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layout: post
title: Documentation
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# [Governance Archaeology Database: v1.2](https://airtable.com/appvYlkHheYBuvDdR/shrPD4OrKdIMAfgwP)
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## Documentation

**Last updated:** May 2024

- **Name:** The name of the community with collective governance practices. 
- **Community:** 
- **Institution:**  
- **Collective governance institution:** Any structure where a group of more than one person gathers to make decisions on behalf of the community.
- **Mechanism:** A text description of a specific governance practice or rule. In this database, mechanisms are grouped into three broad categories: *access*, defining access to the instutition; *decision-making*, regulating decision-making processes; and *enforcement*, guiding enforcement practices.
- **Geography:**
- **Time span:** Written text description of the centuries in which the community existed in history. 
- **Time span: start:** Starting century encoded as integers, with negative numbers denoting BC, and positive numbers denoting AD. 
- **Time span: end:** Ending century encoded as integers, with negative numbers denoting BC, and positive numbers denoting AD. 
- **Size:** The number of members in the community. While some communities may have additionally granular size encodings, community size is generally bucketed in the following groups: `1 - 10`; `11 - 100`; `100 - 1,000`; `1,001 - 10,000`; `10,001 - 100,000`; `100,001 - 1,000,000`; `1,000,001 - 10,000,000`; `10,000,000+`; `Unknown`
- **Source:** Source material documenting community information.