Question Policy
1. Why this document exists
Charter Article 5 says that deciding what is asked, and what is not, is the heaviest responsibility in this ledger. It also requires that the detailed prohibitions be set out in a public policy. This is that policy.
This policy is a minimum standard. Under Articles 5 and 7 of the Charter, the prohibitions here can be tightened but never relaxed. No operator, no majority, and no future version of this document can lower them.
2. Four kinds of harm that can never become a question
The Charter names four kinds of harm. No question carrying any of them will ever be asked. The categories below are examples, not the full boundary. When a candidate falls near the line, we block it and record why.
a. Harm that teaches a method. A question must never work as an instruction manual.
- Suicide or self-harm methodology, direct or implied
- Making or acquiring weapons, explosives, or poisons
- Synthesizing or obtaining illegal drugs
- Evading detection for a crime, or breaking into systems
b. Harm that targets a person. A question must never make a person, or a group of people, its target.
- Any scenario that sexualizes a minor
- Moral judgment of a named living person, including politicians
- Scenarios that demean an ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, or disability
- Exposure of anyone's private life or identity
c. Harm that corrupts a process. Some processes only work when no one puts a thumb on the scale. A question must never be that thumb.
- Judgment of the accused or the victim in an ongoing criminal case
- Questions built to sway a specific election while voting is open
- Questions built to move a market or a price
- Questions designed to distort this record's own count
d. Harm that rests on a false premise. A question can smuggle a lie inside its setup. Answering it, either way, affirms the lie.
- Questions that present a fabricated fact or statistic as true
- Questions premised on the inferiority of a group of people
- Questions premised on denial of documented atrocities
- Loaded questions that force the answerer to concede something false
3. Two kinds of questions
Every question is one of two kinds, and its kind is published when it is asked.
Standing questions stay open forever. You may answer at any time, and if you change your mind, you write a new answer. The old answer remains as history. Standing questions are the source of the record's longitudinal value: how a person, and humanity, changes over time.
Live questions open and close during the live broadcast. When the window closes, the distribution is fixed forever as a snapshot of the people counted that night. It can never be answered again.
The answer window is a property of the question, published at asking time. The Charter's rule, change your mind and write a new answer, applies to open questions. Nothing is ever deleted either way. A closed window closes the future, not the past.
4. How questions are selected
Selection follows a weekly ritual. Candidates are drafted, screened against this policy, and approved by the operator. Every selection and every rejection is logged with reasons. Under Charter Article 5, the authority to select is designed to be shared with the community over time. We are building toward sortition, where randomly drawn verified people take part in selection. This policy binds them too.
5. Diversity commitment
The standing set grows each season. Humanity's questions cannot come from one tradition, so we hold a sourcing quota across ethical traditions, including non-Western sources: Ubuntu, Confucian, Buddhist, Islamic, and Indigenous ethics among them. The balance is reviewed each season, and the review is published.
6. Amendment
This policy may be tightened at any time. It may never be loosened below the minimum set by Charter Article 5. Every change is posted publicly with its date, and the history of changes remains available.