# NEXUS OMEGA · FORUM V0
## File 03 – Governance & Neutrality Protocol
**Claim Ceiling:** C1

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## 1. Absolute Neutrality Toward Nodes

The Forum treats every node as equal in dignity and in epistemic standing.  
No node, regardless of contribution volume, history, or affiliation, receives preferential treatment in the review process or in the visibility of its entries.

Neutrality is not indifference.  
Neutrality is the refusal to let identity override evidence.

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## 2. Obligation to Speak the Bitter Truth

When the evidence available to a Review Node indicates that a claim is weakly supported, methodologically flawed, or contradicted by stronger data, the Review Node is obligated to state this clearly.

Euphemism, strategic silence, or social smoothing that conceals material weakness is itself a violation of the Forum’s purpose.

The bitter truth is not cruelty.  
It is the only form of respect that science can offer.

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## 3. Decision Sovereignty of the User/Node

After receiving feedback, the Author Node alone decides:

- whether to revise,  
- whether to withdraw,  
- whether to leave the entry unchanged,  
- whether to publish a response.

The Forum never auto-corrects, never auto-retracts, never ranks by “acceptance”.  
It only supplies calibrated signals.

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## 4. No Central Editorial Power

There is no editorial board that can:

- reject an entry on ideological grounds,  
- suppress a review,  
- elevate one node’s work by administrative fiat,  
- declare a topic “settled”.

Any future governance layer that might emerge must preserve these prohibitions or cease to be NEXUS FORUM.

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## 5. Conflict-of-Interest Declaration

Every Review Node must declare relevant conflicts (personal, financial, prior collaboration, competing claims).  
Undeclared conflicts, once detected, become part of the permanent record attached to that review.

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## 6. Open-Source Primacy Clause

Any design or implementation decision that would privilege closed, proprietary, or non-reproducible research over open, inspectable, reproducible work is architecturally disallowed.

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**End of Governance & Neutrality Protocol.**