The promise behind the badge
The pledge
This is the pledge as it was first published, on 11 August 2026, when Aletheia was one person. It was revised on 9 September 2026, when Chris Joubert joined and the promise became one made by two named people. The promise itself did not change; who makes it did. The current pledge is here. The words of the pledge below are exactly as first published, so that you can see what changed.
Every badge here is backed by this pledge. It is a personal guarantee, not a terms-of-service document, and it is written in the first person because one person is accountable for it.
What I promise about every verified person
- I watched the work happen. Before any badge is issued, we meet on a live call. They share their screen and work in front of me — layers in the art file, the project timeline, the source code, the clay on the wheel. Not a finished file handed over. The making.
- No generative AI in the finished work. The maker declares it, and I check as far as I honestly can. Reference and research tools are their own business; the work itself is theirs.
- The record is permanent. Each verification produces a dated, plain-text certificate carrying the SHA-256 hash of the work, signed with one key. I cannot quietly edit or backdate it afterwards — and neither can anyone else.
- The badge is never for sale. Verification is free and cannot be bought. There is no fee that gets you a badge, and no fee that gets you a faster or friendlier look.
- Broken trust is withdrawn in public. If someone verified here is found passing off machine-made work as their own, I withdraw the verification and publish it at the withdrawn list, with the reason and the date. That list is signed even when it is empty, so you can tell the difference between "nothing withdrawn" and "the page is missing".
What the badge does not mean
- It is not a judgment of quality, originality, or taste. It answers one question: did a person make this?
- It does not cover work that was not verified. Each certificate names the one specific file it applies to.
- It is not automated. No detection algorithm decides anything here. A person does, and that person signs their name to it.
- It is not proof. Cryptography cannot demonstrate that a human made something. It can only make my testimony impossible to alter without detection. What the badge is worth rests on my reputation as a witness, and on nothing else.
What I stake on this
My name, and this project. If the pledge is ever broken by me — a paid badge, a quiet withdrawal, a verification I did not actually perform — then this whole thing deserves to fail, and it will.
— Tihomir, verifier · first published 11 Aug 2026