Glossary
Every term in one place—the shared vocabulary that lets organizers and builders talk to each other without translation.
The bridge between the two halves of this Help Center is a shared vocabulary. Here it is, plain.
Core structure
Orbit—The atom of RORBT: 3–25 people who share a grievance and a shift. Self-governing, small by design, splits before it can calcify. See What Is an Orbit.
Constellation—A network of Orbits that federate as peers, linked by mandated delegates. A star map, not a pyramid.
Assembly—The gathering where delegates from multiple Orbits coordinate. Holds no standing power of its own; delegates carry written, recallable mandates.
Split—When an Orbit passes 25 members, it divides into two sovereign Orbits rather than building a hierarchy. “Cells, not an empire.”
Roles
Facilitator—Runs meetings and keeps time; does not decide.
Logkeeper—Records every decision in the transparency log. (Older organizing calls this role the Scribe—same job.)
Treasurer (optional)—Only Orbits that handle money appoint one; spending runs under a two-signature rule. Not one of the standing rotating roles.
Sentinel—Guards the Orbit’s trust boundary in both directions: screens newcomers for flattery and fishing (inward), and is the mandated outward face who vouches and maps relationships. (Absorbs the role once called Anchor.) See Vouching & Trust.
Delegate—A member mandated to speak for their Orbit at an Assembly, on specific questions, recallable at any time.
Governance
Rotation—Roles change hands every 30 days, including the founder’s, so power tracks the work, not the person. See Roles & Rotation.
Recall—Removal of any role-holder by simple majority on 48 hours’ notice, no cause required.
Mandate—The specific, written, revocable instruction a delegate carries.
Two-signature rule—No money moves without two role-holders signing off, logged with amounts.
Governance kernel—The whole rule set on a single page: rotate, log, two-sign, recall, mandate. The actual product; the app just runs it.
Privacy & integrity
Deaf server / relay—The design target: a message router that knows nothing but hashes—no names, no readable guest list. The hosted MVP isn’t there yet (metadata is cleartext; see Encryption at rest). See The Deaf Server.
Hash—A salted, one-way identifier that stands in for a person so the system can route to them without knowing who they are.
Transparency log—The append-only, hash-chained record of an Orbit’s decisions, handoffs, and spending. See Append-Only Logs.
Hash chain—Linking each log entry to the hash of the one before it, so any tampering with history is detectable. Not a blockchain—no token, no miners.
Checkpoint—A signed snapshot of the log’s latest state that members keep, so a rewritten or forked history can be caught later.
Metadata—The data about communication (who, when, how often, where) as opposed to its contents. Often more revealing than the message itself, and the thing the deaf server is built to deny.
End-to-end encryption (E2E)—Contents encrypted so only sender and recipient can read them; the relay carries sealed envelopes it cannot open. The destination, not the current state—RORBT messaging is not E2E yet (see Encryption at rest).
Encryption at rest—How messages are protected today: contents are encrypted under a per-Orbit key, but the server holds that key and can decrypt to deliver. “Trusted but restrained,” not blind, not end-to-end. See The Deaf Server.
Movement
Vouching—How new people join: an existing member personally stakes their standing on them.
Read-only window—The 30-day probation a new member spends watching and learning before holding roles.
Fishing—Bad-faith collection of names, locations, and plans; one of the two behaviors the sentinel watches for (the other is flattery).