Trust-Gated Governance

karmyq communities don't have permanent admin roles. Governance authority is earned through trust and can be lost if trust drops — an architectural commitment against oligarchic lock-in.

How It Works

Eligibility is based on trust score. A community sets an eligibility threshold (default: 50). Any member whose trust score meets the threshold is eligible to hold a governance role.

Nomination is open to all active members. Any member can nominate an eligible member for Admin or Moderator.

Ratification requires quorum. A configurable number of current role-holders must ratify a nomination before it takes effect. When quorum is reached, the role is granted automatically.

Rotation is triggered by trust drops. If a role-holder's trust score falls below the threshold, their role becomes eligible for reassignment. There is no time-based expiry — only trust-based.

Community Maturity

New communities start in Constrained governance mode: limited configuration rights, invite-only membership decisions. As the community's average trust score grows above the eligibility threshold, it transitions to Mature mode with full governance rights.

This prevents governance capture by communities that haven't built real trust yet.

Split Governance

When a community splits, the two child communities stay related through a split_origin link. That link carries lineage and cross-group trust context; it does not mean the same parent admin governs both children by default.

Each child receives an admin from its own assigned members. If the executing admin is assigned to a child, they can administer that child. If they are not assigned to the sibling child, Karmyq selects an admin from the sibling's assigned members so authority follows the people who actually moved there.

Governance Templates

• small-collective (default): 3-member quorum, flat authority — good for small groups
• council: 5-member quorum, role specialization (admin/moderator) — good for medium communities
• open-delegation: trust-weighted voting on governance decisions — good for large, mature communities

Why Non-Permanent Roles?

Permanent roles create oligarchies. A founding admin who has become inactive retains authority indefinitely under static systems. karmyq's governance reflects where you stand now in the community's trust network — not who you were when the community was founded.

See ADR-055: Trust-Based Governance Architecture for the full design rationale.