# Standing

**Standing** (REQ-006) is a Holder's measured history on the mesh. It is
the anti-gaming metric: a Bayesian score with time-decay, diversity
weighting, and voucher-weighting, minus slashes for bad behavior. For a
Nomad, the headline is that the mesh **cannot be gamed** — Standing
rewards real production and resists the obvious attacks (volume spam,
self-dealing, fake vouches).

## What Standing is, in plain language

Standing is not a count of transactions. It is a Bayesian score: the mesh
starts with a prior, updates it from each observed action, and decays
old evidence so a Holder cannot rest on a burst of activity from years
ago. Diversity weighting means a Nomad who acts across many services,
many Stands, and many bearers accrues more Standing than a Nomad who
repeats the same action with the same counterparty. Voucher-weighting
means a vouch from a Holder with high Standing counts for more.

## Why it matters to a Nomad

A Nomad mostly reads Standing, not computes it. Two places it shows up:

- **Choosing a service.** Maps shows a service operator's Standing so a
  Nomad can pick an operator with a real history over a freshly-spun-up
  alternative (see [Maps & Pay](maps-pay.md)).
- **The Freeholder path.** Earning a Standing threshold in 3 categories
  is one of the four Freeholder signals (REQ-005). A Nomad who accrues
  Standing over time is on the path to becoming a Freeholder.

## What Standing is not

Standing is not a custodial position, a tier you buy, or a reputation
score you can farm. It is not legacy custodial history. The
Bayesian + time-decay + diversity design is exactly what makes it hard to
game: there is no single input a Holder can pump.

## The math, deferred

The full Bayesian formula (priors, decay rates, diversity sub-tables,
slash conditions) is documented in the Freeholders section — a Nomad does
not need the math to use the mesh. See
[Six Principles](../shared/six-principles.md) for the covenant Standing
enforces, and [Reach](reach.md) for the identity a Standing accrues to.