01
Question, method, and claim must stay aligned.
A project states what it can answer, why the method can answer it, and which claims remain outside scope.
Required trail / Question history · protocol · decision log · deviation record
YSRN Research Standards / Founding draft 0.2
Credibility is not a tone of voice. It is a chain of decisions another person can inspect.
These standards define how YSRN decides what may become a project, who may do which work, what can be published, and how errors remain visible. They are operating boundaries, not decoration.
Six non-negotiable obligations
A serious project must survive questions about the work, not only about the result.
02
Evidence keeps its origin and transformations.
Sources, datasets, code, exclusions, corrections, and intermediate decisions remain traceable to the output.
Required trail / Search trail · data dictionary · version record · analysis notebook
03
Credit follows documented contribution.
Membership, attendance, status, payment, or seniority does not create authorship. Roles and actual work are recorded.
Required trail / Contribution ledger · review notes · authorship decision
04
AI assistance is disclosed and independently checked.
Tools may assist, but they do not become hidden authors or substitute for accountable reasoning, source checks, and live defence.
Required trail / Tool disclosure · claim verification · human decision owner
05
People and physical work pass a separate safety gate.
Age, communication context, data sensitivity, method risk, supervision, consent, facility access, and emergency boundaries are reviewed for the actual task.
Required trail / Manual risk review · approved channels · task-specific controls
06
Limitations, conflicts, and corrections remain visible.
Negative results and honest uncertainty are valid outcomes. Conflicts are declared; corrections and withdrawals are dated instead of silently erased.
Required trail / Limitations record · conflict declaration · correction notice
Decision gates
Permission gets narrower as the claim gets stronger.
A proposal, a team, a physical experiment, and a publication are different permissions. Passing one does not silently grant the next.
GateDecisionQuestionRecord created
G0Proposal screenIs the question bounded, lawful, relevant, and possible to assess?Private intake record
G1Feasibility reviewAre methods, skills, time, supervision, ethics, and minimum output credible?Review decision + revision notes
G2Team activationAre roles, trial tasks, communication, safeguarding, and delivery ownership explicit?Active project + role ledger
G3Hybrid / physical gateDo progress, safety, qualified supervision, approval, facility, and measurement standards justify physical work?Separate approved experimental plan
G4Publication reviewAre contribution, methods, evidence links, limitations, and status ready for public inspection?Research Library record
Stop-work authority
Any participant can stop work when safety, consent, evidence integrity, or supervision is unclear.
Raising a documented concern is not treated as disloyalty. Retaliation, bypassing a hold, or moving risky work into private channels is itself a standards breach.
When something goes wrong
1. Pause
Stop the affected task or claim without deleting the record.
2. Preserve
Keep relevant messages, versions, data, decisions, and access history.
3. Review
Separate immediate safety, evidence, conduct, privacy, and authorship questions.
4. Decide
Correct, restrict, retrain, reassign, withdraw, close, or escalate with a dated reason.
5. Learn
Update the protocol or standard when the incident reveals a system weakness.
Visibility and privacy
Transparency is scoped. Privacy is not secrecy.
Public by design
Project status · open roles · published methods · outputs · limitations · correction history
Restricted to the team
Working files · internal review · task assignments · drafts · non-public evidence
Founding operations only
Applications · personal contact data · safeguarding notes · screening decisions · incident records
Under-18 participation is reviewed manually.
YSRN does not force every minor into one automatic guardian record. The founding team determines additional safeguards for the actual task, communication setting, data, jurisdiction, and risk before active placement.
Privacy, participation & legal boundaries
Serious work also means knowing what the network will not do.
This is the operational founding notice, not a claim of legal, institutional, ethics-board, or accreditation approval. Policies will be versioned and reviewed before the scope of data or physical work expands.
01Personal dataRead
Applications, member profiles, contact details, education context, time zone, submissions, review decisions, programme registrations, and learning records are collected only for stated network operations.
02Access & visibilityRead
Public profiles and outputs require an explicit publication decision. Applications, contact data, safeguarding notes, internal reviews, and private team records remain access-controlled.
03Retention & correctionRead
Records are kept only while they support review, safety, programme evidence, dispute handling, or an accountable research trail. A person may request correction or deletion where preservation is not required for safety or record integrity.
04Minors & safeguardingRead
Age does not automatically trigger one universal guardian workflow. Placement is manually reviewed for the person, jurisdiction, communication channel, data, task, supervision, and physical risk. Approval can be withheld.
05Contribution & intellectual workRead
Ideas, data, code, writing, designs, and methods remain attributed to the people who actually contributed. Membership does not transfer ownership or guarantee authorship, publication, funding, employment, or academic credit.
06Independent statusRead
YSRN is a founding-stage independent network. A listing, certificate, mentor profile, possible university bridge, or external conversation does not by itself create endorsement, partnership, employment, accreditation, facility access, or legal representation.
07Platform & securityRead
Verified sign-in, server-side permissions, input limits, same-origin checks, audit records, and restricted admin views reduce risk. No online system is represented as risk-free; incidents are contained, preserved, reviewed, and disclosed when appropriate.
08Conduct & removalRead
Harassment, coercion, unsafe work, concealed AI use, fabricated evidence, plagiarism, retaliation, or bypassing a review hold can result in restricted access, removal from a team, record correction, or account suspension.
Before submitting personal or sensitive material
Share only what the relevant form asks for. Do not upload private laboratory records, health data, government identifiers, confidential third-party work, or unpublished proprietary material unless YSRN has provided a specific protected process.
Inspect the system in use