Off the record, formally

Summary. Groups already follow rules about what a meeting may remember. Robert's Rules of Order, the Chatham House Rule and reporters' attribution terms all limit what gets kept and who gets named. Goldfish, a recorder we designed, applies these limits in code. We have now written its memory rules as one formal model, tested against the device software.¹ This brief covers the model in five points, then compares it with meeting rules.

Step through the figure, one step at a time.

1. Each person sets a level for their own words

Goldfish keeps speech at one of six levels. Each level includes everything below it.

Level	Name	What Goldfish keeps
0	Off the record	Only that a gap happened, and its length
1	Just the decision	Decisions, and who owns each task
2	The gist	A summary, with no names
3	Name me	Who said what, in paraphrase
4	Quote me	The exact words
5	Audio	The recording6

Goldfish applies the lowest of three limits to each person's words:

level = min( request, room limit, group limit )

The request is what the person asked for, or the default of 3. The room limit covers everyone, for example after "off the record". The group limit covers one side conversation.

2. Anyone can lower the level; only you can raise your own

Anyone can lower the level for the whole room, at any time, without a reason. Only you can raise the level of your own words. Two tables show who may change whose level:

Lower = all ones    anyone, for everyone
Raise = diagonal    you, for yourself only

One exception: a person can raise the level for the whole room by saying the device's name, for example "Goldfish, word for word". The raise starts at once but stays provisional for 30 seconds. If anyone says "no" in that time, Goldfish cancels the raise and lowers everything said since. Robert's Rules works the same way: "a single objection defeats a request for general consent".² Goldfish keeps the veto and drops the vote that follows.

3. Goldfish forgets in three fixed steps

Goldfish removes detail on a fixed schedule:

days 0–2      up to level 5
days 3–29     up to level 2
days 30–364   up to level 1
day 365 on    nothing

A line kept at "Name me" therefore loses its names after 3 days, its reasoning after 30 days and its decisions after a year. A spoken limit shortens every step: "keep this for a week" removes everything on day 7. Fixed steps, unlike a gradual curve, let the note show a delete date for each section. Goldfish enforces the schedule by destroying encryption keys.³

Robert's Rules does the opposite: its 1915 edition requires struck words to stay readable, so members can check "whether more was expunged than ordered". Goldfish keeps a record of the gap and deletes the words.

4. Speaker labels last one session

Goldfish labels up to ten speakers v1, v2 and so on, in order of first speech. It never stores names. Ten minutes of silence ends the session and deletes the labels, so no label links two sessions. Robert's Rules asks members to say "the member who spoke last" rather than a name; Goldfish applies that idea to the record.

When Goldfish cannot tell who spoke, it keeps less:⁴ a request to lower your own words lowers the whole room, and a request to raise them has no effect.

5. Example: a five-person session

We ran a five-person sample session through the device software.⁵

• Someone presses the eye, and the room goes off the record.
• Dana asks Goldfish to keep her words "to the gist".
• A double press brings the room back on the record, provisionally.
• Goldfish keeps nothing of Bob's "between us" remark.
• Charlie says "back on the record", but a press within 30 seconds cancels it, and his proposal is lost.
• Alice asks for "just the decisions", and Dana asks to be left out.

The session note keeps 6 decisions and tasks for one year, 11 summary lines for 30 days and 10 named lines for 3 days. Dana appears in none of the named lines.

How Goldfish compares with meeting rules

Meeting rules control two things: how much content survives, and whether the speaker is named. Goldfish combines both into one scale, so each rule maps to the highest level that respects it.

Rule	Goldfish match	Main difference
Chatham House Rule	2, The gist	No exact words without a name
Minutes under Robert's Rules	1, Just the decision	No name for who made a motion
Reporters' "background"	2, The gist	No job title for the source
Sociocratic consent	The 30-second objection	An objection needs no reason
Quaker minutes	No match	The group does not approve the note first

The IETF takes the opposite approach: by taking part, people agree to be recorded. Goldfish never treats its default level as consent.

Open questions

• Should Goldfish add a level for exact words without names?
• Should the group approve the note before Goldfish writes it, as a Quaker meeting approves its minute?
• If the clock fails, should Goldfish keep the decisions, as it does now, or nothing, as the spec says?

Sources

Robert's Rules of Order, 1876 and 1915; Chatham House Rule; AP; IETF Note Well; Sociocracy For All; Quaker faith & practice.