Glossary

Active ballot - Your current vote in a MetaPoll, cryptographically signed with a timestamp. When you submit a new ballot, it replaces your previous one as the active ballot.

Active Voter Signal - The processed version of your active ballot that gets counted in the final tally. Each account can only have one active signal at a time.

Aggregated Voter Signal (AGS) - The final ranked results of a MetaPoll, calculated by combining all active voter signals and recording them permanently in the next Snapshot.

Anti-Sybil - Protection against fake accounts or spam attacks. Essential for ensuring one person can't create thousands of accounts to manipulate voting results.

Arweave - A permanent storage network that uses a "blockweave" structure. Think of it as the internet's permanent hard drive where data can never be deleted.

Blockchain - A shared ledger maintained by thousands of computers that lets strangers agree on facts without trusting each other—imagine having thousands of notaries all keeping identical, tamper-proof records.

Blockweave - Arweave's innovation that links each new block to both the previous block AND a random historical block, creating a web pattern that ensures miners must store old data to participate.

Certificate - A voting token that exists outside the blockchain, typically stored in traditional databases. These represent voting rights without requiring on-chain transactions.

Child Option - An option nested inside another option within the MDCT structure, creating hierarchical choices.

Collective - Any group of people, accounts, or agents who participate in a MetaPoll. Similar to a DAO but broader in scope.

Counted Votes - Your actual voting power after applying decay. If you have 100 eligible votes but 20% decay, your counted votes are 80.

DAO - A Decentralized Autonomous Organization where members vote on how to use shared funds. In MetaPoll, DAOs can create their own voting groups.

Decision Output Types (DOT) - The two ways MetaPoll results are used: Enforceable (automatically executed) or Informational (guides human action).

Decay period - The time it takes for your voting power to drop by half. After 5 complete periods, your ballot becomes inactive.

Decision Space - All possible choices minus illegal moves and unseen options. Structured as D dimensions × S sub-options per dimension.

Eligible Token or Certificate - Any token or certificate recognized as valid for voting in a specific MetaPoll.

Eligible Votes - Your maximum voting power based on token holdings. If you hold 20 tokens worth 4 votes each, you have 80 eligible votes.

Expresser - The person who submits their preferences to a MetaPoll—essentially, the voter.

Group - A web2 structure containing members who vote on related MetaPolls. Similar to Collectives and DAOs but more general.

Inactive ballot - A previously active ballot that's been replaced by a newer submission or has decayed beyond 2,000 days.

Invalid ballot - A ballot rejected due to missing or incorrect signatures or malformed data.

Implementer - The person or system that executes the actions decided by a MetaPoll.

Interpreter - The entity that translates abstract voting options into concrete actions for implementation.

Layer N - Nested levels within the option tree. Layer 2 contains children of root options, Layer 3 contains their children, and so on.

Layer Nav - The UI element that helps users navigate between different layers of nested options in a MetaPoll.

MDCT framework - Multi-Dimensional Consensus Tree—the complete structure of nested options, weights, and implementation logic within a MetaPoll.

MetaPoll - A tool for mass-scale human coordination and collective intelligence through structured voting.

MetaPoll Owner - The admin account that created and manages a specific MetaPoll.

MotherDAO Labs - The company developing the MetaPoll service.

MPTS format - A text format that represents entire Multi-Dimensional Consensus Trees, enabling copy-paste functionality for MetaPolls.

Option - A choice that voters can rank within a MetaPoll's decision tree.

Option Tree - The complete hierarchy of all nested options in a MetaPoll.

Option Title - The name of an option, limited to 80 characters.

OSE Classes - A framework for categorizing and defining different types of options.

Parent Option - An option containing one or more nested child options.

Perma-Storage - An economic model where miners are incentivized to preserve data forever, ensuring voting records remain accessible and tamper-proof indefinitely.

Root Layer - The top level of options (Layer 1) that have no parent options above them.

Semantic Precision - How specifically a word conveys meaning. "$100 million" is concrete (verifiable but technical), while "affordable" is abstract (accessible but interpretation-dependent).

Sibling Option - Options that exist at the same layer, sharing the same parent option.

Signed Ballot - Your ranked choices plus cryptographic signature and timestamp, proving when and how you voted.

Snapshot - A permanent record capturing the complete state of consensus at a specific moment, including all votes, proofs, and metadata, stored immutably on Arweave.

State Change Loop - The six-step human decision cycle: Sense → Judge → Define Outcome → Plan → Act → Observe. Each step limits the next—poor sensing creates poor judgment.

Token - An on-chain asset that determines voting power in MetaPolls.

VCIP (Voter Compute Integrity Proof) - A zero-knowledge proof guaranteeing all vote calculations were performed correctly, transforming voting from "trust us" to "verify yourself."

VDIP (Voter Data Inclusion Proof) - A cryptographic proof letting you verify your vote was counted without revealing what you voted for or seeing others' votes.

Verkle Tree - A cryptographic structure enabling constant-size proofs regardless of dataset size—proving inclusion among billions takes the same effort as proving among thousands.

Vote Decay - The gradual reduction of voting power over time to encourage active participation.

Voter Signal - Your individual voting contribution after applying token weights and decay, ready for aggregation into the snapshot.

Web2 - The current internet where platforms own your data and content—you create value but companies capture it.

Web3 - The internet where you own your data, identity, and assets directly through blockchain, moving from digital renting to digital ownership.

ZKP - Zero-Knowledge Proof—proving you know something without revealing what you know.

zkSNARK - Zero-Knowledge Succinct Non-interactive Argument of Knowledge—the specific ZKP type used in MetaPoll's VCIP for efficient vote verification.