What is Nomic?

Nomic is a game, invented by Peter Suber, in which a major portion of the game is changing the Rules of the game. A game of Nomic usually (not always!) starts out as a democracy--one person will propose a change to the Rules, everyone votes on it, and if there are enough votes in favor of the change, the change takes place. Play then continues by the new Rules.

What's that? You've played in games where the Rules can be changed? If you've never played Nomic, it's a bit different than other games which allow changing the Rules, such as Mao or certain party games. Although these games allow for some of the Rules to be changed, they usually have a central, unchangeable core of Rules. In Nomic, all of the Rules are subject to change. (At least initially! No guarantee it will stay that way.)

For more information on Nomic in general, check out the Nomic FAQ.

What is Agora?

Agora is the oldest known active nomic on the Internet--we celebrated our 6th birthday in June 1999! Agora itself was started following the collapse of another nomic, Nomic World, which was the first known MUD-based nomic. Five of the participants of Nomic World are still Players in Agora to this day! (Michael, Blob, Oerjan, Steve, and Chuck)

Think you might be interested in playing? Here's some more information.

Note for history buffs: Agora was not originally called Agora. At its inception, it had no official name, and was unofficially known as Yoyo after the mailing list it was played on.

Some Links

The lists below are selective, not comprehensive.

Agora links:

• Rules Page (maintained by me; Agora's Rules in several formats)
• Elysion's Agora page (archives of CFJs and Apologies, Herald's and Priest's Reports)
• harvel's Agora page (several Officer's Reports)
• Michael's Agora page (Guidelines for Judging, several Officers' Reports)
• Peekee's Agora page (Notary's Report, archive of Wills)
• t's Agora page (archives of the Agoran Weekly Journal, information on Proposals currently up for vote)
• Wes's Agora page (Proposal Queue and distribution, Promotor's and Accountor's Reports, recent CFJ activity)
• Swann's Agora page (Agora FAQ)
• Vanyel's Agora page (some older archives)
• Nomic MUD page (about Nomic World, Agora's predecessor)

• Mailing list archives. The lists used to be archived at egroups, but due to problems these are inaccessible. I'm keeping the links on the infinitesimal chance that they become accessible again at some point. Since early May, 2000, the lists have been archived at eScribe.
  • agora-official (standard, public forum): eScribe egroups
  • agora-business (standard, public forum): eScribe egroups
  • agora-discussion (standard, not a public forum): eScribe egroups
  • agora (backup, public forum): eScribe egroups
  • nomic (backup, public forum): eScribe egroups

General Nomic links:

• Nomic FAQ (if you don't know what Nomic is, read this)
• Peter Suber's Nomic page (inventor of Nomic)
• Net Nomic Database (listing of Internet-based Nomics)
• Nomic Bulletin Board (discussion of Nomic)
• InterNomic page (a Nomic with Nomics as players; sort of a UN of Nomics)

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