Standard MS Ruleset... a starting point.

[mith]

Unvoting, like bolding votes, is simply to make life easier for the mod (and the other players).

How the game goes *should* be determined solely by the intent of the player; if I mean to be voting for someone, it shouldn't matter whether I bold it, unvote, or put it in red surrounded by smilies, so long as it's clear that I'm voting. It's better to have a clear rule in place though rather than trying to figure out player intent. At least until automatic vote counts.

(Can you tell what I've been thinking about lately?)

[mith]

It seems to me that one of the benefits of taking turns modding is that we don't need a standard set of rules, as everyone gets a chance to run things their way.

Having a standard (or standards) wouldn't prevent some games from being run differently. Some theme games would *require* additional rules; I am never going to insist that ever mod use the same rules, because it discourages innovation. That said, it seems to me (and this is entirely unresearched, so it may be completely wrong) that most mods want to use essentially the same rules anyway. Lots of mods copy DP's rules pretty much directly. The problem is that when they do change things up, the players don't tend to read the rules anyway, and just assume that it's run a certain way. Now, granted, that's more the player's fault than the mod's. A lot of players are extremely lazy.

Still, it has always been my view that the mod is not there to determine the outcome of the game, only to enforce rules that are already in place. (As I mentioned above, actual voting is intended to be entirely up to the players; we commonly have bolding and unvoting rules listed to make things easier on the mod, not for any real gameplay reason. The mod is just there as an impartial third-party, necessary because of the secrecy factor; someone needs to tell the players what happened.) Having slightly different ways of doing things is fine and natural; the problem comes when mods decide that since it's *their* game, they can do whatever they like and you end up with completely arbitrary rules.

Anyway, I think a standard set would solve two problems: 1. For newer mods that haven't thought things through all the way, it would provide them with rules that cover everything. 2. For lazy players, most games would have the same rules, and games that didn't could have a "non-standard" label which would hopefully prod them into reading the rules for that game.