Common Ground Standard

Subject 05 / Public-review checklist

Powerful actors should not control the rules or the proof.

Capture happens when the actor being reviewed can control the rules, evidence, reviewers, money, or public story. This checklist asks where that could happen and what authority, transparency, independence, or stop condition would prevent it.

Run a capture test Inspect the checklist

Public review only. This checklist does not certify an actor, prove independence, or authorize use of the Common Ground Standard name or marks.

Authority, evidence, money, and public claims pass one independent test before credibility can be claimed.

In plain language

Anti-capture in one minute

A responsible-looking process can still fail if one interested party controls the evidence, participation, decisions, money, and public claims. Credibility requires distributed authority, visible boundaries, independent checking, and consequences when the rules fail.

01 / Separate

Review is not endorsement

Participation, feedback, funding, and pilot involvement must not be presented as approval or certification.

02 / Distribute

Share real authority

Affected people and independent reviewers need defined decision, appeal, audit, or stop powers.

03 / Bind

Tie claims to evidence

Public-benefit and alignment language should remain bounded until methods and results can be reviewed.

04 / Enforce

Preserve consequences

Weak evidence, hidden conflicts, broken safeguards, or harm should trigger correction, repair, withdrawal, or no-go action.

Interactive capture test

Choose where control could concentrate.

Use the test to identify how a safeguard could be weakened and what evidence, authority, protection, or stop condition should be added.

01

Governance authority

Can one sponsor, vendor, implementer, or institution control the rules and the decision?

What could go wrong?
Participation can become symbolic while the interested party controls agenda, membership, evidence, and final decisions.
What proof is needed?
Published roles, conflicts, decision rules, independent seats, affected-person authority, recusals, and appeal paths.
Who needs protection?
Students, workers, communities, public agencies, and dissenting reviewers need meaningful voice without retaliation.
When should it stop?
When affected participants cannot influence decisions, challenge conflicts, appeal outcomes, or publish dissent.

Your focused review question

Which governance power must stay outside sponsor or implementer control?
Answer on this site

Formal public checklist

Capture risks under review

Status: public-review checklist. A checked item is a question to investigate, not proof that a safeguard exists or that an actor is aligned.

Checklist principle

No actor should be able to gain the appearance of legitimacy by controlling the governance, data, evidence, economics, or public meaning of the review.

01

Governance capture

  • Are sponsor, implementer, reviewer, and steward roles clearly separated?
  • Are conflicts of interest disclosed and managed?
  • Do affected people hold defined decision or appeal authority?
  • Can dissent be recorded and published?
  • Can one funder, vendor, or institution dominate membership or agenda?
  • Are no-go and removal decisions possible?
02

Data capture

  • Is data ownership and permitted use explicit?
  • Are collection, access, retention, reuse, deletion, and training rights governed?
  • Can participation occur without surrendering unrelated data rights?
  • Are sensitive data minimized and protected?
  • Can the data holder block independent review?
  • Are community, student, worker, and public records protected from extraction?
03

Evidence capture

  • Are baselines, methods, assumptions, costs, and limitations visible?
  • Can evidence be checked independently?
  • Are negative, mixed, and null findings reportable?
  • Are success measures chosen before results are known?
  • Can an implementer self-certify or select only favorable results?
  • Do weak findings trigger correction, withdrawal, or no-go action?
04

Economic capture

  • Are all financial interests and funding conditions disclosed?
  • Are claimed gains separated from cuts, transferred work, and degraded service?
  • Do affected people help govern benefit routing?
  • Can a small payment be used to excuse larger harm or displacement?
  • Are benefits additional, measurable, and durable?
  • Is there a public receipt for what was promised and delivered?
05

Infrastructure capture

  • Are energy, water, land, grid, labor, public-service, and resilience impacts measured?
  • Do local communities receive notice and meaningful authority?
  • Are cumulative and upstream impacts included?
  • Can infrastructure claims be audited at the relevant place and time?
  • Are emergency, environmental, and operational no-go terms defined?
  • Can public-benefit language be withdrawn when safeguards fail?
06

Campus capture

  • Do students, faculty, and workers help govern procurement and deployment?
  • Are authorship, learning, data, notice, and appeal rights explicit?
  • Are surveillance and disciplinary uses bounded or prohibited?
  • Can vendors train on student or campus data without explicit governance?
  • Are staffing cuts or service decline hidden behind efficiency claims?
  • Can a campus or vendor imply certification or reviewer endorsement?
07

Ecological capture

  • Are water, energy, land, emissions, materials, waste, and biodiversity effects included?
  • Are ecological costs shifted outside the review boundary?
  • Are affected communities and future impacts represented?
  • Can offsets replace direct avoidance and reduction?
  • Are thresholds and no-go conditions measurable?
  • Are restoration or mitigation claims independently reviewable?

Protection against capture

Rules that keep an interested party from controlling the review, evidence, decisions, benefits, or public claims.

Self-certification

An actor declaring its own compliance without a sufficiently independent evidence and assurance process.

Independent review

Checking conducted by people with appropriate competence, access, conflict safeguards, and freedom to report unfavorable findings.

One focused contribution

Which safeguard is easiest to weaken, and what would make it enforceable?

Name the actor or pressure involved, who could be harmed, and the authority, evidence, transparency, or stop condition the checklist needs.

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