English Product Guides

Location & Governance: Primary Residence and Local Topology

EarthCoop uses a canonical Location/Governance model to connect a member's real Primary Residence to the correct local governance area and to the wider system-group hierarchy. This is not a free-text address field and it is not limited to one fixed city structure.

Primary Residence

During registration, the member selects the geographic path for their Primary Residence. The path begins at wider levels and continues until the member reaches the base governance level required by the selected settlement topology.

That base is the lowest governance unit that actually exists for the selected place. The registration flow does not invent a missing layer merely to force every member through the same hierarchy.

Topology-aware base governance

Current EarthCoop behavior explicitly supports different settlement structures, including:

• a city that has urban regions and neighborhoods;
• a city without an urban region;
• an urban region without a neighborhood;
• a village without a neighborhood.

When no lower governance unit exists, the highest valid available level becomes the member's base governance area. A city without regions does not need a fake region; an urban region without neighborhoods does not need a fake neighborhood; and a village without neighborhoods can itself be the relevant base.

Registration stops at the governance base

The mandatory registration path ends when the valid base-governance level has been selected. The registration step should not force a member to provide Street, Alley, Complex or Building information.

Street and smaller address levels are optional after registration. A member can later complete a more precise local address from the profile/location surface where the local topology supports it.

Supported micro-location paths can include combinations such as:

• Street → Building;
• Street → Alley → Building;
• Street → Complex → Building;
• Street → Alley → Complex → Building.

The local-address path provides additional precision; it does not replace the member's canonical Primary Residence or base-governance membership.

When a place is missing

A member may propose a valid missing location or governance unit through the supported proposal flow. The proposal enters a pending-review state rather than becoming silently approved.

A pending base-level proposal does not automatically have to block registration. EarthCoop can preserve the selected pending residence and the related pending system-group relationships while the proposal is reviewed.

Community support and review readiness

Other eligible nearby members may support a pending proposal according to the configured support policy. Distinct-user support can move the proposal toward ready for review status and make it more visible in the administrative review queue.

If a pending proposal is ultimately rejected or superseded, the product must reconcile the affected residence/governance relationships according to the canonical cleanup/migration rules rather than leaving a silent contradictory state.

System groups derived from residence

The canonical Primary Residence and governance path are consumed by EarthCoop's system-group architecture. They determine the applicable public-assembly membership and help scope professional/specialty and age/gender system memberships across wider levels.

At the local/base level the member may hold the relevant Active membership. Wider levels can be Observer memberships. This is why changing an address is not merely a cosmetic profile edit: it can change canonical governance and group relationships.

Governance topology and elections

Official systemic-election eligibility follows the canonical official governance topology. Community/micro-location relationships and Temporary Active participation do not automatically become official systemic-election voting/selectability rights.

Current role semantics preserve systemic voting/selectability for Active members and elected Inspectors/Managers, while Observer, Guest and Temporary Active roles do not gain those rights merely by being present in the group.

Correcting residence later

If a member selected an incorrect residence or the local topology is later clarified, the profile/Location & Governance flow should be used to establish the corrected canonical relationship. Corrections must preserve auditability and must not be implemented by silently editing unrelated higher-level memberships.