that consists solely of modifications to the Literature list. Otherwise, the Literature list may only be modified by Proposals and by the Spelling Bee.
Rule 211/21
Invoking Judgement
A Call for Judgement (CFJ), is an assertion about the rules, the facts, or their interpretation. A CFJ should include a single, clear, and clearly labeled statement that can be answered TRUE or FALSE. The remainder of the CFJ may consist of additional comments or reasoning, which the Judge is under no obligation to consider.
A CFJ may be made by any active player by sending it to the Clerk of the Court, who will select a judge as described in the rules, and then post it publically, along with the identity of the selected Judge.
CFJ's with no clear statement, or consisting of empty statements or inherently contradictory statements or multiple statements, in the judgement of the Judge, shall be judged "Invalid". A statement with multiple sentences is not necessarily disqualified; it is up to the judgement of the Judge as to whether such submission is Invalid, as per above.
[eg "SnafuMoose has the power to amend a rule" is valid, while "Can I amend a rule?" is not (cannot be answered true, false). "I think PlayerXXX is a butthead" is also not valid, since it also cannot be answered true/false ("PlayerXXX is a butthead" is valid)]
Any CFJ whose statement is substantially similar, or whose negative is substantially similar, to the statement of another CFJ submitted by the same player within the past week, in the judgement of the judge, shall be judged Invalid. This applies even in the case that the previously submitted CFJ was retracted by the player in question. However, the provisions of this paragraph shall not apply if the prior CFJ was declared Invalid by the Clerk of Court due to a lack of eligible judges, as provided in Rule 212.
If the statements of two unresolved Paradox Win CFJs are substantially similar, in the opinion of the judge of the most recently distributed one, then the most recently distributed one shall be judged Invalid. Any Paradox Win CFJ which is based on the same sort of Paradox, in the judgement of the judge, as any Paradox Win CFJ ever judged TRUE, shall be judged Invalid.
Rule 212/17
Selecting A Judge
When a Player is to be selected to judge a CFJ the following steps are performed in order to determine those Players who are eligible to judge it:
i) All Voting Players are eligible.
ii) All Players on the CFJ Ineligibility List are excluded.
iii) The author of the CFJ is excluded.
iv) If the CFJ is also a CFCJ the Player or Players named in its statement are excluded.
v) All Justices are excluded.
vi) All Players who have declined to judge the CFJ are excluded.
vii) All Players who have already been assigned a CFJ and are yet decline or return a verdict on it are excluded, unless this would reduce the number of eligible Players to less than half the number of Active Players.
If any of the above steps would cause the number of eligible players to be reduced to zero or fewer, that step is not performed.
When a CFJ is received by the Clerk of the Court, if no Active Players are eligible to judge it, then the CFJ is deemed Invalid, and removed from consideration, and no judge is selected. Otherwise, the Clerk of the Court randomly selects a Player from those eligible to judge it.
The selected Judge may decline a particular appointment, as a public action or by mailing the Clerk of the Courts, within 3 days of being selected. In this case, a new Judge is selected as described above.
As a public action, an Active Player may remove their name from the CFJ Ineligibility List if it is on the List, or add their name to the List if it is not there already.
Rule 213/6
Delivering Judgement
Having been appointed and having not declined, a Judge has exactly one week from the time of eir appointment to post eir Judgment to the Clerk of the Court. A Judge who defaults is a deadbeat. This causes em to be penalized 10 points, eir name to be added to the CFJ Ineligibility List, and the CFJ e defaulted on to be reassigned to another random judge.
Any judge may change eir mind on a verdict that e has sent to the Clerk of the Court (CotC) but has not yet been distributed by the CotC by mailing the CotC informing em of this fact. At this point the initial judgement will be considered to have not been posted to the CotC.
Rule 214/2
Possible Judgements
There are only the following possible Judgements: (1) True; (2) False; (3) Undecided; or (4) Invalid. A Judgement may be accompanied by reasons and arguments, but any such reasons and arguments form no part of the official Judgement itself.
If the Judgement is Undecided then the CFJ shall be decided by the Supreme Court as if it had been appealed, except that the original Judge shall not be penalized for an overturned verdict on that CFJ.
Rule 215/2
Judgement-Rule Interaction
All Judgements must be in accordance with all the rules in effect at the time judgement was invoked, and with respect to the game state at that time. When the rules are silent, inconsistent, or unclear on the statement in question, however, then the Judge shall consider currently existing game custom and the spirit of the game in reaching a decision.
A statement verified (or nullified) by judgement applies retroactively to any past game situation it may concern.
If a statement on which Judgement has been called is Judged to be true, and that Judgement is not overruled, it does not thereby become a rule, or any part of a rule. It merely becomes an explicit part of currently accepted game custom.
Rule 217/29
Overturning Judgements
I. Sending CFJs to the Supreme Court
After any Judgement is returned, an active player may appeal the case to the Supreme Court for consideration. The time period for appeal shall be 4 days from the posting of the Judgement.
The player may include with his appeal any such material he deems relevant to the case. The Court is under no obligation to consider such material, and should use normal procedures to determine a verdict.
If a single judgement is appealed more than once, only the first one shall cause the process of determining a new judgement to begin, and the previous judge shall be penalized only once if the verdict is overturned, though all who appealed that judgement shall be penalized if the verdict is upheld, and all appealers' reasonings are added to the official record.
II. How the Supreme Court judges a CFJ
The Supreme Court shall then decide the case, and should return its verdict within one week. If this is the first time the Supreme Court has considered that CFJ, the unanimous decision of the owners of the Supreme Cortex that was assigned the CFJ shall be the verdict of the Court. If the Supreme Court has already returned a verdict on the CFJ in question, and this verdict was appealed, the Supreme Court's verdict shall be the unanimous decision of all active Justices (returned within one week of the full Court receiving the CFJ) or the decision of a 2/3 supermajority of the active Justices (if the Court does not reach a unanimous decision within one week).
III. Effects upon a judgement of an appeal by the Supreme Court
If the court agrees with the previous verdict, the player who lodged the appeal shall be fined between 0 and 25 points for a frivolous appeal, with the penalty to be 25 points unless the Justices specify otherwise.
If the court disagrees with the previous verdict, then the verdict shall be overturned to the new verdict, and all players who decided the previous verdict [i.e. judge, or justice on a Cortex] shall be fined between 0 and 10 points, the penalty to be 1 unless the Justices specify otherwise.
Further, if the judgement (A) under appeal included a penalty for a frivolous appeal or a judgement overturn, and judgement A is itself overturned, then points shall be awarded to the parties penalised by judgement (A) as described above, to exactly balance the points lost from that judgement.
IV. Appeal limits
In the event that an active player opposes the appeal, they may appeal again to the Supreme Court, assuming they are not exceeding any appeal limits specified elsewhere in this, or other rules.
Supreme Court Justices or Acting Supreme Court Justices may not appeal Judgements or Supreme Court appellate decisions to the Supreme Court unless they also exercise their option under rule 417 (Justices Rock) to decline judgement on that CFJ.
A verdict returned by the Supreme Court as a whole (e.g. a second appeal verdict) may not be appealed. Only the most recent judgement on any CFJ may be appealed.
V. Delays
Supreme Cortices should make every effort to return verdicts assigned to them within a reasonable amount of time in order to keep the game moving along. A Supreme Cortex may decline a CFJ assigned to it; this action is accomplished and occurs upon all owners of that Cortex publically identifying the CFJ they are considering that they wish to decline.
In addition, if a Cortex has been considering a particular CFJ for more than 30 days, that Cortex shall automatically decline that CFJ upon this fact being pointed out publically by any active player.
Upon a Cortex declining a CFJ, that CFJ is reassigned to another Cortex as if it had just been appealed, except that it will not be assigned to the declining Cortex unless no other Cortex exists.
Rule 217.1/0
Selecting a Cortex
Guy Fawkes (Robert Shimmin)
Whenever the Rules call for the Supreme Court to consider a CFJ for the first time, the Clerk of the Courts shall assign that CFJ to a Supreme Cortex.
E shall select a Supreme Cortex (hereafter Cortex) based on the following guidelines.
1. E shall assign the CFJ to the Active Cortex that is already
considering the fewest CFJ's. If multiple Active Cortices are tied
for this distinction, e shall choose randomly among them.
2. If there are no Active Cortices, e shall assign the CFJ to the
Undermanned Cortex that is already considering the fewest CFJ's. If
multiple Undermanned Cortices are tied for this distinction, e shall
choose randomly among them.
3. If the only Cortex in existence is Vacant, e shall assign the CFJ
to the Vacant Cortex.
When a Cortex is destroyed, all CFJ's assigned to it are reassigned to another Cortex as per the above guidelines.
If the Rules direct the Supreme Court to consider a given CFJ for a second time, the entire Court shall consider the matter (as opposed to a single Cortex).
Rule 230/3
Random Things
ThinMan (John Bollinger)
I. Whenever the rules call for a random determination to be made among a finite number of possibilities, each of the alternatives shall be assigned the same probability. [I.e. use uniform weights.] This rule defers to any rule that specifies an alternative weighting scheme.
II. An event that depends on a random determination for its full specification shall not occur until the random determination is publicly knowable.
III. Whenever the rules call for a unique entity to be given or transferred to a random player, the player who currently has that entity (if any), is excluded from the pool from which the random selection is made.
Rule 250/15
Players and Player States
I. Player States
All natural persons exist in exactly one of the following states:
Voting
Non-Voting
Vacationing
On Ice
Non-Player
Those natural persons, and only those natural persons, who are not Non-Players are Players. Players are named, unownable entities. Non-Players may observe the game and participate in discussions, but their posts shall not affect the game state except as described in rule 252. Non-player persons are not entities.
No natural person may be associated with more than one player concurrently. No matter how many times a person legally registers as a player in Ackanomic, that person is always considered the same player. [That is, if a player quits and later rejoins, e is considered the same player.]
II. Player-related Definitions
a) An "active" Player is a Player whose state is Voting or Non-Voting. Only Active players may be randomly selected for anything, except where the rules specifically allow non-active players to be selected.
b) An "absent" Player is a Player whose state is Vacationing or On Ice. Absent players may only leave the game, change their state, or send public messages; they may perform no other actions.
c) Where the rules refer to a "Vacationing" player, that specifically means a player whose state is "Vacationing".
d) A "Newbie" is a Player whose AckaAge is less than 21 days.
e) A Player's AckaAge is the length of time since they first registered as a Player of Ackanomic (or since when the game started, whichever is less).
f) A "pending" Player is a Voting Player who has not voted on a proposal since their most recent registration.
III. Changing State
A Player may change eir state as a public action by announcing the new player state, provided eir state has not changed within the past 3 days, and provided no other rule places any restrictions on eir ability to change to a particular state. Whenever a player's state is changed, the appropriate following section applies to them:
IV. Upon Becoming Non-Voting:
a) E is treated as having declined judgement on all CFJs that have been assigned to em, and treated as having failed to return a verdict on any e has accepted. This includes those for which the three day limit for declining has passed; no deadbeat penalty is assigned, and the CFJ is randomly assigned as in Rule 212.
b) E is removed from all offices non-voting players cannot hold, and removed from the list of candidates in any Election or Nomination for an office non-voting players cannot hold.
c) E is removed from the mentor pool.
V. Upon Becoming (and while) Vacationing:
a) Their expected duration of Vacation is set at 28 days if unspecified, otherwise it is calculated as 14 days plus the specified duration, with an overriding minimum of 3 days and maximum of 75 days. (Durations specified as a range of time are assumed to span from the time of specification until the end of the specified range of time.) Players who gone on Vacation voluntarily may specify a duration at the time they specify they are going on Vacation.
b) The duties of any offices held by the player shall be performed by the Speaker or someone appointed by the Speaker, unless some other rule provides for an Acting Officer or some other assignment (including possible non-assignment) of these duties (or the office). The person assuming the duties of these offices is said to be assuming them in an acting capacity, and as such, these appointments or assumption must be made in accordance with R 401, section (i). It is permissible for an acting officer, appointed by this clause, to assume the duties of another acting officer.
c) Upon having been on vacation for a period of time in excess of the expected duration of eir vacation, their state is changed to On Ice.
VI. Upon Becoming (and while) On Ice:
a) They are removed from any offices they hold.
b) Section IV is applied as if they became Non-Voting.
c) All their existing votes on proposals, elections, and hearings whose results have not yet been released are canceled.
d) Their score is set to 0. Players who are On Ice never gain or lose points, nor do they ever gain entities.
e) They are removed from all organizations of which they are a member.
f) If the Player never voted, their state is changed to Non-Player.
g) All of their mimsy entities are transferred to the treasury.
h) Upon being On-Ice for 90 days, their state is changed to Non-Player, unless they (or their likeness) is enshrined in the Hall of Elders, in which case they will never become a Non-Player.
VII. Upon Becoming a Non-Player:
a) E is removed from the CFJ Ineligibility List if possible.
b) All of eir tradeable entities are transferred to the treasury except for land and buildings which become unowned. All of eir nontradeable entities are destroyed.
This rule has precedence over all other rules.
Rule 251/21
Player Names
Wayne Sheppard
Every player has exactly one Ackanomic name. This name must be a string of name characters from two to twenty characters in length. Neither the first nor the last character in this string may be the space character, and there must be at least one character that is not a numeric digit. All official nomic business shall use this name to refer to that player.
A player may change eir Ackanomic name, so long as the new name complies with all applicable rules. If a player attempts to change eir name to something not in compliance with the Rules, that attempt fails. In addition, if the name change has not yet been accepted as described in the following paragraph, the Registrar may object to the name change if e feels that the new name is not within the spirit of the game. When the player changing eir name is the Registrar, the President or any Senator can object to or ack the name change as if e were the Registrar. The Registrar may not ack eir own name change.
If the Registrar acknowledges a legal name change, or after three days have passed if the Registrar (or, in the case of an attempt by the Registrar to change eir name, neither the President nor any Senator) neither acknowledges the change nor objects to it (and the new name complies with all applicable rules), then the name change is accepted and occurs, at which time the player in question shall pay the Standard Harfer Fee.
The Registrar is required to record and announce any legal name changes, and is encouraged but not required to point out any failed name changes as well.
When a player changes eir Ackanomic name, all Ackanomic business besides Rules will be changed to follow their new name, and any Rules which refer to the player by their old name will still refer to that player even though their name has changed.
If a player changes eir Ackanomic name twice and the second change is acked by the Registrar while the first one has not been, then the first change will not occur.
Rule 251.1/1
True Names
JT (JT Traub)
Every Ackanomic player possesses, in addition to eir Ackanomic Name, something known as eir True Name.
When a player first joins Ackanomic, the Registrar will choose the new players True Name as follows.
a) The True Name for the new player is initially set to that players Real Life name.
b) If the form of this player's True Name is equivalent to the primitive form of the True Name of any current or former player, the True Name of the new player shall be suffixed by the '/' (slash) character followed by the smallest possible positive integer that creates a unique name. [IE if two players with the RL name of JT Traub joined the game, their True Names would be 'JT Traub' and 'JT Traub/1' respectively]
No player may (through any means) acquire an Ackanomic Name whose primitive form is identical to the primitive form of the True Name of any current or former player. This paragraph takes precedence over all other rules regarding player names and their modification.
No player may change their True Name, and the True Name of a player may always be used as a valid and unambiguous reference for that player.
"the prudent sorceror regarded his own true name as his most valued possession but also the greatest threat to his continued good health" [Vernor Vinge, True Names]
Rule 252/17
Joining the Game
Guy Fawkes (Robert Shimmin)
I. Joining as a New Player
A Non-Player wishing to join the game shall notify the Registrar, providing a valid e-mail address, their real name, the legal Ackanomic name they wish to play under, and optionally the Ackanomic name of the current active player who convinced them to join the game, how they heard about the game, and whether they wish to be a Voting or Non-Voting player.
Upon them providing this information, and the Registrar being satisfied that it is legal, the Registrar shall post a public message announcing the new player along with the information they provided. Upon the posting of this announcement, the person's state is changed to either Voting (the default) or Non-Voting, depending on their wishes expressed as above.
II. Upon the joining of a new player, the following procedure takes place, in the order shown:
1) The new player is granted 1 kaa of urban land and a Small building thereupon as their residence. This building shall be known as their Home. This building shall also be known as "player name's House", where "player name" is replaced by their Ackanomic name.
2) The new player is paid from the Treasury the sum of A$900.
3) The Registrar shall select a Mentor for the new player. If the player provided a valid Sponsor, that Sponsor shall be the first choice of Mentor for the new player if e is eligible as a Mentor. If the Mentor was chosen from the mentor pool, e receives The Standard Harfer Fee from the Treasury immediately; otherwise, e receives The Standard Harfer Fee if and when e accepts the mentorship.
4) If the player provided a valid Sponsor the new player receives a Trinket named 'Sponsored by <name> #x', where <name> is the name of the Sponsor and x is the smallest prime number required to give the Trinket a unique name. This Trinket has a value of A$10 and a description of 'I joined the madness on <date> at the urging of <name>' where <date> is the date the new player joined and <name> is the name of the Sponsor. The Sponsor shall likewise receive a Trinket named '<name> is all my fault' with a value of $A10 and a description of 'On <date>, I encouraged <name> to join.' where <date> is as above and <name> is the name of the new player.
Rule 253/7
Mentors
snowgod (Phil Ackley)
When the Registrar must select a Mentor for a new player, e shall follow these guidelines. No one may become a Mentor except as specified in the rules.
It is the duty of the Registrar to maintain a list of players who are in the Mentor pool. Any Active player may place emself in the Mentor pool or remove emself therefrom by notifying the Registrar. This notification may be done privately. If there are not enough players in the Mentor pool to assign a Mentor for each new player, the Registrar may randomly select an active player from the general population. A player who is currently serving as Mentor to a new player is not considered to be in the Mentor pool while so serving.
Non-volunteering selectees must publicly accept mentorship within 1 day or be assumed to have declined, in which case the registrar must select a new Mentor.
The duties of the Mentor are as follows:
1) Answer any questions concerning game procedure to the new player.
2) Provide the new player with history and arguments for and against either side of a proposal in the voting queue upon the new player's request.
3) Provide the new player with information on any matter that requires eir immediate attention [for example, a newly active player who is required to return judgement].
4) Answer any other questions the new player has concerning the game of Ackanomic.
The Mentor shall be responsible for performing these duties while the player is a Newbie, or until the new player declines further services [whichever comes first].
A Mentor shall provide information to the new player without bias while performing the above duties.
Rule 254/16
Leaving the Game
pTang1001001sos (Mark Nau)
Any person may leave the game by posting in a public message that they are doing so. For the purposes of the rules, they are considered to have "left the game" at the time of their announcement.
Upon leaving, if they are a player, their state is changed to On Ice, unless they are already On Ice. Then, in all cases, they are unsubscribed from all official mailing lists unless they request not to be.
Whenever other rules direct the removal of a person from the game, they are removed via the procedure described in the previous paragraph.
Rule 257/15
No Dead Players Allowed
Mitchell Harding
Any active player who has failed to either vote or post a public message within the last 7 days is considered AWOL. If a player is AWOL and this fact is pointed out to the Speaker, and a query as described in this rule is not already pending against that player, then the Speaker shall ask that player if e wishes to continue playing. If the player does not reply to this query within 3 days, eir state is changed to Vacationing with an expected duration of 3 days, unless e has never voted, in which case e is placed On Ice.
If e does respond to the query, e is no longer AWOL upon the fact of this response being publically knowable. If this response indicates that e wishes to leave the game, then e may be removed from the game by the Speaker forwarding eir email response to the public forum, in which case e is removed from the game as described in rule 254.
If the Speaker is AWOL, however, and this fact is pointed out in a public message by any player, the Speaker has 3 days to respond to this message publically or eir state is changed to Vacationing with an expected duration of 3 days.
Timestamp: Fri 02 Oct 1998 08:13 EDT