Vouch

Vouch is one page that is yours permanently, at your own address, with the people who stand behind you written on it. Not a profile you rent from a platform that can change its mind.

Your page, and who vouches for you

A permanent handle that is yours for good, and people who put their name on yours — typed, or spoken in their own voice. There is no limit on how many you can receive — the limit is on giving. Everyone starts with ten, and can earn more by verifying who they are and by judging people well, so every vouch that lands on you cost the person one of theirs. Not ratings — a couple of sentences each, saying how they know you. They fade after a year unless renewed, so what is on your page is what somebody still stands behind today. And you can open the whole network and follow it outward, rather than reading a list.

• A permanent handle — Yours for good. Never reassigned, never resold, and the other spellings are held with it.
• Vouches, in writing — As many as people give you. Each one about two sentences, under a real name, saying how they know you.
• You start with ten to give — The limit is on giving, never on receiving — which is exactly why one landing on you counts. Ten is where everyone starts; it can grow later.
• Written or spoken — They can type it or record it in their own voice. Both count; a page reads fine with a mix.
• Not a rating — No stars, no score, no number. A thing a person actually said.
• See the whole network — Not a list of who vouched — the shape it makes, and you can follow it past the people you already know.
• It stays current — Vouches fade after a year unless renewed, and can be withdrawn quietly at any time.
• You do the inviting — Invitations go out from you, to people who already know you.

Planned, not yet shipped

• Reach — People get to you on your terms. You choose which doors are open — a message, a call, a meeting, or the social accounts you actually read — and to whom, and you can charge for the ones that cost you time. Your address and your number are never published, and if a door is closed, the way in is the person you both already know.
• Shoutout — Everything that goes out from your page. Writing, newsletters and podcasts published from your own address; posts out to social and to the video and audio platforms; media you can make here; comments answered in one place; and email that arrives designed rather than typed — laid out, with your images and type, and the thing itself rather than a note with a file attached.
• Finding people — Search where trust already reaches. Look someone up and you get a path rather than a list — who you know who knows them — and you can ask that person for the introduction. The same engine puts a team together, where every name arrives attached to whoever staked something on it.
• Being found — The right people find you because somebody they trust already vouched for you. No feed, no ranking, and no position that can be bought.
• Earning from it, and building with people — Further out: ways to earn from the page, more than one way for it to look, and pages built with other people. A mobile app is coming, along with connections into the mail and accounts you already use, and the option to point a domain you own at your page — with the handle staying the address underneath, because a domain is rented and a handle is not. Money will always sit on the commerce layer and never on the graph — no position in anything here will ever be for sale.

What Vouch refuses

• No feed. Nothing scrolls.
• No followers and no follower counts.
• No score. A trust score is computed and is never displayed, to anyone.
• No paid placement. A position in any result is never for sale, at any price.
• No ranking of people, and no engagement metrics.
• Your email address and phone number are never published and never sold.

Vocabulary

• handle — A permanent address, yours for good — never reassigned, never resold. `vouch.name/yourname`.
• vouch — About two sentences one person writes, or records in their own voice, about another — under their real name, saying how they know them. Not a rating, not a star, not a number.
• the graph — The network those vouches make. You can open it and follow it outward past the people you already know.
• reach — The panel on a page that decides who can contact the member and how. Everyone else can read the page; only some people can knock.

Full description for assistants and agents.