Owning vs following

This is the heart of the account layer. Everything in your account is one of two things: content you own — what you made yourself — or a reference you follow — what you imported from a space or another account. On screen the two can look identical. Underneath, the system always knows which is which.

References are read-only snapshots

When you follow something, you do not get a live wire into the source. You get a snapshot: a read-only copy taken at the moment you imported it, carrying a display-safe projection of the original — a minimal subset chosen per type. A Place might travel as just its name, geo and image; not the whole node, only enough to show it.

own        →  you made it, you can edit it
reference  →  a frozen snapshot, read-only, minimal projection

Why snapshots, not live sync

Snapshots are simpler, and they are privacy-safe. Nothing is pushed at you; you pulled a copy when you asked for it, and that is all the source ever shares. This pull-not-push posture is what keeps the model GDPR-clean — the source isn’t broadcasting your way, and you aren’t holding a tap into its private data.

View-gating is a moment in time

You could only ever import what was public at the moment you imported it. That check is a snapshot too — taken once, not re-run. The consequences follow naturally:

  • If the source is later made private, your snapshot keeps working. It was public when you took it, and you are reading your own copy.
  • If the source disappears, you are left with a dead link. Nothing rewrites your collection for you — you clean it up. There is no sync that reaches in to prune it.

This is the same “spaces don’t cross” rule seen from the consumer side: you hold a copy, the source holds the original, and the two go their own ways after the moment of import.

Sharing: follow or adopt

A folder can be shared by handing out an opaque token — a link that reveals nothing about the underlying ids. Whoever holds it can do one of two things:

  • Follow — keep a read-only view of your folder, as references.
  • Adopt — take their own copy, which becomes content they own and can edit freely.

This runs account-to-account, peer-to-peer. There is no central catalogue, no curation platform sitting in the middle. One account shares, another follows or adopts, and the platform only carries the token between them.