NODA

Questions

What people ask before they join

Answers reviewed before they were published, with a link to the page they came from where there is one.

The basics

What is NODA?

NODA is a community where what you have contributed is a matter of record rather than a claim you make about yourself. In most professional networks you write your own profile and whoever reads it decides how much to believe. That works until something is at stake, and then everyone falls back on personal introductions. NODA records contribution as it happens, has claims attested by somebody other than the person making them, and shows only what a member has consented to show. In practice that means members offer services to each other, run projects together, and accumulate a history that does not depend on being believed.

Where this comes from

Who runs NODA, and is it a company?

NODA is organised as NODA Social Impact Foundation, a non-profit entity. It is responsible for community, membership, volunteering, events, education, grants, social governance and impact measurement. It is not a subsidiary of the commercial side of the ecosystem and does not exist to feed it. IOTA Sustainable Developers Canada is a separate for-profit entity handling professional engagements, and IOTA Field is the shared architecture both sit inside — not a company, and not a party to anything.

Where this comes from

Joining

How do I join?

Through the application form, choosing the level of entry that matches your current relationship with the community. Most people begin at the open community layer, which needs no approval and gives you the public surfaces — the wall, events, the member directory. Joining as a contributing member involves a short application and a review, because the levels above the first one carry access that has to be granted rather than taken. You are not committing to anything by applying, and there is no fee to be a member.

Where this comes from

What are the nine levels, and are they a ranking?

They are not a ranking, and this matters enough to say plainly: the levels describe what somebody has access to and what they have taken responsibility for. They are not seniority, status, or a measure of how valuable a person is. A level goes up when someone takes on something that needs the access — running a project, operating a node, handling records other members depend on. Several of the higher levels are not fully open yet; each says its own availability on its page, and an assistant or a page that describes a future module in the present tense is getting it wrong.

Where this comes from

Money and credits

What are credits? Are they money, or an investment?

Neither. Credits are an internal record of account — a way of recording contribution and settling exchanges inside the community. They are not a wallet, not a deposit, not a guaranteed value, and not an investment return. They cannot be transferred outside the platform, and the platform never holds, converts or moves anyone's money. Paid work between members settles by ordinary invoice, outside the system, exactly as it would anywhere else. If that sounds like a narrow definition, it is deliberately narrow. Anything wider would be a financial product, and a financial product requires legal, tax and securities work that has not been done and will not be skipped.

Where this comes from

Does NODA take a cut of what I earn?

Money for paid work settles directly between the people involved, by invoice, outside the platform. NODA does not sit in the middle of that payment and does not hold funds at any point. Where a project is run through the platform, the project's own revenue split is recorded against it and is visible to the people in that project. Those percentages are configuration per project rather than a global rate, and they are not a fee taken from your personal earnings.

Where this comes from

Is there a token, or will there be?

There is no token, no wallet and no crypto asset today, and nothing on this platform is an offer of one. Tokenisation is a documented possibility for 2029 at the earliest, and it is gated: it cannot proceed without a full legal architecture, a security audit, KYC and anti-money-laundering design, and a governance vote. The plan explicitly treats "we did not do it" as an acceptable outcome of that decision rather than a failure. Anyone telling you otherwise about NODA is not speaking for NODA.

Where this comes from

How it works

What is a node?

A node is a member who has taken on running part of the community — typically a place, a programme, or a recurring set of projects — with the access and the accountability that comes with it. Nodes are approved rather than self-declared, they are listed publicly, and what they are responsible for is recorded. It is closer to stewardship than to a job title.

Where this comes from

Privacy and consent

Who can see my profile and my data?

Only what you have explicitly consented to, and each consent is a separate decision that does not imply the others. Appearing in the members' directory is visible to signed-in members only. Publishing a public profile creates a page anyone — including search engines — can open, and it takes effect only once an administrator has also verified the profile. Being listed on the commercial Delivery Network is a third, separate consent, because agreeing to a community profile is not agreeing to be presented to paying clients as available for hire. Private collaboration data is held separately from public profile data at the database level, not merely hidden by the interface. You can withdraw a public profile at any time.

Where this comes from

Can I leave, and what happens to my data?

Yes, at any time, and you do not need a reason. Withdrawing a public profile takes it off the public web immediately. If you are listed on the commercial Delivery Network, leaving starts a short notice period — fifteen days by default — during which new enquiries stop at once but the listing itself stays visible, so that a conversation already under way is not cut off mid-sentence. You can cancel that at any point inside the window, and there is an immediate-removal path for safety or privacy emergencies. Records of contributions you actually made remain in the ledger, because they are records of things that happened and other people's history depends on them; what is public about you is what you control.

Where this comes from