Layer 1 · Membership
Membership Agreement
- Layer: 1 — Membership System
- Status: Stub — not yet adopted
- RCOS reference: §3.4, §3.5, §3.8
Signed (or explicitly acknowledged) by every member at the time of admission. Defines the rights and obligations of each membership state.
Membership State on Signing
RCOS definition3.1.2, 3.1.4
- 3.1.2 At minimum, the following membership states MUST exist:
- 3.1.4 No individual MAY hold multiple membership states simultaneously.
Why declare state at signing?
Membership is not a single binary. A person joining must know exactly which state they are entering — and which one they are not — because the state determines what they can do and what is expected of them. Naming it at the moment of consent prevents ambiguity later about what they actually signed up for.
This agreement is signed on admission, at which point the member holds Trial Member state. Voting rights and the other rights of a Full Member are not held at signing: they are granted automatically on reaching Offcoin Level 1, as set out in the Onboarding Protocol.
The rights and obligations attaching to every state — Applicant, Trial Member, Full Member, Standby Member, Exited Member — are defined in the Membership State Registry, which governs where any document disagrees. The sections below state the rights and obligations of a Full Member; a Trial Member holds the subset recorded in the registry.
Member Rights
RCOS definition3.4.1, 3.4.3, 3.4.4
- 3.4.1 The community MUST explicitly define member rights.
- 3.4.3 Rights and obligations MUST be symmetrical and proportionate to membership state.
- 3.4.4 No obligation MAY be enforced without a corresponding, documented right.
Why enumerate rights explicitly?
Rights that are not written down are rights that can be quietly withdrawn. Enumerating them makes the community’s commitments legible, enforceable, and symmetrical with the obligations members are asked to carry. Without this list, obligations become open-ended demands with no reciprocal protection.
- The right to vote on all decisions as defined in the Decision Matrix
- The right to access all member-only channels, calls, and community records
- The right to hold roles as defined in the Role Registry (Layer 5)
- The right to earn XP and ECO through recognized contributions
- The right to propose changes through the governance process
- The right to request access to the community’s publishing and administration tools — blog writing, newsletter writing, social media posting, blueprint administration
- The right to raise a conflict through the Conflict Resolution Ladder without retaliation
- The right to pause membership by requesting Standby, and to request reactivation from Standby
- The right to exit the community voluntarily at any time
- The right to be told in writing why any suspension, restriction, or exit applies to them
- The right to due process before any forced exit, suspension, or access restriction
Member Obligations
RCOS definition3.4.2, 3.4.4, 3.4.5
- 3.4.2 The community MUST explicitly define member obligations.
- 3.4.4 No obligation MAY be enforced without a corresponding, documented right.
- 3.4.5 Obligations MUST NOT be open-ended or undefined.
Why bound obligations tightly?
Open-ended obligations are how communities slide into exploitation — “contribute more,” “be available,” “show up” with no defined limit. Listing obligations discretely, and tying each one to a corresponding right, keeps the ask bounded and contestable. A member must always be able to tell whether they are meeting the agreement or being asked for something beyond it.
- Adhere to all Layer 0 identity constraints and invariants at all times
- Contribute to the community in at least one recognized category per defined period (see Participation and Contribution Expectations below)
- Participate in conflict resolution processes when named as a party or requested as a witness
- Complete onboarding, and contribute through the trial period, before exercising Full Member rights
- Notify the community before extended absence; request Standby or initiate the exit process if unable to meet participation expectations for an extended period
- Not misrepresent the community, its members, or its governance externally
- Not exercise authority beyond what is explicitly assigned through the governance system
Participation and Contribution Expectations
RCOS definition3.5.1, 3.5.2, 3.5.3, 3.5.4
- 3.5.1 Participation expectations MUST be explicitly defined.
- 3.5.2 Acceptable forms of contribution MUST be listed.
- 3.5.3 Substitution of participation (e.g., outsourcing labor) MUST be explicitly governed.
- 3.5.4 Persistent non-participation MUST trigger an accountability process as defined in Layer 4.
Why define participation in numbers?
“Active member” means nothing without a threshold. A defined minimum — in time, category, and cadence — turns participation from a feeling into a fact, so nobody has to guess whether they are in good standing, and nobody can be accused of drifting without evidence. It also makes the line between a genuine absence and quiet abandonment visible early enough to act on.
- Minimum contribution: At least one recognized contribution per 6 months (any category — labor, care, knowledge, stewardship, coordination, or informal community participation including Discord activity)
- Recognized categories: As defined in the Internal Economy Protocol (Layer 3); informal participation such as community discussion counts as coordination
- How participation is recorded: ecohubsOS records participation from sign-in, onboarding steps, XP earned, Puckstack activity, votes cast, proposals authored, and buddy calls. Contribution the system cannot observe — meeting attendance, Discord discussion, work done outside Puckstack — counts only when it results in an XP award or is logged by a steward. Any member may ask a steward to record a contribution the system did not see
- Substitution: A member may delegate or substitute work on a specific task, under the rules in Substitution of Participation below
- Extended absence: A member expecting absence of more than 6 months must notify the community and may request Standby, which pauses contribution expectations for up to 12 months. Standby is a defined membership state with its own rights, not an informal exemption — see the Exit & Separation Protocol
- Non-participation trigger: Where no recognized participation is recorded for 3 months (Trial Member) or 6 months (Full Member), a transition to Standby is proposed to a steward, with warnings drafted to the member 14 and 7 days beforehand. No such transition is ever applied automatically — a steward reviews each one and may dismiss it. Persistent non-participation that is not a simple absence triggers an accountability process as defined in Layer 4
Substitution of Participation
RCOS definition3.5.3, 3.5.1
- 3.5.3 Substitution of participation (e.g., outsourcing labor) MUST be explicitly governed.
- 3.5.1 Participation expectations MUST be explicitly defined.
Why govern substitution explicitly?
Contribution is what carries a Trial Member to Full Member and what keeps any membership in good standing. That makes substitution a governance question rather than a courtesy one: if an obligation can be discharged by someone else’s hands, then standing, voting rights, and eventually authority can be acquired without the community ever forming a judgment about the person holding them. Left unwritten, the question gets answered case by case, always in favour of whoever is asking — so the line is drawn here instead, and it is drawn at the difference between getting work done and being a member.
Delegating work is normal and often the right thing to do. What follows governs when it counts as the member’s own participation, and when it cannot.
- What may be substituted: Any specific task or piece of work a member has taken on. A member may hand a task over, share it, or ask someone else to complete it
- What may never be substituted: Voting, authoring proposals, consenting to this agreement, participating in a conflict resolution process as a named party or requested witness, and exercising the authority of any role held. These are personal acts of membership; performed by anyone other than the member they are void, and doing so is a breach handled under Layer 4
- Substitution by non-members: A member may ask a non-member to perform work on their behalf. The non-member acquires no membership state, rights, access, or standing of any kind, and the member remains fully responsible for the outcome and for anything done in the community’s name
- Effect on participation expectations: Work performed by someone else does not count toward the delegating member’s own minimum participation. The task is discharged; the obligation is not. A member meets their participation expectations through their own contribution or requests Standby
- Effect on XP and ECO: Units follow the person who did the work, where that person is a member. Work performed by a non-member earns no units — they cannot be earned by, credited to, or transferred to a non-member — and units are never credited to a member for work they did not do
- Paid substitution: Paying a third party to do work is permitted as a way of getting work done. It confers no participation credit, no XP or ECO, and no progress toward Full Member state on the member who paid for it
- During the trial period: Because the transition to Full Member is reached through the member’s own recognized contribution, a Trial Member cannot reach Level 1 on substituted work
Due Process Reference
Why re-state due process here?
The Membership Agreement is the one document every member actually reads and consents to. Naming due process here — not only in Layer 4 — guarantees that no member can be removed or restricted under a rule they were not shown when they joined. It closes the gap between what the community promises and what it can do.
Any forced exit, suspension, or access restriction follows Layer 4 due process and the Exit & Separation Protocol. A steward may suspend a member to Standby to protect the community while a case is decided, but only a Full Member vote can end a membership — and a suspension that the community does not act on lapses rather than persisting. The bounds and review rights that apply to any suspension are set out in the Exit & Separation Protocol.
Consent Acknowledgment
Why require explicit consent?
Consent that is assumed is consent that can be denied later. Requiring an explicit act — signing, clicking, acknowledging — at a known moment binds the member to the specific artifact versions in force that day, and gives the community a defensible record that the agreement was entered freely and knowingly.
By entering the community through the defined onboarding process, the member explicitly consents to the terms of this agreement and the Layer 0 artifacts in force at the time of admission.
Ratification Record
- Adopted:
- Decision type: Strategic
- Version:
- Decision record: