Introduction
NomicWorld was the first large-scale Nomic to be played on the Internet. Play commenced in early September 1992. The game was based at Monash University in Melbourne Australia, where it ran as an interactive MUD to which players connected by telnet.
The Initial Ruleset, adapted from Peter Suber by Steve Gardner and the other game organizers, gave enormous power to Judges. I was the first Judge to be appointed. In the early hours of September 27 1992, in the fifteen minutes following the posting of my Judgement of the Issue Between Heffalump and Evantine, I became dictator of Nomic World by a series of rule changes that seemed to me at the time to be quite legal. Readers of these Papers may decide for themselves whether or not this was so. My Interim Government ruled NomicWorld for seven days, from September 27 until Saturday October 3 1992, at which time I stepped down, leaving in place a new set of Post-Interim Rules. I then went into voluntary exile, and took no further direct part in the game (though see XV and XVI below).
I haven't played Nomic since.
On October 9 1992, the organizers of the game decided to pull the plug on NomicWorld. The game noticeboards and player registry were erased overnight and a new game was started on the MUD with rules that differed from both the original Initial Set and the Post-Interim Set. No attempt was made to justify this action from within the existing rules of NomicWorld. This new game was also referred to as "Nomic World" and lasted until about May 1993. In June 1993 the e-mail based game now called Agora Nomic was founded by several former players of NomicWorld. It continues to this day.
Some records of the Second Nomic World, written by Steve Gardner, can be found at 
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mn200/games/nomic/nomic-world. Steve's reports include a copy of the Initial Ruleset and of my September 27 Judgement, but no other details of the original NomicWorld.
During the period of crisis following the rule of the Interim Government, players faced some interesting issues. I thought-and still think-it a shame that no attempt was made to resolve those issues within the framework of the game itself. As it is, very few traces of NomicWorld seem to have survived the Great Erasure. I have collected all of the remaining documents in my possession relating to the game, and am publishing them here in case they are of interest to any historians of Nomic. Apart from the items marked '*', all were written by me. Most of my own pieces are drafts of documents I posted to the NomicWorld discussion boards, with the following exceptions: (III) consists of notes I made for myself outlining the sequence of steps I should take in order to seize power after posting my first Judgement; (VII) contains a summary I prepared for myself of the more important items posted to the game discussion board from October 1 through October 3 1992; (XV) and (XVI) are letters I sent to Blob after the demise of the original Nomic World.
Lindrum October 22, 2000
Contents
- LindrumPapersI*
- Initial Set of Rules for Nomic World
- LindrumPapersII
- Judgement of the Issue Between Heffalump and Evantine
- LindrumPapersIII
- Sequence of Rule Changes.
- LindrumPapersIV
- Three Further Judgements
- LindrumPapersV
- Reply to Evantine
- LindrumPapersVI
- An Apology to Those Offended by My Rhetoric
- LindrumPapersVII
- Summary of the Noticeboard
- LindrumPapersVIII
- Praise for Dylan's Postings
- LindrumPapersIX*
- Xeman's Proposal on Voting
- LindrumPapersX
- Reply to Ilt
- LindrumPapersXI
- Reply to Geoff and Evantine
- LindrumPapersXII
- Reply to Mike
- LindrumPapersXIII
- Reply to Heffalump
- LindrumPapersXIV
- Post-Interim-Government Rules for Nomic World
- LindrumPapersXV
- First Letter to Blob
- LindrumPapersXVI
- Second Letter to Blob
A complete archive of all messages from Game 1 of NomicWorld can be found at
ftp://ftp.cse.unsw.edu.au/pub/users/malcolmr/nomic/nomic_world/game1.txt