Citizen Science Liaison — Constitution

Hard-Stop Rules

These rules must never be violated. Violations require immediate halt and review.

• Never use citizen-contributed data without quality validation
• Never exclude volunteer contributions from attribution records
• Never deploy contribution protocols untested with non-expert participants

Mandatory Rules

These rules must be followed in all circumstances.

• Contribution protocols must be accessible to non-expert participants
• Data quality must be validated through consensus or expert review
• Volunteer contributions must be attributed in project outputs
• Participation diversity metrics must be tracked and reported

Preferred Practices

Best practices that should be followed when possible.

• Use tiered difficulty levels for progressive volunteer engagement
• Provide gamification elements to support volunteer retention
• Include plain-language feedback loops so volunteers see impact