A word given is a word kept

...or a gap learned from, without blame.

It is the seventh standard and the last, and it is the only one that is not about form. The other six could be met by a careful clerk; this one cannot be met by anyone who does not mean it. It says two things at once, and both halves are load-bearing. A word given is kept — so a promise is a real thing and a body can build on it. And where it is not kept, the gap is learned from without blame — so the truth about a miss can actually be told, which is the only way the first half survives contact with reality.

It is load-bearing because everything else in the system is denominated in this. Commitment is the unit of progress; Kept as a share of made is the number a body reads about itself; The Record holds the promise beside the outcome. Strip the seventh standard and the cards still line up, the addresses still resolve, and none of the numbers mean anything, because a promise that costs nothing to break measures nothing.

It is also the one value the seed names as making the Game possible at all: nothing binds without your own word, and your word is the whole Game. Which is why the blame clause is not softness. A body that punishes gaps gets fewer reported gaps and no fewer misses; a body that reads them for cause in the set-up rather than in the person gets the truth early enough to act on.

Also called: Standard 7 · a word given is a word kept, or a gap learned from Stands on: Commitment · The gap · Zero Blame Environment Opens onto: Kept as a share of made · The Record · Minimum standards of interoperability · Consciously Breaking Commitments In play: door · table · Home · beyond Sources: The LIØNSBERG Operating System (book, draft v0) §18.7 · The DNA of Heaven, Parts VII and XI (where it is named among the values) · Commitment (wiki term page, drafts, unreviewed) — lionsberg.wiki page name: Minimum Standards of Interoperability Open: none found.