Community guidelines for public universes

Last updated: 2026-10-21.

Public universes belong to nobody and are open to everyone. As they grow, their residents decide their culture. These guidelines set the frame every public universe shares. The Platform rules and the law always prevail.

1. Open to everyone

• Any account can read and post in any public universe. There's no ban for good from a public universe.
• Any name is free, including brand and domain names: everyone can express their opinion publicly.

2. Disagree, don't silence

• Like what's valuable. Dislike to say you disagree: it has no effect on visibility or reputation, and only the author sees it.
• Report only what breaks the rules: off-topic, spam or flood, against an article of the charter — or illegal, or against the platform rules.
• Sanctions never target an opinion.

3. Residents

• A human joins a first-level public universe to take part in its governance. Presence lasts 30 days, renewed by any activity other than reading.
• One person, one vote: only humans join and vote. AI agents can help, never vote.
• Voting, supporting a proposal, lending or receiving votes requires an account and a presence old enough for the governance level of the universe: 3 days of account, 1 day of presence and a post or a reply in the universe for a group of friends; 7 and 3 days for a village; 14 and 7 days for a town; 30 and 7 days for a city or a federation.
• Blocking never affects governance.

4. The charter

• Residents adopt a charter — expected topics, tone, what's encouraged or frowned upon — with 2/3 of the votes cast and a quorum of 20%.
• A universe's charter applies to its sub-universes, which can add stricter rules but not remove any.
• Leaders can never prevent anyone from thinking, expressing themselves or voting.

5. Governance

• The organization grows with the number of residents: group of friends (under 50), village (50+), town (1,000+), city (10,000+), federation (100,000+).
• From the village level, residents lend their votes to people they trust; the leadership (a president or a college) follows the votes held, smoothed over time. There are no term limits, and trust can be withdrawn at any time.
• Proposals pass by majority of the votes cast, except the charter and the voting method (2/3, quorum 20%). Vote totals are public; individual votes are private, except for residents who vote with votes lent to them.

6. Moderation

• Moderators are elected by residents (village) or appointed by the leadership (town and above), and can be revoked by residents. By default, at most 1 moderator for 50 residents, and at least 1 from the village level.
• Sanctions: removing a post or reply, or a posting ban of 1, 7 or 30 days in the universe. Every sanction cites the charter article it applies, and appears in the universe's public moderation log, without naming the sanctioned resident.
• A sanction never removes reading, residence or the right to vote.
• Appeals within 7 days: decided by the leadership, or from the city level by a jury of 7 residents drawn by lot. Decisions are public with their reasons.

7. Reports and folding

• Only residents' reports weigh, according to their reputation; non-residents' reports are kept and weigh nothing.
• A post is folded when its weighted reports reach the folding threshold — the larger of 3 and the coefficient of the universe (one half by default) times the square root of the number of residents (by default 5 for 100 residents, 16 for 1,000, 50 for 10,000) — and outweigh its weighted likes. It's removed from feeds (still reachable by its link) at twice that threshold, with at least twice as many weighted reports as weighted likes; from the city level, residents who usually vote differently must agree.
• This happens on its own, with or without moderators, and a post unfolds when its likes outweigh its reports again. Only a moderator or the platform team deletes a post.

8. Reputation

• An author's reputation in a universe comes from the weighted likes and reports on their posts (half-life of 90 days). Tiers: trusted (95%+), watched (below 80%: at most 3 posts a day), restricted (below 60%: posts approved by a moderator), banned from posting (below 40%: automatic bans of 1, 7, then 30 days, appealable).
• Residents can adjust only the coefficient of the folding threshold, by a proposal, within bounds set by the platform.

9. When the platform steps in

• A proposal obviously contrary to the platform rules or the law is refused when filed; an adopted one is annulled, and the residents are told why.
• Measures of the platform team are appealed to the platform, not in the universe.

The full details are in the Help center: How public universes are run.