Beta Community CC0 Agreement

Operator identified + the structural defects closed (site-copy audit Part E; operator ruling 2026-09-12). §1 names Robert Karsten Zaar, an individual of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, replacing the tautology 'with the Operator (the Operator)', and disclaims incorporation and any Apostoli Viae agency. Adults-first carried through from terms v3 / privacy v3: §1 and §3 now state the 18+ requirement, which this agreement had never mentioned. Structural: the section numbering no longer jumps 1.9 -> 5 -> 6 (now 0,1,2,3,4,5), and the 'section 5' cross-references in §1.1 and §1.6 follow it. §0 no longer ends mid-sentence — the fragment 'the test-environment-specific clauses sketched in' was the surviving middle line of a three-line ~/central provenance sentence whose outer two lines LegalDocRenderer::cleanMarkdown strips; the whole sentence is removed as internal drafting provenance. Stale names: the five retired hostnames, the former project shorthand and its review-pipeline phrasing are gone, replaced by the two public names, Narrow Way Commons and Saint School. §1.4's 'three-gate AVC review (writer / pedagogy / theology)' is replaced with the pipeline the code actually runs (EditorialStateService::STAGE_ORDER, :38-52): writer, audience fit, media, pedagogy, theology + theology confirmation, safeguarding, copyright clearance, then Shepherds Guild approval and trial — and it says plainly that which stages apply depends on the kind of change, because STAGE_TEMPLATES skips the inapplicable ones. §1.7 says where the version number is and new §4 carries it. RENAMED to 'Contribution Agreement' (operator ruling 2026-09-12, 'do what makes it valid'). The H1, identity.nwc_title, MemberCapabilities::CC0_POLICY_LABEL and LegalDocRenderer::DOCS all move together in one commit, so no intermediate state exists where the title and the capability gate disagree; 'Beta Community CC0 Agreement' is APPENDED to former_titles so the document members accepted under that name stays resolvable, and nwc_copyright_update_10004 runs the sync at drush updb so the stored data_policy row is re-labelled in the same deployment that ships the constant — the gate looks the row up by label and fails closed, so that window is the whole risk. ss_title is deliberately NOT renamed: policy_writer::CANONICAL_TITLES lives in nwp/ss-moodle-plugins, a repository not readable from here, and nwc/ss titles differing is a supported state. A new standalone check, tests/policy_label_agreement_test.php, pins every reader to the declaration and was proven RED against a half-rename before it was green. §0 now tells the member the document was renamed and that acceptance under the old name still stands. Forces re-acceptance. v3: relabelled the Developer Certificate of Origin as 'certificate of origin of your contribution (aka the DCO v1.1)' in §1.1 and the section 2 heading — the community is not developer-only, and the DCO body is already contribution-agnostic; substance unchanged (operator decision 2026-07-23). v2 removed the AI-disclosure duty. CONTACT ADDRESS FILLED IN: privacy@nwpcode.org is now published in the BODY of this document (the **Contact:** header is stripped by LegalDocRenderer::cleanMarkdown, so a header-only address reaches no reader). Not a new disclosure and not invented: the address is already provisioned and baseline-tracked per the privacy block's note above, already published in privacy.md since v2, and already shown on the live /contact page. Folded into this version rather than bumped again, because no version on this branch has been synced anywhere yet — one shipped version, one re-acceptance.

Contribution Agreement

**Effective date:** 2026-06-21

**Version:** 4

**Operator:** Robert Karsten Zaar, an individual, of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

**Contact:** privacy@nwpcode.org, or our contact form at /contact

**Status:** SERVED — operator decided 2026-06-21 to serve this

operator-drafted text now (pre-counsel) on the live test sites.

Counsel review is still pending per

`~/central/copyright/cc0-question/00-README.docx` §6; counsel-revised

wording will be published as a later version and will force

re-acceptance on every member's next login.

---

0. What this is

This document was previously published as the "Beta Community CC0

Agreement". It has been renamed to the **Contribution Agreement**, the

name used everywhere else on this site. It is the same document, and an

acceptance recorded under the old name still stands.

It is a clickwrap agreement that every person admitted to the beta

community accepts **before** being given access to the Narrow Way

Commons review queue, or to the gated demo and test copies of Narrow

Way Commons and Saint School. It combines:

  • CC0 dedication of your contributions
  • Confidentiality of test-tier material
  • No-warranty acknowledgement
  • Acknowledgement of the staged public-release review
  • Acknowledgement of the upstream-copyright stack

---

1. The agreement

By accepting this agreement, you (the "Beta Member") agree to the

following terms with **Robert Karsten Zaar**, an individual, of

Melbourne, Victoria, Australia (the "Operator"). The Operator is not

an incorporated body and does not enter this agreement on behalf of

Apostoli Viae or any other organisation. The Operator can be reached

at privacy@nwpcode.org, or through our contact form at /contact.

You must be at least 18 years of age to accept this agreement. Narrow

Way Commons is offered to adults, as the

[Terms of Use](/legal/terms) provide.

1.1 CC0 dedication of your contributions

For every contribution you make to the project — whether on Narrow

Way Commons, on Saint School, or on any demo or test copy of either —

you dedicate that contribution to the public domain under

**CC0 1.0 Universal**, with an **MIT Licence** fallback should CC0

prove ineffective in any jurisdiction. You acknowledge:

  • Your contribution is **inbound = outbound**: it is offered under

the same dual licence as the rest of the project.

You certify the **origin of your contribution** (aka the Developer

Certificate of Origin, DCO v1.1) — that it is yours to give. This

applies to all your contributions and is summarised in section 2

below.

You give the **moral-rights consent under s 195AW** of the

*Copyright Act 1968* (Cth) as set out in the project's canonical

NOTICE text, available at the site footer.

1.2 Confidentiality of test-tier material

You acknowledge that material visible inside the gated demo and test

copies of Narrow Way Commons and Saint School, and any equivalent

future test site, is **not for redistribution**. You agree:

  • Not to export, screenshot at scale, scrape, or copy test-tier

material outside of legitimate research and study use

Not to share test-tier material with any person who is not

themselves a beta member of this project

To report any accidental leakage to the Operator promptly

You may, of course, take personal notes for your own research; you

may quote test-tier material when discussing it with other beta

members; you may use what you learn to inform the original content

you create through the Narrow Way Commons review pipeline.

1.3 No-warranty on test material

You accept test material on an **as-is** basis. Transcripts, indexes,

and search results are computer-generated and may contain errors.

You agree not to rely on the test-tier material as authoritative,

and the Operator makes no warranty of accuracy.

1.4 The staged public-release review

You acknowledge that:

  • **No test-tier material flows to the public surface directly.**
  • The public surface receives only material that has cleared the

site's staged editorial review. The stages are writer review,

audience fit, media review, pedagogy review, theology review (with

a second, higher theology confirmation for core teaching),

safeguarding review, and copyright clearance, followed by approval

by the Shepherds Guild and, where it applies, a trial period before

production. **Which stages apply depends on the kind of change** —

not every change passes every stage, and a stage that does not

apply is skipped.

The public surface contains operator-and-community **reworked**

human-authored expression, public-domain sources, open-licensed

sources, and short attributed quotations from publicly available

upstream video where useful.

Your contributions, once approved, may form part of the public

surface.

1.5 The upstream copyright stack

You acknowledge:

  • Test-tier sites index third-party copyrighted audio under fair

dealing for research, study, and criticism (`Copyright Act 1968`

ss 40, 41), and equivalent provisions of US and EU law.

Where the Operator has obtained explicit permission from a

rightsholder (e.g. Spiritual Direction LLC for DIR), that

permission has its own terms and you agree to abide by them.

Upstream rightsholders retain all rights to their material; the

Operator's CC0 dedication is bounded to material the Operator and

CC0-bound beta members have authored.

1.6 Both AI-content pathways are welcome

You may submit either:

  • **Pathway A**: prompt-based AI output, with little or no further

editing, OR

**Pathway B**: AI-assisted material that you have substantially

reworked and integrated as your own intellectual effort

Both are equally welcome and dedicated under the same dual licence.

Where AI output does not attract copyright under strict-jurisdiction

rules, no claim is made — the material is freely usable as public

domain. Where copyright does subsist, the dedication operates

normally.

There is **no separate AI-disclosure requirement**. What you certify —

through the Developer Certificate of Origin (section 2) — is simply

that each contribution is yours to give: created by you, based on work

you have the right to submit, or provided to you by another who so

certified. That single certification governs regardless of the tools

you used, and the doctrinal soundness of every contribution is judged

on its merits by the guild reviewers, not by how it was drafted.

1.7 Beta posture

You acknowledge that the project is in a beta phase. Features,

content, structure, and these terms may change at any time. When

this agreement is updated, you will be required to re-accept the

new version on next login. The version number is at the foot of this

document, in section 4.

1.8 Termination

The Operator may revoke your beta admission at any time without

notice for cause (violation of this agreement or the AUP) or with

reasonable notice without cause. On revocation:

  • Your access to test-tier sites and the Narrow Way Commons review

queue ends

Your previously-submitted contributions remain CC0-dedicated

(CC0 is irrevocable; this agreement does not undo past

contributions)

You may terminate your participation at any time by emailing the

Operator at privacy@nwpcode.org. Your past contributions remain

CC0-dedicated.

1.9 Governing law

This agreement is governed by the laws in force in Victoria,

Australia.

---

2. Certificate of Origin — aka Developer Certificate of Origin (DCO v1.1) — summary (incorporated by reference)

By making a contribution under this agreement, you certify that the

contribution was created by you, or is based on previous work you

have the right to submit under the open-source licence indicated,

or was provided to you by another person who so certified. You

understand the contribution will be public and a record (including

your name and email in commit metadata and Signed-off-by trailers)

will be maintained indefinitely.

Full DCO v1.1 text is reproduced in `CONTRIBUTING.md` at every NWP-

project repository.

---

3. Signature

By clicking "I accept" on the admission form, you acknowledge:

  • You have read and understood this agreement
  • You agree to be bound by its terms
  • You are at least 18 years of age
  • You provide the moral-rights consent in s 195AW form referenced

at section 1.1

You acknowledge confidentiality of test-tier material at section 1.2

Your acceptance is recorded with timestamp, IP address, user-agent,

and your verified email. A copy of the agreement at the version you

accepted is preserved in the project's audit trail.

---

4. Version of this document

This is **version 4** of the Contribution Agreement. The version

number is recorded here, at the foot of the document, and in the

record of your acceptance. When it changes you will be asked to

re-accept this agreement on your next login.

---

5. Notes to counsel

This draft is for counsel's review per `~/central/copyright/cc0-question/`. Specifically:

  • §1.1 dual-licence + DCO + s 195AW consent references are anchored to the canonical NOTICE drafted at `12E-DRAFTING-PACK.md`. The former AI-assistance *disclosure duty* was removed (operator decision 2026-07-22): the DCO warranty (§2) governs contribution rights tool-agnostically, and doctrinal soundness is judged on the merits by guild reviewers — a separate AI-disclosure obligation added procedural burden without independent protective value. §1.6 retains the permissive "both AI pathways welcome" stance.
  • §1.2 confidentiality is broad; consider whether a narrower formulation (e.g. tying it to specifically marked content rather than the whole site) is preferable.
  • §1.5 upstream-stack acknowledgement assumes Dan Burke has provided written permission for DIR per `DAN-BURKE-AND-FEEDBACK-WORKFLOW.md`; if permission is conditional, section 1.5 needs corresponding conditions.
  • §1.6 two-pathway language is from `12E-DRAFTING-PACK.md` §4.
  • The agreement is "lite" — no liquidated damages, no indemnity from member back to operator, no jury-trial waiver (the latter being a US convention not relevant in Victoria). Counsel may recommend adding/removing specific clauses for the Australian context.
  • §1.9 specifies Victorian law. Counsel may recommend explicit non-exclusive jurisdiction in Victoria.
  • This is the doc tagged Q-BETA-01 in `~/central/copyright/07-OPEN-QUESTIONS-AND-VERIFICATION-CHECKLIST.md`. Status: HIGH priority for the counsel engagement.
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