PodNomic:Ruleset
Contents
Core Rules
Ruleset and Gamestate
This is the Ruleset for PodNomic; all Contributors shall obey it. The Gamestate is defined as any information which the Ruleset regulates the alteration of.
The ruleset consists of three sections: the core rules, which govern the game as a persistent whole, the schedule, which governs the timing of events in the game, and the seasonal rules, which cover specific rules of gameplay. In general, the core rules and the schedule are considered to be more persistent and harder to amend, while the seasonal rules are intended to be more transactional.
The Ruleset and Gamestate can only be altered in manners specified by the Ruleset.
If the Ruleset does not properly reflect all legal changes that have been made to it, any Contributor may update it to do so.
Contributors
The game has two roles, Contributors and Listeners. Listeners are people who have listened to or are otherwise aware of Podnomic, but who have not contributed to it in any way. Any Listener may becomes a Contributor by performing any Contributor action that is defined in the ruleset.
The Host
At any time, the game has one Contributor who is the Host. The Host is responsible for producing and publishing the Podcast according to the schedule set out in the schedule rules.
The Helper
If the Host believes that they may not be able to publish the next episode according to the terms laid out in the rule “Production Schedule”, or is unable to publish the next episode according to such, they may appoint a single Contributor or a Listener, who must be willing, to become a Helper. A Helper is to perform as many of the duties pertaining to publishing the next episode as is required to publish the next episode on time. If an action required of the Host is performed by the Helper, that action is considered to have been done by the Host. The Helper must have permission before performing an action that is required of the Host.
During an episode in which a Helper performed any actions required of the Host, the Host should say the following at some point during the episode: “And I give special thanks to [name of Helper] for helping this episode come out on time.” If the episode was narrated by the Helper, the Helper should instead say “And my condolences to [name of Host], who will hopefully be able to return for the next episode.”
All Helpers, if any, cease to become Helpers after each episode.
Seasons
The Podcast has Seasons; the current Season is Season 3.
Official Entries and Votable Matters
An official entry is any communication whose content or format is determined by the ruleset. A Votable Matter is an official entry which Contributors may cast Votes on, which must seek to make changes to the ruleset or gamestate.
Votable Matters are made by submitting them privately to the Host. A Votable Matter must be submitted with the following elements: a title, an audio clip in which the text of the Votable Matter is read aloud, and an accurate plain-text transcript of the text that was read aloud in the audio clip.
Votable Matters have statuses, as follows. A Votable Matter may have only one status; when it gains a status it loses the one it previously had. A non-Votable Matter cannot have any of these statuses.
- When a Votable Matter is submitted, until the next Production Cutoff as defined in the schedule rules, the Votable Matter is a Draft. During this time it may be freely edited or amended, so long as the audio clip and the text transcript consistently reflect the same text.
- Between the first Production Cutoff after it was posted and the publishing of the next episode of the Podcast, a Votable Matter is a Bill and cannot be edited or voted upon.
- After a Votable Matter has been broadcast as part of an episode of the Podcast, and until the subsequent Production Cutoff, it is a Proposal, and may not be edited but may be voted upon.
- Between the first Production Cutoff to take place after it became a Proposal and the publishing of the next episode of the Podcast, a Votable Matter is an Act and it cannot be edited or voted upon.
- After a Votable Matter has had its vote tallies read on an episode of the Podcast it ceases to be a Votable Matter and may be neither edited nor reacted to (beyond marking it as resolved, as per the rule Resolution).
When a votable matter becomes a Proposal, which is to say, after it has been broadcast on an episode of the Podcast, the Host should upload its audio and transcript to the votable-matters channel of the Podnomic discord.
Votes
A Prospective Vote is a clear and unambiguous selection of either FOR or AGAINST on a single Votable Matter submitted to the thread corresponding to the Votable Matter in the votable-matters channel of the Podnomic discord. A Contributor's Effective Vote on a Votable Matter is the most recent Prospective Vote pertaining to that Votable Matter that they have submitted.
When a Contributor casts a Prospective Vote AGAINST a Proposal that they authored, the Proposal is rendered Withdrawn. No future Prospective Votes cast by them on that Proposal alter this status.
The "votes" on a Votable Matter are taken to be the Effective Votes pertaining to that Votable Matter.
Resolution
At any time after the Production Cutoff of an episode, the Host should enact every Act which has more votes FOR than AGAINST, excluding those which have been Withdrawn and those which the Host is unable to Enact for any reason. Acts are enacted by updating the ruleset and gamestate as directed, and must be enacted in the same order that they were originally broadcast.
If an Act is not enacted during this process, it is considered to have failed.
Licencing and Attribution
All audio recorded for use in PodNomic, including episodes of the podcast and the audio recordings of votable matters, are shared under an Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International creative commons licence.
I Say Therefore I Do
There exists (and if it doesn’t, it shall be created) a channel called #saying. When an action is said to be performed by saying so, that means that it can be performed by posting a sound file to #saying that says so, along a transcript of what you just said.
Each episode of the Podcast should include all sound files posted to the saying channel which have not previously been included in the Podcast.
Transcript Accuracy
Where the rules require that a transcript be produced, any reasonably accurate transcript is to be accepted. In particular, filler words, background noises, and obviously misspoken sections need not be reflected in the transcript. When the transcriber of the audio is also the producer of the audio, reasonable deference is to be given to the transcript about the intended meaning and grammatical structure of the audio.
Random Choices
Whenever the rules require a random choice to be made, it shall be made using the distribution specified (or a uniform distribution if not specified). The choice can be made by any method such that the distribution is reasonably close to the required distribution and that the final choice is not trivially predictable in advance. The method used should be public and verifiable.
Definitions
The word “should” indicates that something is encouraged, but not strictly required, by the rules. "Player" is a synonym for "contributor".
For something to be done "publicly" is for it to be done within the PodNomic Discord server.
Fallibility
The Host shall endeavour to the best of their capability to produce each episode in accordance with the rules set out in the ruleset. However, any sound file published by the Host purporting to be an episode is considered to be a valid episode, provided that it was produced in good faith.
If a Contributor believes that an episode uploaded less than 14 days ago contains inaccurate information, or is otherwise not in accordance with the rules, they may create a challenge by sending a message describing the issue to the #challenges channel. The host may accept a challenge by reacting to it with a suitable emoji. If the alleged issue does not exist, the host may reject the challenge by replying to it with a message explaining the circumstances. Before the release time of an episode of the podcast, the host shall have accepted or rejected all challenges issued before that episode’s production cutoff.
Any statements made in a valid episode are considered to be definitive, provided that they are not challenged within 14 days after publication, or, if they have been challenged, those challenges have all been rejected.
Abeyance
The Host may at any time put the podcast into Abeyance by saying so. As soon as the Host has put the podcast into Abeyance, they should record and schedule a special episode that briefly outlines the fact that the podcast has been put into Abeyance and directing new listeners to the website and the Discord.
While the podcast is in Abeyance, no regular episodes, which is to say non-Special episodes of the podcast may be recorded or scheduled.
When the podcast enters Abeyance any pending votable matters are automatically failed. These do not need to be broadcast on any subsequent episodes of the podcast. While then podcast is an Abeyance, any person may petition the Host to become the new Host of the podcast. This should be done by privately corresponding with the Host. The extant Host then has the choice of whether to accept the person's petition or not. When making that choice they should consider the best interests of the ongoing longevity of the podcast, as well as its posterity and its existing player base. If they do decide to transfer the hostship of the podcast to the other person then they should say so and then perform any back-channel activities that are needed to complete the transfer, at which point the petitioner becomes Host. The extant Host may never be compelled to transfer the position of Host to another person against their will; the final decision over whether to accept such a petition is utlimately up to the extant Host.
At any time while the podcast is in Abeyance, the Host may remove it from Abeyance by saying so. If they have said so then they must immediately record and schedule a special episode announcing the return of the podcast. Once that special episode has been broadcast the podcast ceases to be in Abeyance and resumes its regular broadcast schedule.
Schedule Rules
Schedule Protection
The Schedule Rules govern the production schedule for the Podcast and define the practical steps that must be taken to fulfil the requirements of the ruleset. Contributors may not attempt to alter the Schedule Rules in ways that would have the effect of making the Podcast impossible or unduly onerous to produce; Contributors are required to vote AGAINST any Votable Matter whose impact would be to either alter the Schedule Rules in ways that would be contrary to the physical or mental wellbeing of the Host, or which would undermine of weaken the provision of this rule. This rule takes precedence over all other rules in the ruleset.
The Schedule Rules may not be amended without the Host's assent. Any Votable Matter that would amend the Schedule Rules, or which would have the effect of amending the Schedule Rules, may not be adopted unless the Host has voted FOR it. The Host may freely revert any game action that they feel has increased the burden upon them to the point at which it makes the commitment to continue being the Host unmanageable.
Production Schedule
Throughout the rules, the term 'Podcast' refers to PodNomic. An episode of the Podcast is a single instance of that Podcast. Each episode must have a number, which increases consecutively episode by episode, and a date upon which it is to be released.
Episodes of the Podcast must be produced such that they are released at noon UTC on the Tuesday of each week, excluding Intermission days.
Each Episode of the Podcast has a Production Cutoff. The Production Cutoff of an episode is noon UTC one day before its release (i.e. Monday each week).
Podcast Content
The title of each episode in its RSS feed should be "Season X, Episode Y: A B", where X is the season number, Y is the episode number, A is an adjective of the Host's choice from any Bill, and B is a noun of the Host's choice from a different Bill. The "Season" prefix may be omitted during Season 1.
Each episode of the Podcast must begin with the following script:
"Hello and welcome to PodNomic. This is episode x of season y for broadcast on z" - where x is the episode number, y is the season number, and z is the date.
Each episode of the podcast must include, for each accepted challenge posted before this episode’s production cutoff and not included in a previous episode, a correction, describing the nature of the error and providing corrected or missing information as necessary.
Each episode of the Podcast must broadcast the audio clip of each Bill, in the order in which they were posted. Each Bill should be announced with its title and the name of its author.
Each episode of the podcast should feature a brief summary by the Host of changes to the ruleset as a result of the enactment of that week's Acts,in which they describe the impact of the enactments in their own words.
Each episode of the Podcast should end with the following script:
"That's all we have time for today. As always, if you want more information about the podcast or the game just go to podnomic.com. I've been your host, [name of host]. See you next time."
Beyond these restrictions, the Host is free to order the content of each episode of the Podcast as they see fit. The ruleset may be freely edited by the host to include such formatting as is necesary such that any direct instructions as to how to include or structure content in an episode of the podcast is visually highlighted.
Editing and Review
The Host is permitted to mix and master provided audio clips from Contributors and listeners for the benefit of the production value of the podcast, via methods including noise filtering, volume normalization , low and high pass filtering, de-essing, and trimming silent sections of the provided audio clips, etc., so long as the transcribed content of the audio clips is retained.
Season Transitions
If any Contributor has one or more Crowns, instead of reading the end of episode script, the Host should read the following script:
"This is the last episode of this season of Podnomic. Congratulations to x, who [is/are] the winner[/s] of this season; we'll be back with a new season shortly. Until then, I've been your host, y. See you next time."
- where x is the name or names of the Contributors who have more than zero Crowns, the choices in square brakets relate to pluralising the sentence where appropriate, and y is the Host's own name.
After such an episode is broadcast they must set the Crowns and Score of all Contributors to zero, and increase the number of the current Season in the rule Seasons by 1. The next eleven days are then considered to be Intermission days.
In the subsequent episode, instead of reading the usual opening script, the Host should read the following:
"Welcome back for a new season of Podnomic, a podcast about nomics that is also a nomic. This is episode x of season y, for broadcast on z" - where x is the episode number, y is the season number, and z is the date.
Seasonal Rules
Background Music
The PodNomic background music is The Second Coming by Kevin MacLeod, used under a CC-Attribution licence.
Between an episode's production cutoff and release, the Host should visit https://incompetech.com/music/royalty-free/full_list.php and select a track from that page the title of which includes a word from any Votable Matter or Segment which is due to be broadcast in that episode, then update the previous paragraph to include the title, artist and licence of the selected track.
The Host may reroll the result of the background music selection for any episode if they find that the background music selected is not available for any reason.
The PodNomic background music shall play through the entirety of each episode of the podcast, except for during the reading of each proposal's text. The Host shall, during each episode of the podcast, name the title and artist of the background music, and the licence that it is used under.
Discussion
Contributors are encouraged to, but not required to, include within a votable matter discussion of changes within the votable matter. This discussion is encouraged to be extemporaneous, or with notes, but not read from prepared text.
Sponsorship
Each episode of the podcast must include the host saying the phrase 'this episode of PodNomic is brought to you by' and then listing a business, ideally fictional, that the host sees fit to claim that the episode is sponsored by, and then make up a slogan for that business. If it's a real business, it should still be a fictional slogan.
Segments
A segment is defined as an audio clip, which may be no more than two minutes in length, that has been recorded by a Contributor, optionally with additional input from other Contributors or listeners. Segments may be uploaded to the #segments channel of the PodNomic discord.
A Contributor may record and upload a segment at any time. A fresh segment is any Segment that has not been played on the Podcast before. Contributors may react to fresh segments with any emoji they choose. A Contributor's reactions to their own Segments are ignored for the rest of this rule. Contributors may delete their own fresh segments from the channel; if they do, then that segment ceases to be fresh.
A segment's fitness is equal to the result of the formula (d + e - s)/n, where:
- d is the number of days since the segment was posted
- e is the number of episodes since the last time a segment from that Contributor was played on an episode
- s is the Contributor's score, divided by five, rounded up
- n is the number of fresh segments by that Contributor
The Host should include up to two segments in each episode, selecting the most fit fresh segments, breaking ties randomly.
Interview Prep
A segment is an interview if it is produced by the Host and features the Host speaking extemperaneously to a Contributor or non-Contributor about something that is happening in a nomic other than Podnomic. An interview has a maximum length of five minutes instead of the default 2.
All The News
A player of any nomic may submit an item of Nomic News to the host at any time, privately or publicly. Nomic News clips should pertain to significant events in non-PodNomic nomics.
Each episode of the Podcast should include a summary of all Nomic News received but not previously broadcast.
Specials
In addition to episodes, there are PodNomic Specials, which are published as if they were episodes of the podcast. The host shall release specials at noon UTC on Sunday whenever there are any pending publication.
Any Contributor can record a special as directed by the rules. When a special recorded by a Contributor is published, that Contributor earns 5 score.
Ruleset Readout
The Ruleset Readout is a kind of special in which the entire ruleset is read out loud.
If no Ruleset Readout has been published in the current month and there is no Ruleset Reader, any Contributor can claim the opportunity to become such by saying so. Once they do this they become a claimant. 72 hours after someone becomes a claimant when there are no other claimants, if there is only one claimant, then they become the Ruleset Reader. If there are multiple, then any Contributor can randomly select one such Contributor. That Contributor then becomes the Ruleset Reader. When a Contributor becomes the Ruleset Reader, all claimants cease to be claimants.
The Ruleset Reader must, within 96 hours of becoming such, record the Ruleset Readout and send it to the Host.
Season Retrospectives
A Season Restrospective is a kind of special that may be produced between the last episode of one season and the first episode of the next. Only the Host may produce a Season Restropsective.
No Contributor gains any Score for the broadcast of a Season Retrospective, including the Host for its production.
A Season Retrospective is intended to be an unstructured review of the season that has just passed, and the Host has broad latitude to interpret that as they wish. They should consider including:
- Clips from Contributors reflecting on that season
- Repeat plays of high-scoring or particularly popular Segments
- An interview with the winner
- Thoughts or suggestions on what could change structurally to improve the podcast or the game
The Podcast's Signature Sound
Once per Season, the Host may change the Signature Sound. The signature noise should be no more than 5 seconds long and should play at the end of the introduction script of each episode. The Host has discretion to make the Podcast's signature noise as they please, however it should where possible incorporate the submissions of any Contributor made earlier in the current Season. Any Contributor can make a submission by sending a sound file, either by sending it to him privately or by saying so. The sound file of a submission should be no more than 5 seconds long and should be a public domain sound effect or a recording of their own devising.
Demands
Each episode should include the Host setting a Demand for the Contributors, being a description of a recording that they wish each Contributor to create or to find before the next episode, with optional criteria for how the best of those recordings will be selected.
If they have not done so since the most recent episode, a Contributor may privately send a piece of audio to the Host, identifying it as an Attempt.
Each episode of the Podcast should include the Attempts received since the previous episode. The Host should, as part of that episode, assign an amount of score to each Attempt, such that the total scores assigned for that episode's Attempts equal exactly ten. The Contributor who submitted each Attempt gains the score assigned to that Attempt. The Host cannot assign an Attempt that they submitted any score other than zero.
The Host may reject any Attempts that they do not wish to broadcast: these are not considered to be Attempts.
The Host can once increase the score of Contributors, other than themself, by a total of the amount of score they have previously assigned to their own Attempts by publishing an episode announcing such Contributors and their associated increases in score. They should assign such score as they would have for previous Demands if their own Attempts received scores of zero. The Host should publish such an episode as soon as possible. When they do, this rule is amended by striking this paragraph.
Podbux
Each Contributor has an amount of Podbux, which defaults to zero.
Whenever a Contributor has a votable matter that they have authored broadcast on an episode, they gain 5 Podbux.
Whenever an episode is broadcast, all Contributors who cast votes on votable matters that were resolved in that episode gain 1 Podbux.
Smuggling
A proposal or segment is considered Contraband if an accurate transcription of it with all spacing and punctuation removed contains the name of a contraband material as a string of consecutive letters.
In each episode of the Podcast, the Host may specify that a new category of physical corpora is the new contraband material; that contraband material comes into effect when the episode is broadcast. The current contraband material is: fruit.
A Contributor may accuse a proposal or segment from another Contributor of being Contraband by saying so, where that declaration names a contraband material that they believe is hidden within it.
A Contributor may privately draw the Host's attention to the fact that one of their own proposals or segments is Contraband.
Each episode of the Podcast should include a list of all Contraband proposals and segments the Host is aware of having been broadcast in the previous episode, naming the relevant contraband material. For each such proposal and segment, the first Contributor to correctly accuse it of being Contraband (if any) scores 1 point; if nobody correctly accused it, the Contributor who created it scores 2 points. Once a contraband material has been named in this way in a broadcast, it no longer counts as one for the purposes of this rule.
