Standard · 01
Visible governance
Power, decision rules, and the path to change them are stated up front — in language a non-expert can follow.
Why this matters
Most online institutions hide their power structure behind vibes, founders, or unwritten norms. GROUNDWORK refuses to host an initiative until that structure is legible.
Every initiative declares who can decide what, what threshold a decision needs, and how the rules themselves can be amended.
If governance is performative — a quorum nobody could ever count, a veto that lives only in someone's head — it gets flagged as such, not laundered as real.
How GROUNDWORK implements it
Power map
Council, community, working groups, and stewardship are mapped explicitly with their scope of authority.
Quorum parser
Decision thresholds are converted from free-text to structured types and shown with a badge. Unparseable rules are flagged 'free-text only'.
Pending changes
Every rule change is queued in the public ledger before it takes effect.