A.4 Verification, Escalation, and Policy

Consensus Threshold

The acceptance rule for a contribution (e.g., number/proportion of validators required to approve), including any escalation rules under disagreement.

Audit

An escalation step where an expanded quorum reviews a contribution due to disagreement, value/risk tier, anomalies, or dispute triggers.

Dispute

A formal challenge to an acceptance/rejection outcome, triggering additional review or arbitration under protocol rules.

Arbitration (Optional)

A higher-level review process (expanded quorum or designated pool) that resolves disputes and may trigger enforcement actions (e.g., slashing or requester penalties) under protocol rules.

Assistance Policy

Campaign-declared policy governing AI/tool assistance: allowed , disallowed , or allowed-with-disclosure , with enforcement and audit behavior defined by the tier/configuration.

Quality Tier

A predefined verification configuration (validator quorum, audit behavior, dispute options, privacy mode) that defines verification strength vs cost.

Benchmark Campaign

A controlled campaign designed to measure tier performance under defined conditions (e.g., calibration/gold tasks, duplication stress tests, latency/finality measurement).

Tier Targets

Governance-defined objective thresholds for bounded-risk metrics per tier, used for reporting and tuning rather than guarantees.