The promise behind the badge
The pledge
Every badge is backed by this pledge. It is a personal promise, and not a terms-of-service document. It is written by two named people for now — Tihomir Ilic and Chris Joubert — and every certificate says which of us signed it.
What we promise about every verified person
- One of us watched the work happen. Before any badge is issued, they meet one of us. They share their screen and work in front of us — layers in the art file, the project timeline, the source code, the clay on the wheel, music recording. It is not a finished file handed over; they are showing rather the making of.
- No generative AI is used in the finished work. The maker declares it, and we check as far as we honestly can. Reference and research tools are their own business and 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 and the name of the witness, signed with one key. We cannot quietly edit or backdate it afterwards and neither can anyone else.
- The badge is never for sale for individual artists. 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- Broken trust is withdrawn in public.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verified here is found passing off machine-made work as their own, we withdraw the verification and publish it at the withdrawn list, with the reason and the date. That list is signed even when it is empty, so you can tell the difference between "nothing withdrawn" and "the page is missing".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 our testimony impossible to alter without detection. What the badge is worth rests on our reputations as witnesses, and on nothing else.
What we stake on this
Our names, and this project. If the pledge is ever broken by any of us for example a paid badge, a quiet withdrawal or a verification one of us did not actually perform, then this whole thing deserves to fail, and it will.
— Tihomir and Chris Joubert, witnesses · first published 11 Aug 2026 · revised 9 Sep 2026 to name us both (the first version, unedited)