This document is merely a summary of the most important laws helpful for everyday activity.
\subsection{Terminology}
\begin{itemize}
\item\texttt{law}: A passed proposal. A proposal requires three contiguous votes
by unique non-bot members of the channel to be passed.
Laws need not effect active behavior on the channel, and can be passed because of
Rule of Funny.
\item\texttt{malcompliance}: The act of complying in the worst possible manner. Or,
as the Finnish define it, ``following the letter of the law while pissing on the spirit''.
Examples:
\begin{quote}
``Hey could you test sortix?'' ``test -f sortix.iso \# Yep. It's a file.'' \\
``Hey, can you give me some water?'' ``You mean aqua?'' ``...sure.'' *gives aqua fortis*
\end{quote}
\item\texttt{filibuster}: Anything that is sent on the channel, and can stop a
law from being passed, is known as a filibuster. This is line in with the literal meaning, ``obstructs progress in a legislative assembly''.
\item\texttt{proposal}: Anything that can filibuster can be a proposal.
\item\texttt{new ancient law}: A law that has always been true,
but was only recently discovered and legislated.
\item\texttt{lawrememberer}: The person responsible for maintaining the lawlist,
currently `nortti'.
\item\texttt{lawspeaker}: The person who interprets and clarifies the law,
currently `nortti'.
\item\texttt{triminority}: The three required to pass a law. Can be used to refer to
an actual group, or a hypothetical group.
\item\texttt{triumvirate}: People who are more active with channel work, and have additional rights with ChanServ. Currently consists of `FireFly', `heddwch', `meowrobot', `nortti', `puckipedia', `shikhin', `sortie', `vehk', and `ybden'.
\item\texttt{vote}: Anything described under `Voting.Syntaxen'.
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Voting}
\subsubsection{Basics}
At every moment, there is an active proposal and a vote count.
If a vote that doesn't
refer to the current active proposal is cast, the active proposal changes to the new
proposal, and the vote count resets to 0. A filibuster sets the active proposal to itself and resets the vote count to 0.
A vote increments the vote count by 1 after change of proposal (if required).
When
the vote count reaches 3, the active proposal becomes a law.
\subsubsection{Syntaxen}
There are several different kinds of syntaxes for voting on laws. They're all based
on the original syntax of \texttt{:D}, with various modifications.
\begin{itemize}
\item\texttt{:D}
The most basic form. Votes for the current active proposal.
\item\texttt{:D\~{}N}
Votes N proposals back. Is 0-indexed, so \texttt{:D\~{}0} is
Same as without the \texttt{nick: } prefix, but instead refer to the relevant proposal made by `nick'. \texttt{nick, } can be used instead of \texttt{nick: }.
\end{itemize}
\subsubsection{What counts as a filibuster/proposal?}
\begin{itemize}
\item Filibustering messages \emph{are} proposals, \emph{unless} they're sent by bots to explain something in the previous message (e.g. title bot, automatic translation) \emph{or} they begin with \texttt{nolog:} or \texttt{[nolog]}.
\item Bot messages sent as a response to direct command (e.g. program evaluation, non-automatic translation) \emph{are} proposals.
\item Bot messages that are generally to be ignored in the legislative process (e.g. title bot, automatic translation) \emph{are} proposals \emph{if} intended to disrupt.
A collection of rules and guidelines that evolved from horrors that won't be mentioned here; currently in helpful form. By new ancient law, MMMM is lawful.
\item Mark NSFW content. Linked NSFW content should be marked, preferably with \texttt{NSFW} or \texttt{[NSFW]}.
\item Do not kick idlers.
Idlers are defined as people whose last activity has been 5 minutes ago (where activity implies messages or nick changes as a response to something in the channel), or who have marked themselves away (e.g. by \texttt{bbl}).
\item Avoid funkicking.
`Funkicking' is where you kick someone just for fun, or for some insignificant reason. Exception to this is if the person you're `funkicking' does not mind the fun kick.
\end{itemize}
\subsection{Additional stuff}
\begin{itemize}
\item In cases where there is disagreement on whether something passed, the lawrememberer's point of view is used.
\item The person who opens the vote on a proposal MUST provide the law to lawrememberer, if requested to do so.
\item Zero-width spaces in votes are to be ignored.
\item It is a good custom to vote on one's own proposal last.