Collective Alters
A collective Alter is one identity held by two or more people. This page covers what a collective is, how one works, the two ways a group forms one, and what creating one will involve.
None of it is reachable yet. The rules below are decided. No surface carries them today, so every section says where it stands.
What a collective Alter is
Two or more ~alter identities hold one identity together. That shared identity is a collective Alter. It is addressed as one thing rather than as its members one at a time. What can be asked of a collective from outside it, and how it answers, is not settled.
A collective is one object, not a tier above a personal Alter. A personal Alter is the thing a collective is made from. Holding a place in a collective changes nothing about the personal Alter that holds it, and one person can sit in several collectives while staying one person across all of them.
Two is the floor. There is no collective of one. Settled·Not built
A registered business and a group of friends will form the same object here. Nothing heavier for organisations, nothing lighter for everybody else, and nothing to upgrade between. Settled·Not built
Forming is not the same as being recognised
Forming a collective gives a group a shared identity. It does not confer a status, a rank, or a badge of standing, and no group can declare itself recognised by forming. Recognition is something the record shows over time, never something a group awards itself at the moment it forms.
How a collective works
Three things decide how a collective behaves. How many of its members must agree before it can act, what a place in it actually holds, and what happens when somebody leaves.
The number who must agree Settled·Not built
Every collective carries a number. It is how many of its members must agree before the collective can act at all. The founders choose that number when the collective forms, and it starts out as all of them.
Nobody outside the group can change that number. It is not something ~Alter can set, and no support request changes it. ~Alter cannot act as the collective. Changing the number is the group’s to do and nobody else’s.
Changing the number takes the number. A collective that needs four of its six members to act needs four of its six members to agree that it should now need five.
One member never carries a collective on their own. Whatever the group chose, the collective only moves when that many of its members are behind it.
What a seat holds Settled·Not built
A collective is held in seats, and a seat is the durable thing. The seat holds who the member actually is. The ~handle shown against a seat is display, the way a name on a door is display.
A seat is tied to the person, not to the name shown against it. Your place in a collective is yours, and it stays yours whatever your handle does.
Leaving Settled·Not built
A member will always be able to leave their own seat. They will not need the group to agree and they will not need to meet the number, because leaving your own seat is yours to do and nobody else’s to permit.
Removing somebody else is a different act entirely, and that one does take the number. The group can part with a member, but only as the group.
When a member goes, the collective keeps working. It does not stall waiting on somebody who has left, and the people who remain do not have to renegotiate the terms they joined under to carry on.
The two ways one forms
Groups arrive at a shared identity from two different directions. Both produce the same object under the same rules, and the only real difference is the moment of forming. Settled·Not built
A group decides to exist and forms on purpose. A neighbourhood association that needs to hold a permit in its own name. A union branch that vouches for the tenure and certification of its own members. A professional body that answers for the standing of its member firms. These groups mean to outlast whatever they formed around.
A group forms around one thing and worries about the rest later. Three friends starting a podcast together, who two years on need the record of who actually did what. A band. A raid group that exists for one night. Nothing is scaled down for them and nothing is deferred.
These are not two products and not two tiers. The podcast trio and the professional body form the same object, carry the same number, and hold the same seats. What differs is how long the group expects to be using it.
How you create one Not built
You cannot, yet. Nothing on this page can be done from any surface today, and nobody has created one. This section is what the act will be, not something to try now.
What it will be
- Every founder takes part themselves, with their own identity, at the moment the collective forms.
- The founders set the number then, and it starts out as all of them.
- Anyone brought in afterwards is pending until they agree for themselves. Until then they hold nothing.
- Naming somebody never enrols them. Being listed by other people is not membership.
What it will not be
- An administrator creating the collective for you.
- A support request, an approval queue, or a waiting list.
- A DNS record. A domain is an optional claim a collective may make later, never the thing that brings one into being.
- A web form. A group with no domain, no company and no paperwork forms a collective the same way everybody else does.
Where each act stands today
Settled means the rule is decided. Not built means no surface carries it. Every act below is currently the second, and some are not settled either.
| Act | Rule | Reachable |
|---|---|---|
| Form a collective | Settled | No |
| Bring someone in, and their agreeing to join | Settled | No |
| Leave your own seat | Settled | No |
| Remove another member | Settled | No |
| Change how many members must agree | Settled | No |
| Read a collective from outside it | Not settled | No |
| A collective earning as one | Not settled | No |
Nothing on this page describes something a person can do today. When these acts become reachable, this page will say which surface carries them.