This is the official home of A Nomic. Below are sundry materials relating to the game. You may find answers to your questions there, but only if they are about the game.

FAQ:

1. What is Nomic? Nomic is a game in which a major portion of game play involves altering the rules. Nomic was invented by Peter Suber in order to facilitate study of self-referential systems, but it turns out that it's also a lot of fun to play. To learn more about Nomic, read the Nomic FAQ or look at the Nomic Wiki.

2. What is A Nomic? A Nomic is this particular game, one of many Nomics currently being played via the Internet. The game began unnamed on 2 October 2000 with a group of players from the defunct Berserker Nomic. The game's present name was adopted on 1 December 2000. A Nomic business is conducted by email, and this web site is the official repository of materials generated by the game.

3. How can I become a Player? Hooray! You want to become a Player! New Players are always welcome! To become a Player:

1. Subscribe yourself to the game's mailing lists, spoon-business@nomic.net and spoon-discuss@nomic.net, by sending a message to majordomo@nomic.net with the body:

   subscribe spoon-business your.address@your.domain
subscribe spoon-discuss your.address@your.domain
end

   Once you're subscribed, you'll be able to watch what's going on in the game. As the list names indicate, business, i.e., Player actions, take place on the business list, while discussion of Proposals and such happens on the discussion list. If you're interested in looking at past messages, there is an archive of the lists here [also here, on the spoon-* lists prior to December 2001, when A Nomic's successor, B Nomic, began using those lists. --JU].
2. Before you can become a Player, a Motion to Add you must be adopted, as per Rule 210/2. At present, anyone is permitted to make a Motion to Add themselves, so all you need to do is send a message to the business list indicating that you are making a Motion to Add, and by what name you would like to be known.
3. Motions to Add currently take three days to be adopted, assuming no Players object. Once your Motion to Add is adopted, you are a Player! Congratulations!

4. Yes? No.

Records:

The following are links to and brief explanations of the contents of various game documents. Rules and Motions, including Proposals and Judgments, are consistently formatted in the following manner for ease of reference:

number/revision : title
text
revision history

Other documents have their own formatting systems, as described below.

• Rulesets: These are collections of the the game's Rules. The Rules are avialable in the following formats:
  • Numerical Ruleset: The current Rules, sorted by number. See also Index of same.
  • Categorical Ruleset: The current Rules, sorted by category. See also Index of same.
  • Historical Ruleset: The Rules in all their forms throughout the game, sorted by number. See also Index of same.
  • Chronological Ruleset: The Rules in all their forms throughout the game, sorted by recency of creation. See also Index of same.
  • Initial Ruleset: The Rules as they were when the game began, sorted by number.
• Proposals: These are the the means by which Rules are created, amended, and repealed.
  • Live Proposals: Recent Proposals, sorted by number.
  • Proposals Archive: Old Proposals, sorted by number. See also Index of same.
  • Proposals Voting: A record of votes cast on each Proposal.
• Motions: These are used for various game functions, from adding new Players to fixing typos. Proposals and RFJs are also Motions, strictly speaking.
  • Live Motions: Recent Motions, sorted by number.
  • Motions Archive: Old Proposals, sorted by number. See also Index of same.
  • Motions Voting: A record of votes cast on each Motion.
• Judgments: These are the proceedings of the Courts.
  • Live Judgments: Requests for Judgment pending decision.
  • Judgments Archive: Old Judgments, sorted by number. See also Index of same.
• Officer's Reports: We have Officers. They report things. Sometimes.
• Administrator's Reports: To paraphrase Christopher Wren's epitaph, if you seek my report, look around you. See also the Administrator's .plan.
• Banker's Reports: Contains salaries, awards, point transfers, among other things.
• Bean Counter's Reports: Contains object ownership audits.
• Tax Collector's Reports: None yet. Dead link.

The following provide information about the present state of the game, and other miscellaneous information.

• Officers: Find out who our Officers are.
• Current Officers: A list of current Officers, thier Offices, and terms of Office.
• Past Officers: A list of former Officers, their Offices, and terms of Office.
• Roster: A list of present and former Players.
• Standings: A rundown of scores, highly inaccurate at present.
• Lists Archive: Every message ever sent to our mailing lists is here. Archives are divided by list and month, and update in realtime.
• Scripts: These are the scripts which help tackle recordkeeping for this game.
• Event Log: A list of all game events, sorted by date.

How to search:

The three drop menu selects what will be searched: live records and all records search the SQL databases for whichever of Rules, Proposals, Motions, and Judgments are selected with the corresponding checkboxes. all pages greps the actual pages themselves, including the messages archive, so be advised that it's rather slow. Search accepts most Perl-sytle regular expressions.

Note: live record searches on Judgments are not yet functional. Sorry.

Questions? Comments? Problems? Email the Administrator, uckelman@nomic.net. This game is hosted by nomic.net.