Jackie, our red-letter gal, has asked me to repost the Rules of Hogwash so that she can pin them for newbies.
this is harder than it looks, since we have been running full-tilt-amok for quite some time since last any rules were posted; but I am going to paste them in here and try to edit out all of the blatant rulishness.
to start, the moderator/hogmaster® posts a [really] obscure word and asks for definitions to be submitted via PM, usually within a se'nnight (seven nights). at that point the submittals are grouped into a post and polling proceeds. voting usually continues until all of the contributors have had a chance to vote, or until polls are arbitrarily closed by the hogmaster.
Scoring..
Rule A is: the points don't matter
[someone asks] Do those of us who contributed daffynitions get to vote? I was confused on this point by the first round. One gets to in Balderdash.
yes, in the normal course of the game only the contributors would vote. we've liberalized the rules to let everyone participate. my interpretation [has been that contributor votes count for more than onlooker votes]. here are the rules again, as amended to date:
1. [points are] given to each player for every vote (or guess) his phony definition receives.
2. points are awarded to each player who chooses the true meaning.
3. points are given to the moderator only if none of the players choose the true meaning.
4. [no] points are awarded to any player who submits a definition which is similar or very close to the correct meaning [rather, the moderator shall request a resubmittal]
5. If two or more players submit a definition per rule 4 (in the judgment of the moderator), the round will be thrown out with no points scored (or the moderator can disqualify obvious attempts to sabotage the game :-Ž )
6. A player may vote for her own definition but scores points only for those others she can bluff into also voting for that definition.. (i.e., you can't get a rule 1 point [voting for your own def'n!])
scoring, such as it is with points not mattering, is virtually at the whim of the moderator/hogmaster® [see latest round, e.g.]. whinging to the hogmaster, while encouraged, has been shown to be completely ineffectual.
there have been several hogmasters over the years.