THE RULES OF ACKANOMIC

Rule 42/0
Revenge of Life, the Universe, and Everything
Robert Sevin (Mitchell Harding)

If at any time this rule's number is not 42, this rule changes its number to 42. This rule takes precedence over any other rule which would try to set or change this rule's number.

[Original Author: Joseph DeVincentis aka devjoe, Proposal 582]

Rule 101/3
The Game of Ackanomic

Ackanomic is a self-modifying game of rules. All players must always abide by all the rules then in effect, in the form in which they are then in effect, and interpreted in accordance with current game custom. The term "rules", as used in the rules, means the rules of Ackanomic.

The rules and the game state may only be changed as described in the rules. Actions described in the rules may only be performed, and shall only have those effects, as specified by the rules. Whatever is not explicitly prohibited or regulated by the rules, however, is permitted and unregulated. Game custom, spirit of the game, and linguistic interpretation are external concepts and are not regulated or part of the game state.

The game consists of a sequence of "Cycles". Cycles end when specified by the Rules. At most one Cycle is in progress at any one time. A voting player may only win a Cycle by achieving a winning condition that is defined by the Rules. Non-voting players may not win Cycles of Ackanomic. A player may not win the Game of Ackanomic. A player always has the option to leave the Game of Ackanomic.

This rule has precedence over all other rules.

Rule 102/7
Resolving Conflicts

Two or more rules may conflict with each other about a point of Ackanomic law. In such a situation, if the rules other than this one specify a single, coherent, unambiguous method for resolving the conflict then that method is applied to determine which rule or rules take precedence with regard to that particular point of law. Otherwise, the rule with the lowest rule number takes precedence.

If two statements in the same rule conflict with each other, and the rule doesn't define a way to resolve the conflict, then the statement which appears later in the rule takes precedence.

If two rules have different base numbers, use the base number to determine which is lowest. Among rules with the same base number, use the sub rule numbers to determine which rule has the lowest number, treating a rule without a sub rule number as if the sub rule number was zero.

Rule 103/11
Retroactive Effects

No rule may generate any effect that applies retroactively to a time before the generation of the effect.

Rule 104/7
Proposals

A Voting player may submit a proposal by sending its text to the Promoter, who shall then post it publicly to be voted on.

All proposals shall be voted on, unless they are retracted or deemed invalid in accordance with the Rules. In these cases, they are removed from consideration, and are considered to be neither accepted or rejected.

As soon as possible after a proposal's prescribed voting period ends, the votes on that proposal shall be posted publicly. The proposal is then accepted if a quorum has been achieved and the required number of YES votes were cast on the proposal.

If a proposal is accepted, one of two things happen. If the proposal consisted of a list of one-time effects, such as changes to the rules, then those effects shall be applied, one at a time, in the order in which they appear in the proposal. (Ambiguous, retroactive, and/or meaningless effects are ignored.)

Otherwise, the proposal itself changes from a proposal to a rule. [It is assigned a title and number as described in Rules 301 and 303.]

Rule 106/13
Voting on Proposals

Voting Players may vote either YES, NO, or PRESENT on each proposal, by sending their vote to the Tabulator. Votes must be unambiguous and unconditional. A Voting Player may also choose not to vote on a proposal, which is called abstaining. Voting Players who do not vote within the prescribed voting period shall be deemed to have abstained. Voting Players may change their vote up until the end of the prescribed voting period, but in any case are limited to one vote per proposal.

A Voting Player (hereafter referred to as Player A) may authorize another Voting Player (hereafter referred to as their Proxy) to vote in their stead, provided that Player A has no default vote specified. To do this, Player A must send a message to the Tabulator stating who will be their Proxy. A Voting Player may cease to authorize another Voting Player from voting in their stead. To do this, a Voting Player must send a message to the Tabulator stating that they no longer want a Proxy.

At the instant before the end of the voting period of a proposal, all Voting Players that have not cast a vote on the proposal, and have a Proxy, will cast a vote identical to the vote cast by their Proxy (if their Proxy cast a vote) on the proposal. If a player's Proxy has abstained, then that player will cast a PRESENT vote on the proposal.

The required number of YES votes for a proposal to be accepted is three-fifths of the total number of YES and NO votes legally cast within the prescribed voting period. If that value is 0, however, the required number of YES votes for acceptance is 1.

The prescribed voting period on a proposal is seven days, starting from the moment that the proposal is publicly distributed as specified by the rules.

Entities may vote only as specified by the rules. Non-entities may not vote.

Rule 107/6
Quorum and Active Players

If the number of players who voted on a proposal is equal to or greater than the number of abstaining Active players at the time the results are posted, the proposal meets quorum; otherwise it does not meet quorum.

Rule 205/6
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) Players, acting in their capacity as 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 in a timely manner.

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 score change is due to a rule or entity (e.g. Magic Potato), and a rule change is adopted that affects how that rule or entity causes score changes (including, but not limited to, destroying the entity), then no score changes are generated by that rule or entity for the adoption of the specific rule change in question. This paragraph has precedence over sections 2), 3) and 4) where there is a conflict. This rule defers precedence to R 313 where there is a conflict. [This is to handle the "Potato Paradox" when a Proposal passes to repeal the Magic Potato, or the 10th proposal passes that repeals the Brass Monkey, no scoring is generated by those entities for the proposal which passed.]

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 207/13
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 Accepted Proposals
If a non-Modest proposal is accepted, the player who proposed it receives 10 points, and every player who voted NO on it receives 3 points.

IV. Scoring on Rejected Proposals
If a proposal is rejected, but meets quorum, the player who proposed it loses 7 points and every player who voted YES on it receives 3 points.

V. Effect of Proposals which do not meet Quorum
If a proposal does not meet quorum, each active player who was not on vacation and abstained on the proposal shall lose 5 points and become non-voting. The events which Rule 254 generates when a player voluntarily changes to non-voting status do not occur in this case, but if a player who became non-voting by this rule does not become a voting player within a week of having become non-voting, then the events in Rule 254 are carried out as if the player voluntarily became non-voting. Players who become non-voting in this manner do not lose offices they hold because of doing so, until they have remained non-voting for one week; this takes precedence over rule 401.

VI. Short Proposal Bonus
If a non-Modest proposal is accepted which contains less than five lines, none of which contains more than 80 characters, including space characters, of text in the body of the proposal (excluding whitespace and furniture), the player who submitted it is awarded 5 extra points.

VII. New Player Author Bonus/Soft Penalty
For the first three weeks of being a new player (as opposed to a returning player) in Ackanomic, a player shall receive a three-point bonus whenever one of their non-Modest proposals is accepted or any one of their proposals is rejected.

VIII. Null Proposals
The above provisions notwithstanding, if an accepted proposal does not become a new rule or generate at least one valid effect under Rule 103, no points are scored by any player as a result of that proposal being accepted, the preceding provisions of this rule notwithstanding. Such proposals, and only such proposals, are "Null Proposals".

Rule 207.1/7
That's just silly
Bascule (Matt Black)

If an accepted proposal contains the phrase "loophole surfing expert", 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 instances of the phrase "loophole surfing expert" in this rule will be replaced by the three word phrase chosen by that player.

Rule 207.2/4
Keep 'Em In The Game
Mitchell Harding

Anyone whose score is below -60 and above -1000000 [negative 1 million] automatically has it reset back to 0. Anyone whose score reaches exactly -60 has their score changed to 20.

Rule 207.3/3
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) Either the player submitting the proposal was the author of the previous proposal, or the player submitting the proposal gives proper credit to the original author. If the original author is still a registered player of Ackanomic, it is considered good form to transfer some of the points gained through the resubmitted proposal's Foolishness to em.

Whenever a Foolish Proposal is accepted or rejected, all scoring effects from rule 207 related to its acceptance or rejection shall be doubled.

Rule 209/3
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".

Whenever a Modest proposal is adopted, its author shall receive half the number of points that rule 207 would have directed that they receive if the proposal had not been Modest (rounded down).

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".

Whenever a Grandiose Proposal is adopted, the author shall receive an additional 6 point bonus above and beyond any other points received for that proposal. This is considered a scoring change based on the content of the 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.

Rule 210/3
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 it's 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 be either a complete sentence of 7 words or more, or a contiguous phrase of at least 14 words in length. [This last bit is to try and stop people from trying to pass off "to be" as a quote from Hamlet, and the like.]

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 "plagarism" 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, it's author gains X points. X is either the number of sentences quoted according to section I of this rule, or the number the total number of words quoted according to section I divided by 14, whichever is smaller.

III. A proposal is a Great Work if it meets the following requirements:

a) All of the text that is ammended 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 ammendment to existing rules, and these ammendments 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. The Literature list may only be altered through the use of Proposals or the Spelling Bee.

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.

Rule 211/17
Invoking Judgement

Any player who has a question or complaint about any matter concerning the rules, the facts, or their interpretation may email their statement to the Clerk of the Court, who will then distribute it publically. A call for judgement is then incurred on that statement.

Any CFJ must include a single, clear, and clearly labeled statement that can be answered TRUE, or FALSE. The remainder of the CFJ may consist of alternate material to bolster one decision or another. The judge is required only to consider the actual statement provided and the game state.

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.

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.

[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)]

If the statements of two unresolved Paradox Win CFJs are substantially similar, in the opinion of the judge of the higher-numbered one, then the higher-numbered 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 212/8
Selecting A Judge

When Judgement has been called for, a Judge is randomly selected from among the other active players that are eligible to judge CFJs, as defined by any applicable rules. It is a duty of the Clerk of the Court to make this selection. The player selected has 3 days in which to accept or refuse the appointment by posting to the applicable officer. Any player who does not respond to selection in 3 days shall be considered a deadbeat and penalized 10 points, and deemed to have refused appointment; the CFJ shall then be assigned to the Praetor. If a selected player actively declines appointment, then a further random selection is made from the remaining pool.

If the "remaining pool" is ever reduced to 0 eligible active players, and a judge needs to be selected, then all those currently active players who have previously declined judgement on the CFJ in question are added back to the the remaining pool. If doing this still leaves 0 eligible judges, then the CFJ is deemed Invalid, and removed from consideration, and no judge is selected.

If the CFJ is a Call For Criminal Judgement (CFCJ), the player or players against which the CFCJ is being called are excluded from "the other active players" and "remaining pool" as described above. This exclusion is made before the random determination is made. In other words, a player who has a CFCJ called against them may not be selected to judge that CFCJ.

A player whose name appears on the CFJ Ineligibility List (List) is ineligible to be selected as a Judge. As a public action, a player may remove their name from the List if it is on the List, or add their name to the List if it is not there already.

Whenever a player is considered a deadbeat as per this rule or rule 213, their name is added to the CFJ Ineligibility List if it is not already there.

Rule 213/1
Delivering Judgement

Having accepted the appointment a Judge has exactly one week in which to post an official Judgment. A Judge who fails to deliver Judgment within that period is considered and deadbeat and penalized 10 points, and the CFJ which he was judging shall be assigned to the Praetor.

Rule 214/1
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.

Rule 215/1
Judgements Must Accord With The Rules

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.

Rule 216/0
Judgements Are Not Rules

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 217/20
Overturning Judgements

After any Judgement is returned, a 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. A single CFJ may not be appealed more than three times.

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.

A case may also reach the Supreme Court if the Praetor submits any CFJ to that body. The Praetor may submit with the CFJ an explanation of why he is not deciding it himself, although the Supreme Court is under no obligation to read it.

The Supreme Court shall then decide the case and should return its verdict within one week. With the verdict of a majority of the Justices being the verdict of the Court.

If the court agrees with the previous verdict, then the player who lodged the appeal shall be fined an amount from 1 to 25 points for frivolously bothering the judges. If the Justices fail to specify the amount of this fine with their verdict, it shall be 25 points. However, if the Court finds the case differently than the previous verdict, then the verdict shall be overturned to the new verdict, and the judge (or each justice on the court) who delivered the previous verdict, shall be fined an amount from 1 to 10 points, to be decided by the Justices of the Court. If the Justices fail to specify the amount of this fine with their verdict, it shall be 1 point.

If a case reached the Supreme Court through submission by the Praetor, a player may still appeal the Court's decision, but the case shall be treated as if it had already been appealed once.

In the event that a 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. Members of a Jury that ruled on a CFJ may not appeal that CFJ, neither can the Judge, Prosaecutor and Consaecutor of that CFJ.

Rule 218/1
Trials By Jury
Calvin N Hobbes (Thierry Joffrain)

[This would allow for the trials by jury. The effects would be minimal, considering Acka is nicely defined. However, it would add another possibility to deal with strange occurences. The rule was kept as simple as possible]

Upon a verdict of "Undecided" being ruled by a judge, the following will take place. The "Undecided" verdict should be published by the CoC, but the CFJ will no be redistributed to another judge, rather, a Jury trial is formed, its ruling to be accepted as the ruling of the CFJ. This takes precedence over any rule that would redistribute a CFJ ruled "Undecided".

The initiator of the CFJ will act as Prosaecutor. The Judge who ruled undecided will nominate a player, excluding the Prosaecutor, to act as Consaecutor. That player should have an opinion different from the Prosaecutor's, although this is left at the discretion of the Judge. The Prosaecutor and Consaecutor will each select 2 players that are neither one of themselves, nor Justice or Acting Justice, to act as Jury members for this CFJ.

Within seven days, they must each submit to the Judge a message that outlines their positions, why they believe their position is correct, and what the result of the jury verdict should be. A soon as the two messages are received by the Judge, he will distribute both of them to the Jury members selected. Should the dealine pass with one not submitting the message, then the result asked by the other takes effect. Should both miss the deadline, the CFJ is declared invalid and that ruling is passed on to the CoC for publication.

Upon receiving the two documents, the Jury then has seven days to discuss it among themselves and provide a ruling. They should choose one of themselves to act as spokesperson, who will give their ruling to the Judge. No reasoning should be given with the ruling.

The possible rulings are as follows. If all agree to support one of the two opinions presented to them, then they should present its result as verdict. The players may present their own verdict if all agree on it. If no consensus can be reached, the Consaecutor's opinion prevails and the result he outlined is implemented as verdict.

The Judge will then pass on the CFJ to the CoC for publication.

A jury verdict can be appealed to the Supreme Court. Justices, acting Justices, members of that Jury, the Judge, the Prosaecutor and Consaecutor may not appeal the verdict.

Rule 230/0
Level Playing Field
ThinMan (John Bollinger)

Whenever the rules call for a random determination to be made, 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.

Rule 250/6
Registered Players

A player is any person who is registered as a player. Players are named, unownable entities. No person may register as a player more than once concurrently. Anyone is allowed to observe the game and participate in discussion of any issue, but no person who is not a player may make a proposal, or vote on any proposal, or call for judgement, or judge, or score points, or win a cycle. No person who is not a player may hold office or have any tasks, duties or responsibilities within the game.

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, he is considered the same player.]

Rule 251/12
Player Names
Wayne Sheppard

Every player has exactly one Ackanomic name. This name must be a string of name characters from three to twenty characters in length. Neither the first nor the last character in this string may be the space character. All official nomic business shall use this name to refer to that player.

A player may change his Ackanomic name, so long as the new name complies with all applicable rules. The Registrar shall record and acknowledge each legal name change; a legal name change takes effect at the time of the Registrar's acknowledgement. The Registrar shall record the change. When a player changes their Ackanomic name, all Ackanomic business will be changed to follow their new name.

Rule 252/8
Joining the Game
Guy Fawkes (Robert Shimmin)

I. For the purposes of this rule, a player whose most recent departure from Ackanomic caused him or her to become an Undead that still exists is considered a Returning player. All other players are considered New.

II. A person wishing to join the game, and who cannot do so as a Returning player, should notify the Registrar, providing a valid email address, their real name, and the legal Ackanomic name they wish to play under. Upon them providing this information, should the requested name indeed be a legal Ackanomic name, the Registrar shall post a public message announcing the new player and providing their Ackanomic name, real name, and email address, and if the prospective player provided it, how they discovered the game. Upon the posting of such an announcement, the person becomes registered as a player.

III. Upon the registration 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 legal 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 official Ackanomic name. The player may change the name of their building by publically announcing the new name and unambiguously identifying the building they wish to rename.

2) The New player is paid from the Treasury the sum of A$900.

3) The New player is given 100 newly created PFBonds associated with himself. The Financier shall assign a label that may be used to refer to the PFBonds associated with the New player, although this procedure may continue without waiting for him to do so.

4) The Registrar shall select a Mentor for the new player. If the Mentor was chosen from the volunteer pool, e receives A$25 from the Treasury immediately; otherwise, e receives A$25 if and when e accepts the mentorship.

IV. A person able to join the game as a Returning player may do so by posting a public message to that effect. This message must include their Ackanomic and real life names, as well as a valid email address. The Registrar shall then record their return to the players list.

V. Upon the registration of a Returning player, the following procedure takes place:

1) The Undead with that player's Ackanomic name changes from an Undead to a player.

2) All Bond Promissories in that player's real life name are converted to PFBonds associated with that player. Their label is the same as the PFBonds whose conversion created the Bond Promissories.

3) If the player left during the current cycle, his score is the minimum of 0 and the score he had upon last leaving the game.

VI. Any player joining the game may specify that they are joining as a non-voting player. Otherwise, they are assumed to be joining as a voting player.

Rule 253/3
Mentors
snowgod (Phil Ackley)

When the Registrar must select a Mentor for a new player, he 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 volunteer pool. If there are not enough players in the volunteer pool to assign a mentor for each new player, the Registrar may randomly select a player from the general population.

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 a 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 a new player with information on any matter that requires his 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 for a period of two weeks from the day he assigned to the player, or until the new player declines further services [whichever comes first].

A mentor must always provide information without political or religious bias.

Rule 254/4
Player States
Guy Fawkes (Robert Shimmin)

At any given time, exactly one of these states shall apply to each player:
Pending
Active
Vacation
Non-voting
Upon registration, a player is Pending, unless he specified that he was joining as a non-voting player, in which case he is Non-voting. A player in either of the states "Pending" or "Active" is considered a voting player.

A Pending player becomes Active when it becomes publically knowable that he has voted on a proposal.

Only Active players may be randomly selected for anything, except where the rules specifically allow non-active players to be selected.

Any non-voting player may become a voting player by posting publicly that they are doing so; e begins as Pending. A player may not do so within three days of having joined as a non-voting player or of having changed from voting to non-voting status, voluntarily or otherwise.

Any voting player may become a non-voting player by posting publicly that they are doing so; at the moment of this announcement, all their existing votes on proposals whose results have not yet been released are cancelled; they are treated as having declined judgement on all CFJ's they have been selected to judge but not yet accepted or declined, and treated as having failed to return a verdict on any they have accepted, and they are 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.

Rule 255/19
Vacationing
Austin Appleby

A player shall be considered "on vacation" when he or she makes a public request that he or she desires to be on vacation. Players are allowed to put only themselves on vacation. The Rules may specify other ways a Player may be put on vacation. Whenever a player goes on vacation by any means, his player state becomes Vacation.

A player should specify the expected duration of their vacation. If the duration is not specified when they go on vacation, it is assumed to be 14 days. If the period specified is longer than 60 days, it is assumed, and recorded, as 60 days. If the period specified is shorter than 2 days, it is assumed, and recorded, as 2 days. It is a duty of the Registrar to keep a record of the expected duration of vacationing players.

While a player is on vacation, the player shall not be randomly selected for anything, except where the rules specifically allow vacationing or non-active players to be selected. The player shall also not be chosen to perform any task. 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. 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.

A player on vacation is not considered an "active player" while they are on vacation. Nor may they be removed from the game by any procedure, unless that procedure *explicitly* states that it applies to vacationing players, or that procedure is part of this Rule.

The only thing a player on vacation may legally do is take himself off vacation and send public messages. A player shall take himself off vacation by declaring to the public forum that he is back from his vacation. As soon as the player makes this public declaration, he returns to the player state besides Vacation he most recently had.. The one exception is that a player who has been on vacation less than 2 days may not take themselves off vacation.

Votes cast before a player went on vacation shall count normally. If a vacationing player does not cast a vote on a proposal, then the player shall have no vote or abstention recorded for that proposal.

If a player is still on vacation when their expected duration expires, they are put "on ice", and it is a duty of the Registrar to announce this fact publically. A player on ice is still considered a vacationing player, and their on ice status is removed at the same time they return from, or are removed, from vacation.

A player who is on ice for 14 consecutive days is automatically Impeached from any offices they may hold. A player who is on ice for 60 consecutive days is removed from the game.

This rule has precedence over any rule which conflicts in whole or in part, with any of its provisions.

Rule 256/10
Leaving the Game
pTang1001001sos (Mark Nau)

Upon a player leaving, the following procedure takes place, in the order shown.
1) All of his mimsy possessions are taken away and considered unowned.
2) The player is removed from all offices.
3) If the player was never at any time Active or Non-Voting, all of his A$ are transferred to the Treasury, every PFBond associated with him is destroyed, every entity remaining in his possession is destroyed, and then the player is deregistered. In this case, the procedure ends here.
4) If the player was at any time Active or Non-Voting, the procedure continues.
5) Every PFBond associated with him is converted into a Bond Promissory in his real life name. Bond Promissories are tradeable entities.
6) All their existing votes on proposals whose results have not yet been released are cancelled.
7) The player ceases to be a player and becomes an Undead.

Rule 257/10
No Dead Players Allowed
Mitchell Harding

If any voting player who is not currently on a voluntarily activated vacation does not vote or send a public message for a time period of one week, and this fact is pointed out to the Speaker by any player, then the Speaker has a Duty to send a message to the player who has been absent. In this message the Speaker has a Duty to ask the player if e wishes to continue playing the game, and to point out why the message is being sent. If the player does not reply within 3 days, then e is placed on vacation with an expected duration of 3 days, unless e never was an active player, in which case e is removed from the game, .

If the player in question was the Speaker himself, the Speaker has 3 days to respond to the original message in the public forum, or be placed on vacation with an expected duration of 3 days.

Rule 258/6
Undead
/dev/joe (Joseph DeVincentis)

There exists the class of named, unownable entities known as the Undead.

Entities that are owned by Undead cannot be manipulated in any way except by an action of the Undead. This rule takes precedence over all other rules except those pertaining to the transferrence of the Chartreuse Goose and Rule 666. This rule defers to Rule 666 (End of Cycle).

The location of an Undead is known as its "haunt".

Rule 259/0
Evil Twins
Calvin N Hobbes (Thierry Joffrain)

Provided two players agree to it, they will become the other's evil twin. They will remain as such until one of them sends a public message containing the phrase: "my evil twin is a good twin".

Rule 261/0
Zombie Master
Calvin N Hobbes (Thierry Joffrain)

Should a player follow all the directions below, in order, with all steps made publicly on the same day (none earlier than 2am Acka time, none later than 3am) then the player is said to control the Undead (who is also a Zombie).

1. Using his wings to fly backwards to where an Undead is located.
2. To destroy a trinket [to please Baron Samedi]
3. To say the incantation 'Mortoo Tomboo Miyi' preceded by the Undead's name. [this means 'mine the undead in the tomb']
4. To give 10% of their Ackadollars to the poorest player.

If the incantation is said but the ritual fails for some reason (including not being completed), then the player loses 10 points.

The player controlling a Zombie may bid it by a public message to do one the following actions:
(i) To destroy a certain Frankenstein Monster. The named monster is destroyed.
(ii) To act as patsy for a CFCJ before judgement is returned. If there is a penalty for a Crime it is applied to the Zombie, the player is kept innocent (Takes precedence over the rule "Criminal Justice"). The Zombie is then busy for as long as any sentence would keep it busy or otherwise occupied (eg: goal sentence) and cannot do its master's bidding until it is no longer busy.
(iii) To go arm wrestle another Zombie. Both zombies are busy for 7 days and cannot do their masters' bidding during those seven days.
(iv) To protect a player's donkey in a Grab-A-Donkey game. The donkey cannot be grabbed for the coming turn.

Bidding an Undead to do one of the above counts as a Paranormal Power use by a player entity (the controlling player).

A Undead will stay under the control of another player until it is no longer an Undead, the controlling player himself becomes Undead, or someone kisses that Undead."

Rule 301/8
Proposal and Rule Titles
Wayne (Wayne Sheppard)

Each Rule shall have a Title. Each Proposal shall also have a Title. When a Proposal is submitted, the player that submits it may indicate the Title for the Proposal. If the player doesn't indicate a Title for the Proposal then the Promoter shall select a Title.

If the Proposal is accepted and the Proposal creates a New Rule, then the New Rule shall have the Title indicated by the proposal, or if none is specified, the New Rule shall have the same Title as the Proposal. If the Proposal amends or transmutes a Rule, the Title of the Rule shall remain unchanged, unless the proposal explicitly amends the Title of the Rule.

Rule 303/11
Proposal and Rule Numbering

I. Each rule has an effective ordinal number, hereafter referred to simply as the rule's number. Rule numbers and proposal numbers are unownable entities. A valid rule number is one or two positive integers. The first is called the base rule number, and the second, if present, is called the sub rule number and is separated from the base rule number by a period.

II. When a new rule is created as a result of the acceptance of a proposal, it is numbered as follows:

1. If the proposal specifies that the new rule is to be a member of a Rule Suite, and a Head of a Rule Suite rule exists for that Rule Suite, then that new rule has the base rule number of the Head of the Rule Suite, and the least sub rule number greater than all other sub rule numbers in that Rule Suite. [New rules in Rule Suites default to going at the end.]

2. Otherwise, if the proposal specifies a valid rule number for the new rule, and that number is not already the number of another rule, then the new rule is assigned that number.
[Proposals should specify rule numbers for any rules they create so that the new rule(s) are numbered into the appropriate section of the rules.]

3. Otherwise, the new rule uses the number of the proposal that created it as its base rule number. If some other rule already has this number, then the new rule takes a sub rule number as large as necessary to have a rule number different from all other rules.

III. When a new rule is created by another rule, or by some entity (besides a proposal) granted the power to create rules by some rule, it is numbered as follows:

1. If the entity creating the rule declares it to be a member of a Rule Suite, as in II.1. above, then it is numbered as in II.1. above.

2. Otherwise, if the rule or entity creating the new rule assigns it a valid rule number which is not already the number of another rule, then the new rule is uses that number.

3. If neither 1 nor 2 above numbers the rule, then the rule is numbered with the least positive integer greater than all existing base rule numbers.

Rule 305/6
For Personal Glory...
SnafuMoose (Stephen F Roberts)

Preamble: Such that each player should be able to strike his own mark upon Ackanomic; And that all future AckaCitizens should remember the exploits of those that went before them; Let this rule be enacted.

(a) i. The official copy of the official rules should include with the text of each rule the name of the originator of the rule and the date the rule was enacted.

ii. The originator's name should appear just below the title of the proposal and before the text of the proposal.

(b) i. Likewise, any changes to the rules should be noted with the name of the changer and the date the changes were enacted.

ii. The names of any changers should appear at the end of the rule, after the body text of the rule, and before the beginning of the next rule.

(c) The requirements in (a) and (b) do not have to apply to rules created before the enactment of this rule if such data is not known.

Rule 307/3
Revision Numbers
/dev/joe (Joseph DeVincentis)

In addition to its effective ordinal number, each rule has a revision number. Rule numbers may be written as X/R; in any such construction, X is the effective ordinal number and R is the revision number.

Each rule's revision number is equal to the number of times that rule has been changed, since its creation, except that changes due to the Spelling Bee or due to the deletion of specially delimited text, or due to the rule amending itself, shall not be counted, and if a proposal changes a rule in more than one way [such as transmuting a rule, amending it, and then transmuting it again] then this counts as only one change.

Rule 309/2
Substantially Similar Proposals
Malenkai (Randy Hall)

Proposal A is invalid if it, or the game effect that would occur if it is adopted, is substantially similar, (in the judgement of a judge to adjudicate such matters) to Proposal B, or the game effect that would occur if Proposal B is adopted, and both of the following are true:

a) Proposal A was distributed after Proposal B.
b) Proposal B is still under voting consideration.

It is a Crime to be the author of both Proposal A and Proposal B. (as the terms 'Proposal A' and 'Proposal B' are used in this rule).

Rule 311/3
Rule Suites
Malenkai (Randy Hall)

1) A rule is a Head of Rule Suite if and only if all of the following lettered items are true of it:

a) Its rule number is a single integer (i.e. without the . (dot)).

b) Its title consists of a word or phrase followed by the words "Rule Suite", and no other rule has the same title.

c) Its text contains an overview of the content or purpose of the Rule Suite. This overview may be in notes brackets.

d) Its text contains a phrase or sentence in notes brackets which can serve as a link to the Rules in the Rule Suite.

2) A Head of a Rule Suite may contain other material which shall be interpreted normally. If, for a particular Head of a Rule Suite, represents the word or phrase described in section 1b, then that Rule can be referred to as the Head of the Rule Suite.

3) A rule is a member of a certain Rule Suite if and only if its number is X.Y, where X is the number of the Head of that Rule Suite, and Y is a positive integer.

4) It is a privilege of the Web-Harfer to move rules which are members of Rule Suites out of the main rules document into a separate document, and to establish and maintain a link from the link phrase (section 1 d)) to this document. If any such member rules are moved to a separate document, then all such member rules of that Rule Suite must be moved to that document, and the link must be established and maintained.

Rule 313/10
Proposal Bribery
/dev/joe (Joseph DeVincentis)

I. The Right to Fair Voting
A proposal is invalid if it calls for one or more effects that discriminate in any way between players based on their voting actions on that proposal, or any other specific proposal or proposals identified in the proposal. Effects that depend on the way players vote are allowed if they apply to all proposals, or to all proposals in one or more classes previously defined by the rules. [This would be modest proposals, harfy proposals, etc.] This section defers to section IV of this rule.

II. Voting Actions
The following are voting actions:
A. Casting a YES, NO, or PRESENT vote by rule 106.
B. Bribing Tammany by rule 315.
C. Being part of a political party that gets a unity vote.
D. Using a Bonus Vote by rule 317.
Other actions may be designated by the rules to be voting actions.

III. Effects Triggered on Changing the Triggering Rules
If a proposal adds, changes, or repeals rules that generate effects or cause some entity to generate effects (including but not limited to score changes) based on the way players vote, then those rules generate no effects based on the way players vote on that particular proposal. This section of this rule takes precedence over all other rules which generate effects based on the way players vote on proposals, but defers to the following paragraph.

IV. Bribes
A. A proposal may include a Bribe section, which must be in a separate paragraph in preface to the main text of the proposal in a proposal, beginning with the word "Bribe" and a colon [as in "Bribe: A$1"]. Any Bribe which violates any of the rules regarding Bribes is invalid.

B. Bribes may only cause the transfer of tradeable entities from the author of the proposal to players who voted YES on the proposal; a Bribe need not specify that the entities come from the author of the proposal, since it is assumed.

C. If a proposal does not specify a condition for receiving its Bribe, then every player who votes YES on the proposal is eligible to receive the Bribe. A Bribe may specify further conditions, and may offer different amounts to different players, or based on different conditions [I.e., extra bribes can be given to players whose parties generate unity votes], but any conditions in the Bribe must be determinable when the voting results are posted.

V. Processing Bribes
A. When the voting results for a proposal containing a Bribe section are posted, if the amount(s) specified by the Bribe cannot be transferred from the proposal's author to all eligible players, based on the conditions stated in the Bribe, the Bribe is invalid.

B. The required number of YES votes for a proposal containing an invalid bribe to be accepted is one more than the total number of YES and NO votes legally cast within the prescribed voting period. This paragraph takes precedence over rule 106.

C. When the voting results for a proposal containing an invalid Bribe are posted, the author of that proposal loses 15 points, and no other rules that generate score changes or other effects when a proposal is rejected trigger any effects for that proposal; this takes precedence over any such rules.

D. When the voting results for a proposal containing a valid Bribe are posted, the amount(s) specified by the Bribe are transferred from the proposal's author to all eligible players, based on the conditions stated in the Bribe.

Rule 315/13
Tammany
pTang1001001sos (Mark Nau)

Tammany is a unique entity capable of casting one vote on each Proposal. Tammany only votes on Proposals as specified by this Rule.

A statement sent to the Tabulator is a Tammany Bribe if, and only if, it conveys the following information:

a) the Proposal number of a Proposal that has not yet come to resolution.

b) an amount of currency in the range of A$ 5 to A$ 100 (inclusive)

c) a Desired Vote of either YES, NO, or SILENT.

d) the intent of the sender of the message to bribe Tammany the amount specified, in order to vote in the manner specified on the Proposal specified.

It is the Duty of the Tabulator to ensure that each Tammany Bribe remains secret until the end of the voting period of the Proposal to which it applies. The Tabulator shall not intentionally examine the text of any Tammany Bribe until this rule makes it eir Duty to do so. If he should inadvertently do so, he should, as a matter of ethics, avoid allowing this foreknowledge to influence his game actions in any way.

Each Player may submit a maximum of one valid Tammany Bribe per Proposal. Should more than one Tammany Bribe be submitted by a Player for a given Proposal, the Tammany Bribe received most recently by the Tabulator shall be deemed the sole valid Tammany Bribe by the Player for that Proposal, with all others being disregarded.

Before the voting results for a given Proposal are announced, the Tabulator has the Duty of determining whether and how Tammany will vote on this Proposal, based upon the valid Tammany Bribes for that Proposal and the specifications below in this Rule. Tammany's vote and all Tammany Bribes pertaining to a Proposal shall be reported along with the voting results for the Proposal.

each Player who submitted a Tammany Bribe on a Proposal which is about to be resolved shall have the designated amount of currency deducted from his account and placed in the Treasury. If this would result in a negative curreny balance for the player, his entire Bribe is disregarded and no currency is deducted.

Tammany shall vote YES on a Proposal if and only if the total amount of currency associated with Tammany Bribes that had a Desired Vote of YES is greater than the total amount of currency associated with Tammany Bribes that had a Desired Vote of NO plus twice the total amount of currency associated with Bribes that had a Desired Vote of SILENT.

Tammany shall vote NO on a Proposal if and only if the total amount of currency associated with Tammany Bribes that had a Desired Vote of NO is greater than the total amount of currency associated with Tammany Bribes that had a Desired Vote of YES plus twice the total amount of currency associated with Bribes that had a Desired Vote of SILENT.

Rule 317/8
Bonus Votes
Niccolo Flychuck (Uri Bruck)

1. Bonus Votes are tradeable entities.

2. A player can own at most five Bonus Votes at an given time. If a Player who already owns five Bonus Votes receives an additional Bonus Vote, by any means, the additional Bonus Vote is destroyed.

3. Bonus Votes are used in the following manner - A player sends a message to the Tabulator that e is casting eir Bonus Vote on a specific proposal, and the legal type of Vote that Bonus Vote represents. The Bonus Vote shall then be counted as a vote on that proposal. When the results of that proposal are released by the Tabulator, the Bonus Vote is destroyed.

4. A Player can only cast a Bonus Vote e owns. A particular Bonus Vote can only be cast once. Any attempt to cast a Bonus Vote fails if it does not meet these restrictions.

5. A voting player can use at most one Bonus Vote per proposal. A voting Player can use at most one Bonus Vote on any string of three consecutive proposals. On any single proposal, at most four Bonus Votes are counted. If more than four Bonus Votes were sent to the Tabulator on a single proposal, only the last four valid Bonus Votes to have arrived before the end of the voting are counted, the rest are destroyed. Non-voting players may not use Bonus Votes.

6. Other rules may specify means by which Bonus Votes are acquired or destroyed, subject to the restrictions in this rule.

7. A voting player may pay $A150 to the Treasury to declare any one proposal in the voting queue to be a Guarded Proposal. Bonus Votes may not used on a Guarded Proposal. Bonus Votes already cast on that proposal are not counted, and any player who cast a Bonus Vote that was nullified in this manner is given one Bonus Vote as compensation.

Rule 319/2
Unanimity Is Lovely (although not so lovely as it used to be)
Robert Sevin (Mitchell Harding)

When a non-modest proposal passes, and had no votes other than YES votes cast, the President shall publicly congratulate the author by giving a formal speech. Also in celebration of this joyous occasion, the player with the lowest score shall have their score increased by 2 points. If more than one player is tied for lowest score, all of their scores change to 2. If this would cause a player to lose points, that player will instead have their score increased by 3 points.

Rule 330/7
Retractions
Wayne (Wayne Sheppard)

A player may retract their own proposal by publically posting that they are doing so, so long as the voting results on that proposal have not been publically announced. All votes cast on a retracted proposal shall be ignored. The player retracting the proposal loses 2 points, except during the first three weeks of eir being a new player (as opposed to a returning player) in Ackanomic, in which case the player instead will lose no points.

A player may retract their own Call For Judgement (CFJ) by publically posting that they are doing so, so long as a verdict on that CFJ has not been delivered. The player retracting the CFJ loses 1 point.

A player may retract their own Miscellaneous Submission by publically posting that they are doing so, so long as a decision on the acceptance or rejection of the submission in question is not publically knowable. The player retracting the submission loses 1 point. This section takes precedence over any rule which would prevent retraction of these entities. Instances of following, and nothing else, are Miscellaneous Submissions:

Rule 340/2
Spelling Errors
Wayne (Wayne Sheppard)

If there are spelling errors in any Ackanomic document, including Rules, Proposals, and Call for Judgements, and the spelling error is unambiguous, then the mispelled word shall be treated as if it were spelled correctly.

If there is a typographical error in any number in any Ackanomic document, and the intended number can be determined beyond reasonable doubt, then the mis-typed number shall be treated as if it were typed as intended, and be considered a misspelled word with respect to Rule 342 (with the correct spelling being the intended number).

Rule 342/8
Spelling Bee
Malenkai (Randy Hall)

1) The Spelling Bee is an unownable entity. Its purpose is to fly through the Rules and CFJ Archive and sting out misspelled or mistyped words. It may not fly through, or sting, any other entities.

2) Its flight may only be initiated by an officer privileged to do so.

3) Its flight may be initiated at any time, including immediately after the Application of a Rule change, or the publication of a CFJ verdict.

4) An officer initiates its flight by posting a public message with the term "Spelling" in its subject line. Its flight consists of, in that post, a listing of all Rule and CFJ changes being made, clearly labeled by rule or CFJ number, old word, and replacement word. These changes are called "stingings" and must be made in accordance with the rules below. Words in titles and headers of Rules and CFJs may be stung. No one may initiate a flight which is illegal, or contains illegal stingings.

5a) Permissible Stingings:
a) Replacing a misspelled word with its correctly spelled equivalent.
b) Changing the capitalization of the first letter of a word.
c) Replacing correctly spelled words with the word that was intended. Ie, replacing "an" with "and" in the following example from R 214: "A Judgement may be accompanied by reasons an arguments".
d) Replacing proper nouns with their proper spelling when the proper spelling is generally known and accepted.
e) Adding a period at the end of a sentence when it is missing. f) Correcting the labels (numbers or letters) of a set of numbered or lettered sections when there are skipped or repeated labels, and at the same time, changing any reference in any rules to any of the relabeled sections so that they refer to the intended sections.

5b) Impermissible stingings. This list takes precedence over 5a) where there is conflict:
a) Replacing a creative or made up word, such as "Torkola".
b) Replacing British, American, or archaic spellings with their American, British, or non-archaic equivalent.
c) Replacing a foreign word with its Anglicized equivalent.
d) Replacing Spivak pronouns with other pronouns, or replacing non-gender neutral language with gender neutral language, or replacing any pronoun or phrase with a Spivak pronoun.
e) Replacing words in quotes or words followed by [sic].
f) Replacing slang or colloquial words, or spellings thereof.
g) Changing the word, such as replacing "superceeds" with "takes precedence over", or "computer" with "machine", even if the word being replaced is misspelled.
h) Fixing grammar errors, except what is allowed by 5a).
i) Replacing abbreviations and acronyms.
j) Making any change that violates the "spirit" of what was intended in the writing being edited.

6) Upon the flight being announced, the legal changes are applied to the rules.

7) Changes made by the Spelling Bee are not noted below the Rules, as is customary for other changes. This clause takes precedence over any rule which would require such notation.

8) Where there is doubt, correct spellings are adjudicated by the Official Dictionary.

Rule 344/5
Notes and Comments
Mohammed (Jason Orendorff)

A left square bracket in a rule or other text begins a note, which ends with the next following right square bracket, or the end of the rule or body of text, whichever comes first. [This means that notes do not nest.] In the Ackanomic language, notes have no semantic meaning, whatever their lexical content.

Rule 346/5
Self Deleting Text
Malenkai (Randy Hall)

Any rule text in double curly braces {{eg, this}}, shall be applied exactly once, then shall be deleted from the rule. If such a deletion should leave the rule entirely void of text, excluding the title, header, whitespace, and other furniture, the entire rule is deleted as well. Such rules, and only such rules, are called "Self Deleting Rules"

If a rule contains 2 or more sections of text in double curly braces, these sections shall be applied sequentially in the order that they appear in the rule, not simultaneously.

If a rule contains more sets of left double curly braces than right double curly braces, that rule is amended to append a set of right double curly braces after all of its other text.

Any text anywhere in this rule in double curly braces is explicitly excluded from the effects of this rule.

[Thus the following are semantically equivalent in rule text:

{{Robert Sevin shall be declared the winner of cycle one, the game cycle number shall be set to one, and the full process described above shall be conducted.}}

Paragraph B:
This is the first sentence of Paragraph B, which includes the header "Paragraph B:" just before this sentence. Upon passage of this Rule, Robert Sevin shall be declared the winner of cycle one, the game cycle number shall be set to one, and the full process described above shall be conducted. Then, Paragraph B, which ends with this sentence, shall be stricken from this Rule.
]

Rule 348/8
" "
mr cwm (Eric Murray)
[Web-Harfer's note: The name of this rule is a single space character.]

No two named entities may have names that match. The names of Rules and Proposals are exempted from this restriction.

No named entity may have a name that matches a former name of any current or former player, except that a player may change his name to one that he previously held.

An attempt to do anything that requires a name to be chosen [such as creating a Trinket or Organization] fails if the chosen name matches a name already in use.

Two names match if and only if their primitive forms are the same. The primitive form of a name is found by removing all articles ("a", "an", and "the") from the name, then removing all characters except letters and numbers, then converting all uppercase letters to lowercase. ["Bronze Torch" and "Bron, the Zet oRch" have the same primitive form: bronzetorch.]

If two names are found to match in conflict with the first paragraph of this rule, the CSRR Officer shall change one or both of the names in such a way as to fix the problem. Any game document or business that referred to such an entity by name shall be changed to indicate the new name.

This Rule defers to other Rules on the matter of whether it is permissible for a returning Player to choose, as eir Ackanomic name, the same name as an Undead.

Rule 349/0
Aleph Beth Gimel
Alfvaen (Aaron Humphrey)

Whenever it is desired that the alphabetical ordering of two names be determined, the following procedure is followed:

1) The two names are compared word-by-word, where a word is considered to be a series of non-whitespace characters delinated by whitespace. Further, each word is considered as if it were all lowercase. An initial "the" or "The" is ignored.

2) Words are compared letter-by-letter, where a series of digits is considered to be a single letter, an accented letter is treated as its unaccented form(except as specified below), and non-alphanumeric characters are ignored. A numeric "letter" precedes another numeric "letter" if its numeric value is less, or, if they have the same numeric value, if it has fewer leading zeroes. A numeric letter always precedes an alphabetic letter. An alphabetic letter precedes another alphabetic letter if it comes earlier in the alphabet. An unaccented letter precedes an accented letter if neither would otherwise precede the other. (The alphabet is in the order: "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz".) If neither of two letters precede the other, they are considered to be identical. A word precedes another word if the first non-identical character precedes the corresponding character in the other word, if no such character exists, the words are considered to be identical.

3) If one name contains fewer words than the other, and all the words in the shorter name are identical to the corresponding words in the other name, then the shorter name is considered to come first. Otherwise, the name whose word was considered to come first in the last comparison done is considered to come first.

4) If the above procedure does not yield a relative ordering for the two names, then they are ordered in ASCII collation order.

An "alphabetic list" shall be a list of names whose elements are ordered so that if there are any two elements A and B such that A occurs before B in relative alphabetical ordering, as defined above, occurs before element B in the list.

Rule 360/6
Hearings
Mohammed (Jason Orendorff)

A Rule may specify circumstances under which a Hearing is called. When this happens, Count Tabula shall announce in a public message that a Hearing has been called, citing the rule that requires it and the circumstances that brought it about, and telling the valid responses [and other pertinent details]. As of this announcement, the Hearing is in session.

While the Hearing is in session, each Player may send his or her response to that Hearing to Count Tabula privately. Count Tabula shall record each response that matches one of the valid responses for the Hearing. If a Player who has already responded sends another valid response, Count Tabula shall discard the previous response and record the new one. Any response contained in a post that does not unambiguously identify the Hearing it is in response to, even if only one Hearing is in progress, is invalid. Non-voting players may not vote in hearings, unless a rule says otherwise for a specific type of hearing.

The Hearing shall end when it has been in session for three days. When it ends, it ceases to be in session.

Once a Hearing has ended, it has a verdict. The verdict of the Hearing is whichever valid response was given by the most Players, and other entities capable of voting in hearings, in response to the Hearing, if exactly one valid response holds this distinction. Otherwise, if there is a tie among two or more responses, the verdict shall be whichever of the tied responses appears first in the Rule defining them. If no responses were received while the Hearing was in session, the verdict shall be "Never mind." Count Tabula has the Duty of announcing the verdicts of Hearings with all due haste.

A hearing may be retracted any time before its result is announced by the player who put it forward.

Rule 362/10
Crisis Resolution
The Governor (Dan Marsh)

1) The Speaker, and only the Speaker, may declare a State of Crisis at any time via public announcement, provided the game is not in a State of Crisis. Upon such declaration being legally made, the game is said to be in a State of Crisis until the State of Crisis is lifted as specified by the rules.

2) When, and only when, the game is in a State of Crisis the following officers have the following powers:

a) The Speaker may declare the State of Crisis lifted.
b) The President may publically issue a State of Crisis Resolution Document detailing a list of changes to be made in the ruleset. These changes will be applied three days after the issuance of that document, or at the end of a failed challenge (whichever is later) unless it has been challenged and defeated.

3) Any voting player may publically challenge the State of Crisis Resolution Document within three days of its issuance, provided that document has not been previously challenged. If such a challenge is lodged, a Hearing is called. The valid responses in this Hearing are "The President is scamming us", and "This will patch the crisis". If the verdict of the Hearing shows that the President is scamming us, the document is defeated, and an Impeachment Paper is immediately filed against the President. Otherwise, the challenge is said to have failed.

This rule takes precedence over any rule with which it conflicts.

Rule 370/5
No E-mail, No Game
/dev/joe (Joseph DeVincentis)

All players and observers joining Ackanomic must have a valid e-mail address reachable from the official mailing list at the time they join, or else they may not join.

If all of a player's mail from the official mailing list sent in a period of 3 days or longer (with a minimum of 10 messages) bounces, the Postmaster may put that player on vacation by publicly announcing that he is doing so, and giving the reason. A player put on vacation in this way may not return until email from the list can reach his address again.

If a player or observer's mail from the list bounces for a week or more (minimum 20 messages) then the Postmaster may remove that player or observer from the game by publicly announcing that he is doing so, and giving the reason. This applies to players on non-voluntary activated vacation The player or observer may rejoin at a later time as usual.

If possible, all players must configure their e-mail software to correctly report the current time for the time zone specified.

Rule 371/0
Timing
ThinMan (John Bollinger)

Posts that are sent through any mailing list maintained by the Postmaster are deemed to have occured at the time that they are received by the list server. Posts that are not sent through such a mailing list and for which the Speaker is one of the designated recipients are deemed to have occured at the time that they are received by the Speaker's mail server. Other posts not sent through any of the Postmaster's mailing lists are deemed to have occured at the earliest time that they are received by the mail server of any of the Players, other than the sender, designated as recipients. If a Player posts a message only to himself, then that post is deemed to have occured at the time that it was sent.

(The term "mail server" is intentionally left open to some interpretation. It is intended to indicate the actual computer used for e-mail by the relevant player if that computer has a full-time internet -- or other form of e-mail -- connection; otherwise it is intended to mean that computer from which the relevant player downloads his mail.)

Players are encouraged to use an appropriate Postmaster-maintained mailing list if available. If the times of two posts are compared and (i) only one of them went through one of the Postmaster's lists and (ii) their times are otherwise within three minutes of each other, then the post sent through the Postmaster's list is deemed to have occured first.

This rule defers to any rule which specifies an alternative method for determining the times or relative times of posts.

Rule 373/1
Public Actions
Mohammed (Jason Orendorff)

This rule defers to all other rules.

Each attempt to perform an action either succeeds or fails. To perform an action entails two things: first, to attempt the action; and second, for the attempt to succeed.

The rules may specify that certain possible courses of play are public actions. Any active player may attempt any public action available to him or her simply by sending a public message specifying the action to be taken. However, if any information that is necessary to specify the action fully and unambiguously is left out of that message, then the attempt fails. [An attempt may also fail for other reasons.]

If the rules specify that a certain course of play is available to a player or organization, but do not specify how that course of play is to be taken, then that course of play is a public action, and it is taken as described above.

Rule 374/5
Politeness Moon
Mitchell Harding

Any Player sending a public message should be as polite as possible. Any Player may call a Hearing on the matter of whether a certain public message from another Player was polite.

The valid responses to a Politeness Moon Hearin