No on Murska's because the bot will handle that way better than I could. Though I'll probably do it for now anyway. No on E's because I fell it'll be more a case of first-come-first-serve then, with hastely-thought of proposals launched at the start of the turn. Requestion rationale on Grim's proposal. Why is that better than the current rules?
About the bot. It is not running fulltime at the moment, and I'm not sure when it will. However, this is no big problem really, because I added Jabber and mail support. Lemme explain.
First of all, there's NomicBot in the IRC chatroom. Then, there's <!-- e --><a href="mailto:nomicbot@gmail.com">nomicbot@gmail.com</a><!-- e -->, the mailbot. And last, there's <!-- e --><a href="mailto:nomicbot@gmail.com">nomicbot@gmail.com</a><!-- e -->, the Jabber/XMPP/Google Talk bot. Now, the last two can also be accessed while he's "offline", in the sense that messages will be queued and answered when he runs. As for the Jabber bot, I have to add everyone that wants to use it to the contact list manually to allow messages to be sent. Add him to your contact list and drop me a note I have to add you to his list, and I'll do it.
General usage of the bot is the same in all cases. There are commands to query about the current rules ("rule" or "rule 5" - this can generate much output), current proposals ("proposal" or "proposal Amarth") and a few other things ("roll 2d5", "help help"). In IRC, you have to prepend each command with a '!' to make the bot notice it - this is to prevent the bot from overflowing the channel with loads of info when rules (nomic or chatroom) are being discussed. Since Jabber and mail are always private, there's no need to do that there. In mail, you can do multiple queries in a single mail. Just put every comand on a single line and the bot will execute them all in turn.
So, what are the (dis)advantages of each incarnation of the bot? IRC pro: multiple people can see the result, may be useful in discussion, fairly quick reply, knowledge of online/offline, most tested version con: slow and annoying for high volumes of data, doesn't work when bot is offline
Mail pro: good for high-volume queries (like all proposals or all rules), or multiple queries in one go con: no knowledge of when the bot is online, might take up to 10 minutes for reply when online or more when offline
Jabber pro: fast, also good for high-volume, knowledge of online/offline, also works when bot is offline (responds when coming online) con: needs Jabber account (though these are free to get - Google Talk also works), needs one-time "registration"
Well, whew. Any questions, ask. If it doesn't work for you, ask. This info will find its way to the first post eventually. Requests for enhancements, ask. But if you wish to force a certain enhancement, you'll have to change the rules of the game.
Usage of the bot is not mandatory in any way, but highly recommended to keep your sanity.
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