How Clansurf works

The whole picture

The idea behind it

Clansurf is a place where people and local tech meet everyday human needs and problems.

It rests on one principle. Everyone should get the chance to contribute and help others, and to keep the credit for what they do. A lot of today’s platforms work the other way round: someone else lists and ranks the people doing the work, and they have no say.

Anything that helps people serve each other, do better and be productive can be part of Clansurf. That includes food, groceries, daily essentials, tailoring, carpentry and clothing. It also includes local compute and local AI.

What we mean by “local”

At first we thought of local as “nearby”: one street, about two hundred metres across. That’s still one kind of node, but it isn’t the only one.

Here’s an example. Someone in Norway runs their own server, or their own AI, and uses it to help someone in Mauritius. They’re thousands of kilometres apart, but it’s still local in the way we care about. They own the tech themselves. It isn’t rented from a big platform that can change the rules or switch it off.

So for us, local means owned by the people who use it. It doesn’t have to mean close by.

That gives us two kinds of node. A node is just a group of people working together inside Clansurf.

A place node. People who live near each other, like on one street, using radios they own. This is the kind the street use case and the paper describe.

A reach node. People connected by what they own and can offer, wherever they live, like the server in Norway helping someone in Mauritius.

The three kinds of people

Every node has three kinds of people in it.

Makers

People who make or provide what others need. The egg seller, the tailor, the carpenter, the person running a server. (We first called them "creators". "Makers" felt plainer.)

Supporters

People who use what makers offer, share it with others and help keep the node going.

Maintainers

People who make sure the node actually works, and that it stays true to the idea. In practice that means they:

• take part in research, writing down what works and what breaks and sharing it with the rest of the network;
• help makers join, set up and become easy to find;
• help supporters find makers and use what's on offer;
• notice when a decision drifts away from the shared principles, and say so;
• train the next maintainer, so the node never depends on one person.

Being a maintainer is also a way to learn. The bridge between makers and supporters is where you see how the whole thing fits together. Someone might start as a supporter, help out as an apprentice, and later become a maintainer.

Maintainers answer to their node. They serve for a set time, and the node can vote one out if it isn’t working.

The roles at a glance

Role	Who it is	What they do	How you become one	How it ends
Maker	Someone who makes or provides what others need.	Offers their work, goods or skills to the node.	You ask to join. One maker, one supporter and one maintainer say yes, and the members vote you in.	The same three roles can remove you. You can appeal.
Supporter	Someone who uses what makers offer.	Uses it, shares it with others and helps keep the node going.	The same way as a maker.	The same way as a maker.
Maintainer	Someone who helps the node work and keep to its principles.	Helps people join, keeps notes on what works, keeps the node to its principles and trains the next maintainer.	The same way as a maker. Many start as supporters and help out as apprentices first.	After a set term, or when the node votes you out.

How someone joins a node

We want joining to involve all three kinds of people, so no single group controls who gets in.

1. You ask to joinYou say whether you want to be a maker, a supporter or a maintainer.
2. Three people say yesAt least one maker, one supporter and one maintainer from the node approve.
3. The members voteEveryone already in the node gets a say.
4. Everyone else gets a chance to objectWe're thinking 7 days for now.
5. If nobody objects, you're in

Two extra rules keep it fair:

• The three people who approve you can’t be your relatives.
• A maker shouldn’t approve someone in their own trade. Otherwise the egg seller could keep out a second egg seller just to avoid competition.

To remove someone, the same three roles decide, and that person can appeal.

Each node is independent

Every node makes its own decisions: who joins, who leaves, its own rules and votes, what it offers and to whom. Nobody outside the node can overrule those decisions, and that includes Clansurf.

When a node goes quiet

A node is active when its record shows something offered, delivered or helped with, or a vote on who joins. Logins and messages don’t count, because they’re easy to fake.

When	What happens
After 60 days with no activity	The node's maintainers get a warning. The node has 30 days to show activity.
After 90 days	The node becomes dormant. Its record stays public but takes nothing new, and its place among the first 25 opens up for a new node.
Any time while dormant	One maker, one supporter and one maintainer from the node can wake it up, and the members vote it back.
After 12 months dormant	The node closes for good. Its record and everyone's credit stay public.

We delete nothing. A record nobody can quietly change, and credit people keep, both depend on that.

The same rule applies to people. Someone with no activity for 90 days becomes emeritus. They keep their credit, step back from voting and approving, and can come back when they’re active again.

This rule is part of the charter every node agrees to. The node’s own record shows when it applies, so nobody outside the node decides it.

The network as a whole

When there are many nodes, something has to keep the whole system alive. So all the nodes together will have a body, something like a board or a council. Its job is to:

• keep the founding principles (we call them the charter) that every node rests on, so nodes don’t drift off track;
• look after what all the nodes share: the tools, the research, the paper;
• look after the Clansurf name.

It does not make decisions for individual nodes. The only real power it has is this: if a node breaks the founding principles, it can’t keep calling itself Clansurf.

Here’s the split in one table:

	Each node	The network body
Who joins and who leaves	Decides	Has no say
Rules and votes	Makes its own	Keeps only the shared principles
Tools, research, the paper	Uses them and adds to them	Looks after them
The Clansurf name	Uses it, as long as it keeps to the principles	Looks after it

We haven’t decided who sits on that body or how it makes decisions. The founding principles aren’t written yet either. Both are on the open questions page.