Governance · Participation constitution
The Commons is governed before it is opened.
Participation is meaningful only when identity, attribution, custody, moderation, correction and appeal are more than interface language. This constitution declares the future rules and the current boundary.
Prototype edition 1.0 · Effective for read-only architectural review
Roles carry different authority.
Presence in the Commons never creates equal authority over evidence, moderation, synthesis or institutional status. In this release every role below is held by one person — the steward, Khurram Chughtai. They are named separately because the duties differ, not because the desks are separately staffed.
- 01
Visitor
Reads public objects and may build private local notes. No identity or transmission is implied.
- 02
Member
A future verified participant who may offer a source, challenge or proposition under explicit custody terms.
- 03
Convenor
Defines a room constitution, protects scope and ensures the strongest counter-position is represented.
- 04
Evidence steward
Checks source identity, provenance, attribution, version and correction requirements.
- 05
Moderator
Applies published rules, records interventions and gives reasons that can be appealed.
- 06
Editorial authority
May promote a governed synthesis; cannot convert it into institutional doctrine on .space.
Object promotion path
Nothing moves from reaction to record invisibly.
- 1
Private draft
Held by the visitor; no transmission or review.
- 2
Submitted object
Future state requiring identity, consent and declared contribution type.
- 3
Under review
Source, scope, conflicts and safety checked by named custodians.
- 4
Contested
Counter-position and material disagreement placed beside the object.
- 5
Published contribution
Versioned, attributable, citable and correctable.
- 6
Synthesis
Editorially reasoned across evidence and disagreement; remains revisable.
- 7
Transfer to official record
Can occur only on the official .io domain through a separately authorised act.
Moderation and appeal
Intervention must itself be reviewable.
Removal, restriction, relabelling or closure requires a rule, a named decision state, a reason, preservation of the review record and a route to appeal. Emergency action may precede full reasons only where the governing policy states the threshold.
AI disclosure
Assistance must not impersonate authority.
AI may assist discovery, comparison, drafting or navigation only when its role is disclosed. Generated text cannot be presented as a primary source, member testimony, legal conclusion, moderator judgment or institutional position. Human editorial custody remains named.
Source and correction duty
Every published object remains answerable to its record.
Source identity, source state, inference, version, review date and correction history remain visible. A correction changes the active object without erasing what changed or why.
Current boundary
Public reading is open; shared participation is not.
No account, submission, public post or moderation backend is represented in this release. The visible gates describe the system that must exist before those actions become truthful.
Access and custody →