TOIThe Other Internet
Protocols

The Retention Principle

The founding standard of the Network: where evidence conflicts, preserve the conflict rather than resolve it.

Archive record

Statement

No record may be edited to remove a documented contradiction. Competing interpretations are retained side by side. The archive preserves uncertainty; it does not invent resolution.

Application

The principle governs every department. It is the reason two canonical records may disagree, and the reason redactions and unresolved conclusions remain visible rather than erased.

Connected records