Governance

How a version of the method changes, who decides, and what cannot be decided.

What this document governs

METHOD.md is the standard. This document governs how METHOD.md changes and who may change it. Where the two disagree, METHOD.md governs on substance and this document governs on process.

Custody

The standard, the public register and the certification mark are to be held by the Nooscope Foundation, separately from any entity performing commercial assessment or advisory work.

The Foundation is not yet formed. Until it is, the standard and the register are held by Mind Matter Analytics Inc., which is also the entity performing commercial work — that is, the separation this section describes does not yet exist in fact. It is stated here as the committed structure, not as the current one, and this paragraph stays until the Foundation is formed and the assignment is recorded.

Until the public repository opens, the processes below that refer to it — pull requests against METHOD.md, dissents, and disputes — run by correspondence to bryan@nooscope.io. Each submission is published on nooscope.io with the response to it, from the moment it is received. There is no private channel in the interim either.

The separation is not presentational. It exists for two independent reasons and satisfies both with one structure:

• Grant funders in this field require that supported activity be compatible with Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code.
• A certification mark is vulnerable to cancellation under 15 U.S.C. § 1064(5) where its owner also produces the goods or services the mark certifies.

An entity that both issues readings commercially and certifies them under the same mark is exposed on its most valuable asset.

Amending the method

1. A proposed change is opened as a pull request against METHOD.md with a version bump per §8 and a statement of which existing readings it would affect if applied retroactively.
2. The change sits open for public comment for no fewer than thirty days for a MINOR change and sixty days for a MAJOR one. PATCH changes have no waiting period.
3. Review is by the technical review group (below). A change touching §3 (reading types), §7 (claims discipline) or §10 (independence) requires unanimity; anything else, a majority.
4. Merged changes publish with the comment record intact, including objections that did not carry.

Existing readings are never recomputed silently. Each carries the method_version under which it was issued.

Technical review group

Until a standing group is seated, review is performed by named outside specialists engaged at fixed checkpoints, and every reviewer is named in CHANGELOG.md alongside the version they reviewed. A paid reviewer is disclosed as paid.

The standing group, when seated:

• No fewer than three and no more than seven members.
• A majority with no financial relationship to any entity issuing readings.
• Members serve fixed terms, are named publicly, and their conflicts are published.
• Any member may publish a dissent from any version, in the repository, without prior review.

What cannot be amended

The following are not subject to the amendment process and may be changed only by a MAJOR version accompanied by a public statement of what the project has become:

• The register is append-only. No mechanism exists, or will be introduced, for removing a reading. A reading found to be wrong is superseded and both remain visible.
• Disclosure is a required schema field. commissioned_by and fee cannot be made optional, defaulted, or waivable by agreement with a commissioning party.
• A failed reproduction is published. Including the first one, and including one that would embarrass the project.
• No claim beyond the measurement. §7 of the method is not a style guide. A version that permits a reading to state whether a subject is conscious is a different project.

Conflicts

Every person with decision authority over a version publishes their conflicts. A conflict does not disqualify; concealment does.

Where a commissioning party to a reading also holds a relationship with a reviewer, that reviewer recuses from the version review covering that reading, and the recusal is recorded.

Disputes

A party who believes a reading is wrong recomputes it from its provenance record and opens an issue with the recomputation attached. The issue is public from the moment it is opened.

There is no private channel for disputing a reading. A party that prefers to dispute a finding privately is asking for something this standard does not offer.