Participate

v0.1 DRAFT · 2026-07-30 · How the manual is discussed, extended and forked. The forum is not a feature attached to the manual; it is the constitution made concrete.

Voice and exit, built in

Albert Hirschman gave the two forces that keep any institution honest their lasting names: voice — argue, propose, dissent from inside — and exit, the standing ability to leave. The forum wires both into the artefact. Discussion is voice: every entry carries its thread, and the record of argument travels with the text. Forking is exit: the whole manual can be taken and continued under different editorship, openly and by right. Between them sits the commons both discipline — the pattern library itself.

Discuss

Each entry's thread is part of the entry. Read it before proposing: the strongest objections to a pattern usually live there first, and a thread that has already litigated your point will save you a proposal. Threads are public and attributable, and the standing rules of the constitution apply — argue the pattern, not the person; name risks rather than scoring purity.

Propose

Anything in the manual amends by proposal: a fix to an implementation, a new pattern, a challenge to doctrine. A proposal is a pull request against the public repository, so that proposal, objection and revision are all on the record. The editor accepts, declines or returns with reasons; declined proposals stay visible, and contested rejections carry their dissent. Accepted work earns a named credit on the entry — co-authorship in this manual is a record of accepted contributions, not a title conferred in private.

Earn

Some gaps carry bounties: escrowed rewards for a drafted entry, a verified implementation, or a conformance test, paid through the financing chapter's conviction-market mechanics and accepted through the same public process as any proposal. The bounty ledger is public. The first pilot — constitutional-element entries developed with Primavera De Filippi and her students — is documented in the financing chapter as it runs.

Fork

If you conclude the editorship has failed the patterns, take the manual and continue it. The licence permits it, the history enables it, and the constitution names it as the remedy of last resort — the priced exit that keeps the editor honest. A fork that outbuilds the original is not a tragedy for the forum; it is the test suite passing at the largest scale.

Status

The forum launches with the manual's v1: entry threads and the proposal process open when the public repository does. Until then, this draft circulates for review through the same channel as the book — read, annotate, and your comments will shape the opening release.