Disputes
A payment can be contested while it is confirmed but not yet settled. This page explains what happens next, so organizers can explain it to members and then stay out of the way. The jury is designed to work without anyone running it.
Raising a dispute
Either party to a confirmed payment can contest it during its settlement window, from the app or the command line. Contesting freezes settlement of that one payment; nothing else is affected. The disputer writes a short reason and may attach a fingerprint of evidence held elsewhere.
The other party may file a response. Neither is required to.
The jury
The software draws three jurors by lot from the established members, weighted by standing, excluding the parties. The draw is deterministic from the history, so anyone can verify that the panel is the one the rules produce and not one somebody picked.
Jurors are notified in the app. Each casts a verdict: uphold the dispute (the payment is voided) or reject it (the payment stands). Majority rules.
Every path fails open
There is a bounded window for the jury to rule. If it closes without a majority, the dispute lapses and the confirmed payment stands. Nobody can stall a payment forever by contesting it, and nobody can block a ruling by refusing to serve. The default outcome is always the status quo.
What an upheld dispute does
- The pending transfer is voided. Balances do not move.
- The member who confirmed the payment takes a hit to their standing. This is the point of the settlement window and the reason confirming is a serious act: it is where the “we both say this trade happened” claim gets tested.
Escalation and appeal
Two paths lead from the jury to the whole electorate, both optional:
- Escalation, when a panel cannot be seated (too few eligible members, for instance). A party asks the electorate to decide directly.
- Appeal, when a party disagrees with the jury’s ruling. It suspends enactment of the ruling while the electorate votes.
Both use the same bounded windows and fail open the same way.
Equivocation cases
One kind of case is opened by the station rather than a member: provable equivocation, when two conflicting records signed by the same member reach the station, for instance a headroom certificate spent twice offline. The member’s standing drops to nothing immediately, and a jury case opens with the evidence attached. These cases default to lapsing if the jury does not act, like every other.
What organizers should do
- Explain the window. Most bad outcomes are a member who noticed a problem after settlement, when it was final.
- Do not lobby jurors. The whole design is that the panel is random and the reasoning is theirs.
- Read the rulings. Precedent is how a community learns what its own rules mean.