The Contribution Specification

Every record moves through a fixed set of states. Only the transitions below exist; records are never hard-deleted, and every version is preserved in the permanent history.

Permitted transitions: Draft → Pending → Under review → Verified; Verified ↔ Disputed; and Verified or Disputed → Deprecated. Deprecation is Steward-only, and the successor record must already exist before it is applied.

Trust is earned through verified work, not purchased or claimed. Each level carries a vote weight used in verification arithmetic.

A record becomes Verified when the weighted Confirm total reaches 5, from at least three distinct contributors, at least one of whom is Contributor level or above. A Steward Confirm satisfies all three conditions at once.

Open does not mean unchecked. A small, verified catalog is more useful than a large, unreliable one.

Dispute votes require a written explanation. Abstaining is always available and never penalised — vote only on records you can evaluate against a reference.

Versions are immutable and append-only: every edit creates a new version, and prior versions are never overwritten. Core identifying fields — country, year, denomination — cannot be changed after assignment; a different stamp needs a new record. Major edits to a Verified record return it for re-verification; minor edits (typography, formatting, reference notes) do not.

Any contributor may dispute a Verified record by filing a factual challenge with a written explanation and, where possible, a reference. The record remains publicly visible while disputed, with the dispute displayed alongside it. Stewards resolve disputes by upholding the record, applying a correcting edit, or deprecating it in favour of a successor — each path recorded permanently in the audit log.