Position
GROUNDWORK is governance infrastructure. Infrastructure is not neutral. We owe organisers and members a clear statement of what this register will and will not be used for.
No initiative whose explicit or operational purpose is to degrade, exclude, or dehumanize people on grounds of race, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexuality, disability, or migration status will be allowed on the register. This is a constitutive limit, not a moderation preference.
GROUNDWORK is built to make capture visible and resistible. We will not provide a legible storefront to projects whose governance design — secret beneficial ownership, founder veto over substantive decisions, or state-aligned coercion — is incompatible with the legitimacy ladder we publish.
We are not partisan to any single political party, ideology, or movement. We are partisan to the conditions under which legitimate institutions can form: identity, disclosure, accountability, and the right of members to recall those who govern them.
An honest 'founder-controlled' initiative is more welcome here than a project performing democracy on its surface and concentrating power underneath. The register rewards legibility, not the appearance of virtue.
Enforcement
Concerns about an initiative on these grounds can be filed through the report channel on each initiative page. Reports are reviewed by the cooperative's stewardship committee and outcomes are recorded in the public changelog of the initiative concerned.
