Witness event rate limits — how often can we vouch

What is being noticed that makes this matter now.

Witness events (kind 30404) are how merit is recognized here. Without any social friction, high-trust members could be pressured into mass-witnessing, which would collapse the signal into noise.

The real tension being held — both sides.

A hard cap is mechanical and fair. A soft indicator is humane but can be weaponized as shame. Both protect and both harm — we have to pick which harm we can live with.

How this pattern echoes elsewhere.

Every reputation market that scaled — eBay, Yelp, Amazon — eventually collapsed because rate was not gated. Every peer-reviewed guild that stayed meaningful had a cap, even if informal.

The concrete ask.

Soft cap of twelve witness events per member per year, visible on their profile. Clients display a gentle "many recent witnesses" indicator at nine, ten, eleven. No hard block — the cap is social, not mechanical.

Who pays, in what currency.

A high-contribution member will feel the indicator as pressure. A low-contribution member may feel invisible. Facilitators will field questions about what counts.

Timing, duration, and when it gets revisited.

Takes effect on ratification. Review at six months — does the indicator signal or shame? Adjust the thresholds by follow-up proposal if either force is too strong.