

In my duties as Agoran Ambassador, I end up in discussion with players
of many other nomics. The discussion is often about Agora (otherwise I
wouldn't be doing my job properly); and often the topic gets onto why
various players aren't players of Agora.

By far the most common concern for players elsewhere is that Agora's
ruleset is scary, too complex, or too long. On the face of it, it's an
apparently valid concern; the SLR is (as of the time of writing) 3614
lines long, the FLR is 6503 lines long. But, nevertheless, people
still play Agora, and despite the apparently unfeasible complexity of
the ruleset, seem to work quite well with it. So, how bad is the
ruleset really, compared to how bad it looks.

First, there are possible misconceptions to deal with that can put
people off as soon as they start reading. The third line of the SLR?

"Last proposal with recorded effect on this ruleset: 6225"

6225 is a /big/ number. And although the proposal count is inflated
now and again due to scams that require large volumes of proposals,
6225 rule changes is still quite a lot. One of the first assumptions
that people make is therefore that the ruleset must have got insanely
complicated with all that many changes. The problem is thrown into
even sharper relief on the eighth and ninth lines, still well within
the first screen:

"Rule ID numbers:
       highest orderly: 2245"

The first mistake of prospective players, then, was to read the SLR
not the more informative FLR. This is not immediately fatal, but the
SLR give more of an impression of complexity; because without
knowledge of Agora, at least one person instantly concluded that with
a Rule 2245, there must be 2245 Rules. That would certainly be far too
complicated for a typical person to grasp! The FLR has the current
rule count, a rather reassuring by comparison 134, just below the
current maximum ID number.

So with 6225 changes, why only 134 rules? Maybe they're all insanely
complicated? The next-biggest misconception is that all proposals have
the effect of complicating the ruleset.

It's interesting to look at the statistics for just what proposals do.
Based on the history in the FLR, here are the statistics for how rules
that still exist in the current ruleset have changed:

Amended               1108
Created                119
Power change            57
Assigned to committee   51
Retitled                34
Infected                15
In Initial ruleset      14
Mutated                  9
Renumbered               2
Null-Amended             2
--------------------------
Total                 1411

As can be expected, most of the rule changes are amendments. My sense
is that in general, amendments to tend to complicate the rules
somewhat. However, noteworthy is that the number of changes to
existing rules - which must be greater than the number of proposals
that passed and currently have an effect on the ruleset - is much
lower than the number of proposals that we've had.

One obvious explanation for the discrepancy is, of course, that not
all proposals pass. Since I've been playing, on average about half of
proposals seem to have been adopted, although I don't know if it's
different historically. At a rough estimate, therefore, this accounts
for about 3000 or so of the missing proposals.

So what about the other 1500 or so? Well, there are a lot of rules
which once existed, but have now been repealed; changes to those rules
won't have an effect (except indirectly due to inspiring proposals) on
the current ruleset. Determining how many rules have ever existed
cannot be done by ID number (in the initial ruleset, new rules started
numbered at 301, and rules were renumbered whenever they were
amended); however, the Rulekeepor's website lists historical rules,
and it seems that there are 1276 rules which existed at some time or
another (and therefore 1142 rules have, at some time or another, been
repealed). These repealed 1142 rules are complexity no longer in the
ruleset; the ruleset is therefore considerably simpler than a naive
look at the statistics in the ruleset itself would suggest.

One interesting thing to note is the history of widespread repeals;
every now and then, a huge number of rules are repealed or simplified
at once. For instance, there was a massive repeal of rules in August
2006 (see
<http://www.agoranomic.org/cgi-bin/mailman/private/agora-official/2006-August/002683.html>
for the proposals that lead to the repeals). These sorts of mass
repeals normally happen when the ruleset has got too complicated for
the number of players playing; and a reset is likely to be healthy for
a nomic now and again. (BlogNomic is probably the most successful
nomic whose ruleset is specifically designed for regular resets, with
a different theme each time; Agora tends to have much the same style
after a reset, but it often differs in the details.) The instinct to
simplify a ruleset when it gets too complicated is responsible for
helping to keep Agora's ruleset in check. At the same time as a large
repeal, most of the rules that remain are also simplified; so although
a rule may appear to have a lot of amendments in its history, that
doesn't mean that the rule is complicated nowadays. (As another
example, some of the rule change types in the table above are no
longer defined; Infection, for instance, was an automatic change
performed on rules at random, and nothing even remotely similar is
currently defined.)

Nevertheless, Agora still has 134 rules, and a rather long ruleset;
the SLR is 3614 lines long, the FLR is 6503. That still sounds rather
unmanageable; how bad is it?

The first thing to note is that knowing all 134 rules off by heart is
not necessary for regular gameplay. Many of the rules don't come up
very often; many requirements only apply to specific officers; several
rules do nothing but block certain scams. The number of rules that
actually affect gameplay is rather low. One possible strategy to play
Agora is to just join and participate in contests; the number of
actual Agoran rules you need to know about that is minimal (2215,
1023, 478, 869, 2198, 2187 is about enough if you only play in
subgames, for instance). People who want to submit proposals have to
understand the complications surrounding AI, but those are relatively
easy to explain in the discussion forum. In fact, it's entirely
possible to play relatively well without reading the rules at all,
just by watching what other people do and playing along; at least one
player did this for months.

Of course, mere theorising about which rules are relevant or not is
unlikely to be helpful. Therefore, I've spent time compiling a summary
ruleset designed to explain the rules to new players. Every single
rule is in there, although only the more important or common
applications of each rule is listed. It's interesting to see just how
far you have to go in it before the rules start becoming irrelevant or
uninteresting; the gory details of CFJ assignment take up quite a bit
more space than might be expected, for instance, as does the method
for proposals. The summarised ruleset is only 732 lines long (without
the explanatory header), as opposed to the 3614 in the SLR;
nevertheless, I added notes likely to be useful to a new player,
FLR-style. By comparison, BlogNomic's ruleset is 313 lines long, and
626 lines long when formatted with a 70-character line width like this
ruleset; and it's generally recognised as one of the simpler-
rulesetted nomics. I think that 300 lines of the summary is certainly
enough to get the gist of the way Agoran rules and behaviour works;
and only a few is enough to start playing.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a summarised version of Agora's ruleset. The rules likely to
be more important or relevant to new players are mentioned nearer the
top, subject to sorting the rules in a logical order; there are also
notes about game custom added in there to clarify things for people
unused to how Agora works. Please note that this covers only the more
common uses of rules, not all the corner cases; if you're planning a
scam, or want to see how an unusual interaction works, please consult
a genuine ruleset. (I recommend the FLR; it has more context than the
SLR, and information on judicial decisions that help to understand the
rules.) I have also been calling things by what they are, rather than
what they are called, where it helps to clarify the ruleset.

Note that as you get further down the ruleset, the rules become
increasingly irrelevant to players who do not do various things, or
who are just starting out. If you stop reading halfway through, you're
unlikely to miss anything that will come up immediately, as the rules
lower down are specific, obscure, or don't apply to people unless they
start opting into things like the judicial system.

Actions
=======
How to do things.

 101 This rule was made by combining many smaller rules; note that it
     is a particularly important rule, as the highest-priority rule
     that has an effect. Because the protections in this rule have
     separate effects, the parts of rule 101 are considered separately
     in this document.
 101 i) Agora considers everything that happens in the universe as
     potentially part of the game; however, the rules are written such
     that things unrelated to the game are irrelevant to it, and
     likewise that it doesn't affect things outside the game unless it
     specifically tries to. The effect of this subrule, therefore, is
     to make it legal to do things unrelated to the game. (This
     doesn't mean that it's necessarily possible to do things
     unrelated to the game; that's left up to the laws of physics to
     determine, the ruleset itself has no opinion on that.)
 478 Fora are places where players communicate within the game. Most
     actions only count if sent via public fora; discussion fora also
     exist, but things there don't affect gameplay. (Note: there are
     six fora at the moment. agora-business is used for most actions
     within the game; agora-official is used by officers to publish
     their reports. The other two public fora, tue and yoyo, are used
     only if the main fora aren't working. There are also two
     discussion fora, used to discuss the game; agora-discussion is
     often used to discuss gamestate or proposals, ##nomic for quick
     questions or for broking deals. One very very common mistake is
     to send a message meant for a-b to a-d by mistake (because it's
     the default reply-to on Agoran emails); if you do this, someone
     will probably let you know by replying with the acronym NttPF
     ("not to the Public Forum"), and the acronym TTttPF ("this time
     to the Public Forum") is often used in the repeated message to
     a-b instead.) An "announcement" is a message to a public forum;
     most actions are done this way. (Note: State that you do
     something in a message, for instance "I register" or "I transfer
     2 x-points to ais523"; don't say you want to do something, or say
     that you will do something, just do it.)
 101 v) Players mustn't be denied access to the fora.
 869 You can become a player ("register") by announcing that you do
     (or by using a few close but not exact synonyms), although if you
     cease to be a player for most reasons (other than inactivity),
     you can't become a player again for 30 days. Likewise, you can
     cease to be a player ("deregister") by announcing you do. For
     prospective players who aren't real biological people, but rather
     legal constructs, the rules are rather stricter.
 101 vii) You can always deregister rather than continue to play.
1728 Certain actions are "dependent actions"; they're marked as
     actions "without objection", "with support", or "with Agoran
     consent", often with an amount involved. In general, instead of
     performing a dependent action by announcement, you have to get
     the support or wait for objections first; the correct method is
     to announce that you intend to perform the action, wait for the
     required amount of support, or wait 4 days for objections
     (depending on the action), then if you got the needed
     support/consent or there weren't enough objections, you can
     actually do the action you intended to do in a second
     announcement.
2124 First-class players can object to or support dependent actions by
     announcement, other than their own actions. Objections and
     support can also be withdrawn; in addition, objections must come
     after the intent for the action they object to.

Things a new player must bear in mind
=====================================
The rules that you can break without becoming a judge or officer, and
the things you'll have to watch out for.

2130 Players can be marked inactive without objection; a player who's
     been inactive for three months can be deregistered without
     objection. You can also become active or inactive at will. (Note:
     This rule is used to clean out inactive players, so if you
     actually are active, it helps to object to attempts to get rid of
     you. Inactive players can't vote or judge, although they can
     reactivate at will; however, being inactive protects you from
     incurring many obligations, so deliberately deactivating yourself
     is a good idea if, for instance, you want to go on holiday.)
2215 Making deliberately misleading statements, or trying to mislead
     people that ineffective actions are effective, is illegal in the
     public fora. Quoting other people does not repeat the offence.
     (Note: it's common practice to use disclaimers to avoid
     misleading people when doing something potentially misleading.)
2170 People are considered to play as themselves in Agora, rather than
     controlling some sort of rules-defined avatar or other entity. As
     such, it's illegal to mislead people as to who you are (using a
     pseudonym is fine, but don't pretend to be more than one person
     or use sockpuppets, that tends to be punished severely if
     discovered), attempt to use a name recently used to refer to
     someone or something else (or that's otherwise confusing). This
     rule also covers how to resolve situations where the identity of
     people is unknown or sockpuppetry is discovered.

Unusual points to bear in mind
==============================
Some things about Agora are rather different from games in general, so
much so that you are unlikely to guess them. This section documents
unusual or counterintutive rules that you're unlikely to guess without
knowing them.

2152 Things in Agora can be impossible or illegal (or both, or
     neither). Trying to do something impossible (that you CAN NOT do)
     simply fails; trying to do something illegal (that you MAY NOT /
     MUST NOT do) succeeds unless impossible, but means that you can
     be punished for it. (Note: Most games just have rules, and
     breaches of the rules aren't well-defined and normally solved by
     discussion, and by branding people as cheaters. This is rather
     impractical for nomics, though; instead, it's explicit what
     happens when someone tries something not allowed by rules (it
     either fails, or succeeds but gets the person in trouble).)
1023 "As soon as possible" means "within seven days". (Note: This
     rather counterintuitive definition is presumably to give a
     deadline in which to determine whether someone's late or not.)
     More reasonably, days are considered to start at midnight UTC,
     and weeks on Monday.

The object of the game
======================
What you're actually aiming for. This section describes the basic
rules related to winning, and some ways to win. Note that most wins
need to be officially announced before they actually happen; if you
think you've won, check the relevant rules in detail to see what you
have to do for the win to count.

2186 Rules that prevent someone winning override rules that allow
     someone to win. When someone wins, instead of abandoning Agora
     altogether, changes are made to the gamestate to prevent the win
     repeating indefinitely (e.g. zeroing the score of a player who
     wins by high score), and Agora continues.
2244 Wins are considered to end a "game" and start a new one; however,
     a game refers only to the period of time between winning, Agora
     itself (and most of the things it defines) are continuous from
     game to game.
2245 If at any time every other active first-class player is prevented
     from winning, the single remaining player who can win does.
2110 Between two and four weeks after a player who has identified a
     paradox that affects whether something is possible or legal has
     had this confirmed by the judicial process, that player can win
     but must then try to resolve the paradox.
2199 You can win if you've done all the following since you last
     became a player: amended a power-3 rule, passed a proposal with
     no votes against, held an office for a whole month, deputised for
     an office, judged a call for judgement, sentenced a player who
     broke the rules, became a player for the first time or convinced
     a first-time player to sponsor you, publically acknowledged
     Agora's birthday, won the game some other way, earned a Patent
     Title, earned a degree, and run a contest. (There are additional
     restrictions on some of these, normally requiring the objective
     to be nontrivial or on time.)
2223 If you get enough control over the ruleset to be able to change
     one or more rules at will, you win.
2134 If you have high enough Caste that you can outvote all other
     players combined on an ordinary decision, you win.
2188 You can win if a proposal passes that gives you a win.
2242 You can win if you win a Champion's Contest; a contest can be
     made into a Champion's Contest without 2 objections, and must
     specify how it is won. Amending a Champion's Contest makes it
     back into an ordinary contest.
2187 You can win if your number of x-points, times your number of
     y-points, is at least 2500.

Contests, Contracts, and Other Homemade Gamestate
=================================================
How to score points, and how to make your own bits of gamestate. In
particular, joining contests is one of the easiest ways for a new
player to score points and eventually win.

1742 Contracts are binding agreements enforced by the rules; they must
     be made by at least two people (unless pledges), but can be
     created privately. They cease to exist when they don't bind
     enough people, and it's illegal to break a contract.
2197 The sorts of change that can be made to a contract are joining
     it, leaving it, amending it, terminating it, or changing a
     property of it.
2198 Contract changes can be performed by agreement between all
     parties (except for pledges), by a party without objection (for
     pledges), using a mechanism specified by the contract itself, or
     (if the contract is also a person) by the contract itself by
     announcement. Also, any player can join a contract that doesn't
     try to prevent people joining, and a contract can force its
     properties to certain values by specifying them. Contract changes
     fail if they're ambiguous, or if it can't be determined whether
     they're permissible.
 101 iii) Nobody can be forced into a contract without their consent.
     No, not even if the other the rules allow it by mistake.
 101 iv) Likewise, documents that already bind a player (contracts or
     rules) can't be changed without giving that player the
     opportunity to review the changes.
2178 Properties of contracts are whether they are public (a public
     contract must have its text and membership published, and changes
     to it don't take effect unless public), and whether they are
     equitable (disputes should be solved via equity), or legalistic
     (breaches should be punished as breaches of the rules).
2173 The Notary is responsible for tracking contracts; details about
     contracts (even if private) should be reported to em.
2191 Pledges are a sort of contract that only needs one party; they
     must be public, can have equity cases about them initiated by
     non-parties, and can be terminated by announcement if they no
     longer impose ongoing or unsatisfied obligations.
2136 Contests are a type of contract; a contest is a contract with a
     contestmaster. Contestmasters can be flipped by any player
     without 3 objections, or as specified by the contract; a player
     cannot be made a contestmaster unless they are a member of the
     contest, and they have consented to become contestmaster. Also, a
     player can't become a contestmaster of a contest more often than
     once every seven days.
2234 Each month, a contestmaster is awarded 1 point, per axis, per
     player in that contest.
2166 Assets are things that can be owned; rules and contracts can
     define them, and the rule or contract defining an asset
     determines what can be done with it, and by who. By default,
     assets can be transferred by announcement (unless "fixed"), and
     destroyed by their owner by announcement, but rules and contracts
     often change or extend the asset rules with respect to particular
     assets they define.
2145 Contracts can be used to construct persons ("partnerships"); but
     must be strictly enforced, must pass their obligations onto their
     parties, must be  public, and the resulting person is
     second-class. The members of the partnership can be punished if
     it breaks the rules.
2174 Aliens are non-players who are members of contracts.

Rewards
=======
Good stuff you can get for being helpful or doing well.

2179 Points are used to measure a player's score; there are two sorts
     of points, which can be described as x-points and y-points, or as
     points worth 1 and i. Points can be transferred, but no more than
     5 points can be transferred to or from any player each week. The
     Scorekeepor is responsible for keeping track of them.
2232 Contests have axes, which determine what sort of points they can
     award (x, y, or both).
2233 Contests can award points to and revoke points from parties to
     them; up to 5 points per player can be awarded, and 2 points per
     player revoked, per axis, per week. Points are awarded and
     revoked by the contestmaster, but this must be as described in
     the contest.
2126 Notes are the general unit for rewards in Agora; they have
     pitches (semitones from C up to B, the position in the scale is
     important but the octave isn't), and the Conductor tracks them.
     You can earn Notes for authoring passed proposals (more if they
     have high interest indices), doing officer duties on time,
     judging court cases, and gaining or awarding points. You can also
     spend triads of notes to affect other people's Caste, five-note
     sections of scales to affect your own Caste, notes to boost your
     or another's voting limit for a single proposal, and notes
     forming the score of "Happy Birthday" to win during Agora's
     Birthday. Notes can also be spent to gain other Notes of
     different pitches. Transferring notes has a 50% tax; you need to
     spend 2 Notes of the same pitch to give someone one.
2109 The Speaker gives out rewards every month, which must go to
     recent winners if there are enough, or otherwise to anyone:
     Default Officeholder (can take an empty office without an
     election), Justiciar (can decide which appeals panels e sits on),
     Wielder of Veto (can raise the AI of a proposal, making it harder
     for it to pass), Wielder of Rubberstamp (can reduce the quorum of
     a proposal, meaning it can pass with less discussion), and
     Wielder of Extra Votes (gets 1.5 times the voting power).
2211 Caste (which controls how many votes players get on ordinary
     decisions) is changed by the Grand Poobah every month; one new
     person is added to the castes 8, 5, 3, 2 from the caste below,
     then castes which have too many players in have players demoted
     to lower castes. One major exception to this is that players have
     their Caste flipped from 8 to 1 automatically at the start of a
     month.
 649 Patent Titles are awarded to people to record events or their
     distinction; they can be awarded or revoked by proposals with
     AI of at least 1.5, or as otherwise described in the rules, and
     are tracked by the Herald.
1922 This rule defines various Patent Titles that can be awarded via
     methods other than proposals. (Note: One-off patent titles are
     often also created by proposal, or by scam. Probably the most
     relevant one there is Champion, which is awarded to people when
     they win.)
1367 Degrees are a sort of Patent Title awarded via proposal to
     players who publish theses about Agora or nomic in general.
2231 There are also Heroic patent titles, awarded to people for
     meritorious service, which require a power 3 proposal.
 402 The Speaker is the active player who won earliest out of the
     recent winners list.
 103 The Speaker is the figurehead of Agora.

Changing the Rules
==================
The basic feature of a Nomic is that it's possible for its players to
alter the rules as the game is played. Here's how you do that, and
what you have to watch out for when doing it.

1688 Everything has a Power number, which controls what it can do to
     Agoran gamestate. For pretty much everything, it's 0. (Note: at
     the moment, only rules and proposals can possibly have a higher
     power than that; rules typically have powers in the range 1-3.)
2140 Nothing can directly affect anything with a higher Power. (On the
     other hand, higher-Power rules can look at the content of lower-
     Power rules to decide what to do.) Note: I consider this to be
     the one single rule that distinguishes Agora from other nomics.
     In most nomics, any proposal or rule can affect the rules however
     it likes; but in Agora, higher-Power rules need higher-Power
     instruments to affect them.
 105 It's possible to enact, repeal, amend, retitle, and mutate
     (change the Power of) rules; but if you want to do more than one
     of those at a time, you have to make sure the order is clear.
     Also, any attempt to change the rules must be unambiguous.
 106 Proposals can be submitted by anyone by publishing them in such a
     way that it's obvious they're meant to be proposals. The
     proposal's AI, interest index, title, text, and coauthors can be
     set when the proposal is submitted, but cannot be changed after
     that; however, an undistributed proposal can be revoked. When a
     proposal is adopted, the changes in its text are applied to the
     rules and gamestate; however, a proposal's Power for this purpose
     is equal to its AI. (Note: After text, AI is the most important
     attribute of a proposal, which you almost certainly need to set
     to the correct value by hand. A quick guide to setting proposal AI
     correctly: enacting a rule requires AI of at least the Power of
     the new rule, amending, repealing, or repealing a rule requires
     AI of at least the Power of that rule, mutating a rule to a
     higher Power needs an AI of at least that higher Power, and
     mutating a rule to a lower Power requires an AI of at least the
     rule's original power. If you want to do more than one thing with
     a proposal, set the AI high enough to do everything there.)
2153 Various entities have interest indices from 0 to 3, which ought
     to be set so as to reflect how complex they are. (Note: Interest
     indices tend to determine how much attention is paid on things,
     and people tend to be rewarded more for highly interesting things
     that they do or are responsible for.)
2224 When submitting a proposal, you can set its interest index; you
     should set it to 0 for a trivial proposal that corrects errors
     and ambiguities, or higher for other proposals.
1607 Votes on proposals are initiated by the Promotor, which must be
     either within the week after it was submitted, or earlier. (Note:
     in practice, proposals are generally distributed in batches, when
     enough of them accumulate.)

Voting
======
How to vote on proposals and elections.

 639 Decisions must be initiated, then votes happen on them, then they
     are resolved, in that order.
 107 A decision can only be initiated by someone authorized to do so
     (Note: the Promotor for proposals, the IADoP for elections), and
     they must give all the relevant information. The voting period
     starts at 7 days.
 683 You can vote on a decision by announcement; voting multiple times
     is legal, but only a certain number of your votes (1 by default)
     will count on any given decision. Your first votes take
     precedence over later votes, but you can revoke earlier votes so
     that later votes apply. You can only vote during the voting
     period, even if the decision hasn't been resolved yet.
2127 Votes can also be conditional; conditional votes are evaluated at
     the time the decision is resolved, and don't count at all unless
     it's reasonable to determine what they evaluate to.
2196 The possible votes on a proposal are FOR, AGAINST, PRESENT.
     Decisions about proposals are democratic (if the proposal has an
     AI of 2 or more), or ordinary by default (otherwise).
2142 An ordinary decision can be changed to democratic with 2 support.
1950 On democratic decisions, only active first-class players can
     vote, and only 1 of their votes can be valid.
2156 On ordinary decisions, all players can vote; they get 0, 1, 2, 3,
     5, or 8 valid votes depending on their Caste. (Note: New players
     start with a Caste of Epsilon = 1 vote; you can change Castes by
     spending Notes.)
 208 Decisions don't take effect automatically, but instead when the
     vote collector resolves them (which must be done within a week
     after the voting period ends). The resolution must contain all
     the relevant information.
 879 Quorum is 1/3 of the eligible voters on the decision, rounded up,
     and at least 5 unless there are fewer than 5 eligible voters.
 955 A proposal passes only if the ratio of FOR to AGAINST votes (the
     voting index) is positive, and at least equal to the proposal's
     AI. Elections are by simple majority. In both cases, a decision
     must pass quorum for anything to happen as a result of it; all
     votes (including PRESENT) count towards quorum, but only one vote
     per voter.
2154 Votes are also run for officer elections; you can nominate
     yourself (or anyone else, if they accept your nomination); after
     four days of nominations, voting for the office opens and
     nominations for the office close. All this activity is restricted
     to Senators, rather than players, during an emergency.
2168 The first time a decision fails quorum, the voting period is
     doubled to allow more people to vote; when quorum is reached, the
     voting period can be ended by the vote collector.

Resolving disputes
==================
Agora's mechanisms for resolving unknown gamestate. One important note
is that inquiry cases have no power of their own to affect the
gamestate; instead, they're used to establish what the general belief
is as to what the gamestate is. Such beliefs normally end up ratifying
after a while because official reports are generally based on them.

 101 ii) The rules guarantee that some dispute-resolution mechanism is
     always available. This rule is a protection that means you can
     always appeal a punishment on you, and always seek judgement on a
     dispute.
 991 Calls for Judgement ("CFJs") are used to resolve controversies;
     they have ID numbers (unless appeals), and the CotC tracks them.
2243 A player who submits a CFJ can instead submit it to the
     Justiciar, in which case the Justiciar must perform all of the
     CotC's duties with respect to it, rather than the CotC.
2224 CFJs have interest indices, set by their initiator, and which can
     be changed without 2 objections.
1868 If a CFJ needs a judge but doesn't have one, the CotC must assign
     a judge to it within 7 days. A CFJ can only have one judge at a
     time.
2175 CFJs can be retracted by their initiator if no judge has been
     assigned to them; they can also be refused by the CotC if it is
     the sixth or later CFJ initiated by its initiator that week.
2158 A judge must assign a judgement to a CFJ within 7 days; the
     judgement must be of a sort defined by the rules, and should be
     an appropriate judgement for that CFJ.
 591 Disputes about the gamestate are handled by inquiry cases. A
     player can initiate an inquiry case by announcement, specifying
     the statement they're enquiring into; the initiator cannot be its
     judge, and the initiator can also bar one other person from
     judging it. The possible judgments for an inquiry case are FALSE,
     TRUE, UNDECIDABLE (neither false nor true, such as a paradox),
     IRRELEVANT, UNDETERMINED (if there is insufficient information to
     make a judgement, or the CFJ statement is nonsensical), and
     MALFORMED (if the statement is not actually a statement).
2169 Disputes about a contract are handled by equity cases. A player
     can initiate an equity case by announcement, specifying a
     contract they're party to, and what went wrong in the contract;
     the initiator must also list the parties to the contract. The
     CFJ is judged with a set of requirements that all the parties to
     the contract must abide by; breaching those requirements is
     illegal, and such breaches can be remedied either by criminal
     punishment or by the judge acting on behalf of the parties. Any
     party to the contract can appeal an equity case.
2205 The initiator, defendant in a criminal case, parties in an equity
     case, and judge, should all submit arguments about and evidence
     relevant to CFJs.
2157 Judicial panels are collections of multiple persons.
 911 Appeal CFJs are created by appealing a CFJ (by any player with 2
     support, or sometimes by other methods specific to a type of
     CFJ); such CFJs are judged by judicial panels of three players,
     each of which must give a separate judgement (and the majority
     judgement is taken, defaulting to REMAND). The possible
     judgements are AFFIRM (don't change the judgement), REMAND
     (reopen the question and ask the original judge to rejudge),
     REASSIGN (assign the case to a different judge), and OVERRULE
     (replace the judgement directly).

Criminal punishments
====================
What happens if you break the rules.

2228 Rests are the basic unit of punishment in Agora; they're
     negative-valued assets that you can't get rid of without spending
     Notes (2 Notes remove one Rest). You can give yourself Rests, if
     you want. (Note: Players generally only give themselves Rests if
     required to by a contract as a punishment for something they did
     in it.) If a partnership would gain Rests, they're given to its
     members instead.
2229 The more Rests you have, the more privileges you lose. A player
     with any Rests cannot win; a player with at least 8 Rests cannot
     spend Notes except to remove Rests; and a player with 24 Rests is
     exiled from the game, deregistered and unable to become a player
     until the Rest count reduces below 6. (While a person isn't a
     player, they lose half their rests every month until they only
     have 1 left.)
2230 You can report a rules breach by publishing a Notice of Violation
     about it, with information about the Accused, what illegal action
     or inaction they performed, which rule they broke, and the size
     of the default punishment for the breach (the rule's Power,
     unless otherwise defined by that rule). It's illegal to publish
     an NoV with incorrect information. NoVs can be contested within
     the four days after they're published, or via a CFJ; if
     uncontested, anyone can close them (or the Accused can close them
     early), causing the default punishment to be applied to the
     Accused, in Rests.
2239 However, an NoV is invalid if it alleged a rules breach that
     happened before the adoption of rule 2239.
1504 Criminal CFJs can be called about alleged rules breaches, by
     an announcement specifying the relevant NoV. The possible
     judgements on the CFJ are GUILTY and NOT GUILTY; the Accused is
     guilty if the breach happened, was committed by the Accused,
     breached the rule specified, happened within 90 days before the
     CFJ was called, was not punished for that act/rule combination
     earlier, could have avoided committing the breach, and could not
     have believed that the act did not violate the rule (despite
     knowing the contents of the rule). The judge must also judge a
     sentence for guilty players: DISCHARGE (no effect), APOLOGY (the
     player gains 3 rests unless they publish an apology within a
     week), and SILENCE (default punishment in Rests, which can be set
     to another value from half to double the default punishment with
     2 support.) Criminal cases can be appealed by the accused; the
     verdict and sentence can be appealed separately.
 101 vi) No breach of the rules can be punished more than once.

Judge eligibility
=================

1871 Players can be standing (eligible to judge), sitting (ineligible,
     but becomes standing when there are no standing players yet),
     leaning (ineligible to judge, but can serve on appeals panels),
     or supine (ineligible to judge). You can become sitting, leaning,
     or supine by announcement, become sitting if assigned to judge a
     case, and become supine if recused from a case due to lateness.
2204 A player can be assigned simultaneously to multiple cases, and
     only becomes sitting upon the last assignment.
2203 Players can also be hanging (cannot judge inquiry cases),
     hugging (cannot judge criminal or equity cases), hemming-and-
     hawing (can judge all sorts of cases), or hovering (like hanging,
     but can judge inquiry cases if nobody else is available). Players
     can change this by announcement.
2226 As one final judicial eligibility classification, players have a
     judicial rank (0, 1, 2, or 3), which determines the highest
     interest index of case they can judge, can be flipped by
     announcement, and goes down by 1 if a judgement by that player is
     overruled.
2164 Judges can recuse themself from cases they are assigned to (upon
     which it's transferred to someone else instead by the CotC), and
     can transfer a case to someone else, as long as the new judge
     immediately assigns a judgement to it.

Recovery
========
How Agora deals with things going wrong, and with invasions.

 217 Although the rules are the final word on the issue, if the rules
     are silent, inconsistent, or unclear, then the decision about
     what to do is based on game custom, common sense, past
     judgements, and the best interests of the game.
2177 A Senator is a player who's been registered for at least 60 days;
     Senators can call an emergency with 2 Senate support, and end one
     without 3 Senate objections (or they end after 21 days if not
     ended manually). During an emergency, Senators can block
     proposals from passing with 2 Senate support (and unblock them
     again with 4 Senate support), and non-Senators can't judge.
     (Note: this rule is designed to protect Agora from an invasion by
     a large number of new players.)
2160 If an officer is late in their duties, or an office doesn't have
     an officer, then any player can perform their duties on behalf of
     the office ("deputisation"). In the case where there is an
     active, although late, officer, then two days' notice must be
     given.
1551 Messages can be "ratified", which changes the gamestate to what it
     would be if they were correct at the time they were published.
     (Note: In other words, history isn't chagned, but this means that
     if reports start failing to reflect reality and nobody notices,
     the gamestate will change to match the beiliefs of its players.)
     In order to ratify something by proposal, you need an AI of at
     least 3.
2202 It's possible to ratify an official report without objection;
     however, this does not modify the rules even if the report
     mentioned them, and attempting to ratify something you know is
     incorrect is illegal.
2201 Various reports are self-ratifying; if nobody points out an error
     in them within a week (specifying "Claim of Error", nearly always
     in practice abbreviated to "CoE"), nor calls a judicial case
     about a legal interpretation issue in the report, then the report
     is automatically ratified.
2212 In certain circumstaneces, judges can make declarations as part
     of a judgement, which self-ratify.

Security
========
Things that block attempts to abuse the rules. (Note: abusing
loopholes in the rules to gain an advantage ("scamming") is generally
accepted, although some people enjoy that sort of play more than
others; breaking the rules to gain an advantage is a lot more
controversial, some players consider it cheating whereas others
consider it legitimate as long as you accept the punishment.)

1482 If there is a contradiction between two rules, it's the more
     powerful rule whose opinion is taken. Also, it's impossible to
     change the rules to say otherwise, without amending this rule
     first to remove the protection.
1030 If there is a contradiction between two equally powerful rules,
     the one with the lower ID number gets the say as to what to do,
     unless the rules themselves specify a method of resolving the
     contradiction.
2240 If a rule tries to prevent its own effect in a paradoxical
     manner, then earlier text in the rule overrides later text.
2125 This rule basically lists the circumstances in which something is
     considered relevant to the game, and thus only possible or legal
     if allowed by the rules: anything the rules specifically forbid,
     anything the rules allow only in certain circumstances, anything
     the rules require a player to track, and anything else determined
     as such in a court case.
2222 It's never possible for one person to have more than 8 valid
     votes on a decision; no more than 1 if the decision is
     democratic.
1450 Nobody can simultanesouly be Promotor and Assessor.
1698 No change to the rules can make it impossible to make arbitrary
     rule-changes within a 4-week period.

Miscellany
==========
Things which are rather hard to classify.

2221 Players can fix spelling and grammar problems without objection.
1789 You can deregister dramatically by submitting a document labeled
     as a Cantus Cygneus to the Registrar, detailing your grievances
     and reproach against the Agoran community in general. That method
     of deregistration has to be reported in future reports, unless
     you reregister. (Note: this rule is mostly a contrived attempt to
     construct a rather bad pun, but is nevertheless occasionally
     useful in practice.)
1769 There's a Holiday from 24 December to the first Monday after 2
     January each year; you don't have to do things during a Holiday
     or up to 72 hours after, and in fact distributing proposals or
     judging during a Holiday is illegal.

Foreign relations
=================
2200 A nomic is an entity defined by a nomic ruleset, which is a set
     of rules which contain means for arbitrary amendments to them.
2148 The Ambassador is responsible for relations with foreign nomics,
     and can take actions in them with Agoran Consent. No player may
     legally falsely claim to be the Ambassador to another nomic.
2185 Foreign nomics can be recognised by Agora; the Ambassador can
     switch their Recognition between Unknown, Protected, Friendly,
     Neutral, Sanctioned, Hostile, and Abandoned. Only protectorates
     can be Protected, and they must be.
2147 Protectorates are foreign nomics whose rules are set up so that
     Agoran decrees can alter their rulesets arbitrarily.
2159 Protective decrees, that alter the gamestate of foreign nomics,
     can be created by AI 2 proposals, and should always be
     benevolent.
2206 Players can export assets to foreign nomics by destroying them;
     when doing so, the foreign nomic must be informed.
2207 However, it's illegal to export an asset to a nomic which is not
     Protected, Friendly, or Neutral.

Officer Duties
==============
Things that you only have to worry about if you become an officer. The
duties generally vary from officer to officer. These rules are very
summarised here and only mention major obligations, not all the
minutae of being an officer; therefore, if you plan to become an
officer, read the rules pertaining to that officer carefully before
applying.

1681 There are two forms of the rules; the SLR, which contains the
     minimum information necessary, and the FLR, which contains
     history and useful annotations.
1051 The Rulekeepor must publish the SLR weekly and the FLR monthly.
2216 The Anarchist must submit a proposal to repeal 1 to 3 rules from
     a random selection of 5 each week.
2139 The Registrar must publish a list of players weekly, including
     information sufficient to identify and contact them, and the date
     on which they became players.
2181 The Accountor must publish, once a month, a list of all the types
     of assets in existence, except those defined by private
     contracts, and who the recordkeepor for them is.
2137 The Assessor is responsible for tracking votes.
2135 The Ambassador is responsible for updating the nomicwiki page
     about Agora to contain correct information, once a month.

Common Sense
============
Things that should be obvious or are not particularly unusual or
surprising, but are listed explicitly anyway because arguments tend to
come up about them anyway or to prevent people gratuitously violating
custom.

2141 It's the rules, rather than anything else, that govern play. A
     rule has a Power from 1 to 4 inclusive, an ID number, and a
     title.
1586 If the rules defining something change, then it changes too to
     satisfy the new rules, without being destroyed. If the rules
     defining something are repealed, it ceases to exist. Also, you
     can't rename rules-defined or contract-defined entities to cause
     a clash of names, nor is it effective to try to rename things to
     make rules or contracts mean something else.
2150 Biological organisms capable of communicating by email in English
     are considered to be persons ("first-class" persons); although
     other rules can define other sorts of person (normally legal
     constructs), such persons are considered "second-class". (Note:
     This summary is mostly concerned with first-class persons; a
     second-class person has a somewhat more difficult time, generally
     being given less useful free stuff by default and incapable of
     doing certain unbalancing actions.)
 754 You're allowed to use synonyms, different dialects, and spelling
     and grammar  variations (Note: typos are also generally
     considered to fit within this category), without changing the
     meaning of what you write, as long as it's unambiguous. The
     meaning of things is determined by looking at definitions in the
     rules (although definitions in low-powered rules are used only
     for guidance when interpreting high-powered rules), or otherwise
     by natural-language meanings.
2161 Various things have ID numbers, which have to be assigned in
     ascending order starting from 1 unless there's a good reason not
     to. An appropriate officer is normally responsible for assigning
     them. (This rule also contains information about what to do if
     someone breaks the ID number rules.)
2146 Indices are real numbers, with positive and negative infinity
     included. This rule also defines how to compare and calculate
     with them. (Note: They're used, for instance, to determine how
     successful a proposal was; having explicit calculation rules is
     useful to be able to state that a unanimous proposal had more
     than the voting index 1 it might have needed to pass, for
     instance.)
2162 Switches are properties which can only have one of a defined set
     of values; they can't have multiple values at once, and have a
     default value they gain if they would have no or an illegal
     value.
1006 Offices are rules-defined roles; most are elected, and can be
     resigned by their holder.
2143 Offices have defined duties; official duties need to be perfomed
     once per week unless otherwise specified, and information tracked
     by officers needs to be published in reports (which must be
     accurate and non-misleading).
2227 Offices have interest indices.
2138 The IADoP is responsible for keeping track of who holds which
     office, and how long they've held it.
2217 If nobody is holding an office, the IADoP has to nominate one or
     more players for it.

Rules that only give advice
===========================
Some rules don't bind anything, but give advice to players or are kept
for historical reasons.

1750 It's recommended that players read the ruleset during the first
     week in February, or at least have a good reason not to.
1727 Agora's birthday is on June 30.
2215 Agora has an escutcheon, and a motto.
2105 As far as I know, the map has no significance on gameplay.
     (Note: for a while, it was traditional for players gaining
     low-powered control over the ruleset to add themselves to the
     map, but that tradition seems to have lapsed recently.)
2029 The Town Fountain, which was placed there by a scam. Despite
     being the most powerful rule in Agora, it has no obvious effect.
 104 For the very first game, Michael Norrish was the Speaker.
     (Note: Yes, this fact is of nothing but historical interest
     nowadays. However, this rule has much bigger value in that it's
     the only rule which was in Agora's initial ruleset and has never
     been amended ever; many players treat it as a sort of sacred
     relic to be treasured, as a result.)

----------------------------------------------------------------------

So, what can we learn from this? Agora's ruleset is not as daunting as
the statistics may indicate, although before now, there was no form of
the ruleset which really worked at giving an introduction to the game
for a new player. I hope this summarised ruleset is helpful,
especially to new players, for grasping what Agora is like in a
reasonable length of time, and why knowing all the rules is really not
that essential. But even to experienced players: you know, February is
not the only month in which you're allowed to read the rules in full,
and if you have the time it can often be very rewarding.
