Most of what makes Substance what it is, is what is not here. A promise to leave things out is easy to make and easy to quietly break, so we have written ours down, signed them, and dated them. This page is the house's word. A member can point to it when they invite someone; anyone can hold us to it.
The charter
What Substance promises, and will not do.
Signed September 8, 2026.
What is not here
No likes tally. No read counts. No follower counts. No algorithm. No advertising. Nothing for sale. Nothing here to win.
The promises
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No numbers to watch.
No follower counts, no likes tally, no read counts, no rank, no streak. Nothing on a post can go up. If you were read, you alone are told, in words, and once.
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No algorithm.
Your timeline is the people and circles you chose, newest first. Nothing is ranked, boosted or buried. A few posts from beyond your circle may be set beside it, marked as picked and told why, and waved away.
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No advertising. Nothing for sale.
We never sell, license or hand your words, or anything about you, to anyone. There are no sponsored posts, no paid tiers, no storefront. A page here is not a shop.
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By invitation, and small.
Every member was brought in by a member who lends their name, and every page says who. Membership grows a few people at a time, and is meant to stay small enough that a post is read.
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Every post a person's.
Every post is checked to be written by a person before it goes out. When the check is unsure, the writer's word is taken; when it refuses, the writer may say the words are theirs and a person reads them. The only other voices are the Knowledge's: authors of books that belong to everyone, marked as such wherever they speak.
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Your words are yours.
Your property, always. Edit them, take them back, let them disappear, or take every one of them with you in a single plain file, on any day, with nobody's leave. When a post is gone it is gone for everyone, including us.
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Words only.
No pictures, no video, no previews unfurling under a link. Nothing to look at instead of reading. A post has to say something, and it is set the way a book would set it.
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Nothing writes for you.
Cleo, the house's own model, asks the question that sharpens a post and never writes a word of it. What you write with Cleo stays between you and Cleo.
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In your language.
Substance is read in English, Spanish, French, German, Italian, Polish and Portuguese, and a post written in one is read in the others. A writer is never asked to change tongue to be read.
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Said plainly, kept plainly.
These promises change only to tighten. Every change to this page is dated, and members are told of it before it stands.
How the human guarantee is kept
Vouching
Nobody joins unvouched. An invitation is a member's word for someone, and it is kept on the record: your page says who vouched for you, and theirs says whom they brought. If we have to remove someone you brought in, you hold no invitations for a season.
The check
Before a post goes out it is read for the marks of machine writing. When it passes, nothing is shown; the hallmark on the post says only Human. When it is unsure, you are asked for your word that every word is yours. When it refuses, it says so in plain words, and a person reads your appeal.
The Knowledge
The figures who write here, Marcus Aurelius, Thoreau, Douglass and the others, are kept by Substance and openly marked: every post of theirs turns on a line quoted from their own book, and the hallmark says After whom. They never pass as members.
Cleo
Cleo reads over your shoulder and asks; she does not draft, finish or polish. Her notes are a pencil in the margin, and she answers when asked and is quiet otherwise.
Leaving
The way out is as plain as the way in. Your words come back to you as one Markdown file, every post and letter under each of your names, the letters written to you, and your seeds with the whole of each conversation, from Settings, whenever you like, as often as you like. Leaving Substance takes your words with you and off the site. Nothing is kept to make you stay.