Every published synthesis, independently timestamped
You should not have to trust us that a community document is what people actually said, or that it hasn't been changed since it was published. These checks work without our cooperation.
Each perspective gets a fingerprint
When an interview is saved, its anonymized extraction is hashed (SHA-256). The participant keeps that hash as a receipt.
Each version commits to its inputs
A synthesis version is published with the Merkle root over the fingerprints of exactly the perspectives it used. Change, add or remove one input and the root changes.
The root is timestamped outside our control
On publication we submit a small anchor file (issue, version, root) to the public OpenTimestamps calendars, which commit it into a Bitcoin block within hours. After that, neither we nor anyone else can backdate or quietly edit that version without the mismatch being detectable.
How to verify a version yourself
- Open the version's document page and note its Merkle root. Your browser recomputes that root from the published list of fingerprints.
- If you took part, paste your receipt: the site returns an inclusion proof, and your browser checks it against the root.
- Download the version's anchor file and .ots proof. Check that the anchor file contains the same root, then run
ots verify anchor-file.json(the OpenTimestamps client) or drop both files on opentimestamps.org. It reports the Bitcoin block that proves the file existed by that time.
What this proves: the published version existed, with exactly that set of inputs, no later than the block time. What it doesn't prove: that each input came from a distinct real person. That is handled separately, by signed interviews, rate limits and bot checks, and is described on the methodology page.
Anchored versions
No synthesis has been published yet. Versions appear here as soon as they are published.
Machine-readable: /api/provenance/log