R2
Reality Audit Standard
Abstract
This standard establishes a common, corrigible working order for Reality Audit. It governs how an audit object is bounded, how claims, frames, and grounds are distinguished, how documentation and counter-material are handled, and how findings and corrective measures are formulated.
The standard is not legislation, public regulation, an accreditation scheme, or a substitute for domain-specific requirements. It is a methodological norm within Røyndalism and must itself remain open to examination, criticism, and revision in contact with documented error, insufficiency, and better procedures.
Normative terms
The normative terms below indicate the strength of requirements. They must not be read as legal commands outside this standard.
- MUST
- A mandatory requirement for an audit to claim conformity with this standard. Deviations must be documented and justified.
- SHOULD
- A general rule or recommended procedure. Departure may be justified, but the reason should remain traceable.
- MAY
- A permitted option. The term does not by itself create a requirement to perform the action.
Purpose
The purpose is to make Reality Audit reviewable, proportionate, and corrigible. The standard is intended to reduce the risk that the audit itself becomes governed by prior conclusions, identity, authority, model, or institutional interest.
The audit must address a bounded question, claim, representation, model, decision, procedure, or practice capable of documentation and examination.
The audit mandate must not be formulated so that its conclusion is already built into the question.
Scope
The standard may be applied to language, identity, models, representations, systems, institutions, exercises of authority, and practice. It may also be applied to the auditor’s own claims and frames.
The standard does not by itself determine what is legally, medically, scientifically, or technically correct. In such domains, the audit must connect to relevant expertise, applicable rules, and competent examination.
The scope, time period, material, and questions excluded from the audit must be stated before findings are formulated.
Status and conformity
An audit may claim conformity with this standard only when mandatory requirements are satisfied or deviations are visibly documented. Conformity concerns procedure; it does not make the conclusion finally true or legally binding.
A conformity statement must identify the version of the standard, the auditor, the mandate, the date, and every known deviation from mandatory requirements.
An examination that does not satisfy all mandatory requirements may be published as a preliminary inquiry, but must not be described as a complete Reality Audit under the standard.
Governing principles
Reality Audit places actuality before the frame and treats language, categories, models, and systems as traceable intermediaries. The following principles apply throughout the process.
- Actuality before frame.
- Distinguish observation, interpretation, model, inference, and decision.
- Reference and correspondence must remain traceable.
- Uncertainty must remain open where the grounds support no more.
- Counter-material must not be hidden because it weakens a preferred account.
- Correction must be proportionate to the finding.
- The standard and its auditors remain open to criticism and correction.
Every material conclusion must be traceable to identified sources, observations, documents, calculations, or explicit inferences.
Roles, conflicts, and independent review
The commissioner, auditor, audited party, and decision-maker occupy different roles. Roles must not be merged in a way that allows the same authority to set the premises, conceal the material, and approve its own result without possible counter-examination.
Known interests, dependencies, overlapping roles, and relationships capable of affecting the audit must be disclosed.
For serious, disputed, or personally burdensome findings, at least one person who did not formulate the principal conclusion should be able to inspect the material and inferential chain.
Mandate and audit object
The mandate establishes what the audit can actually answer. The audit object must be distinguished from the person, group, or institution associated with it.
The mandate must state the audit object, principal questions, relevant actors, period, materials, methods, limitations, and intended use of the result.
Criticism of a claim, model, or practice must not automatically be converted into a total judgment of the identity or character of its author.
Grounds, sources, and counter-material
The grounds include material that supports and material that challenges the audited claim. Sources must be assessed for relevance, proximity, integrity, date, completeness, and possible interest.
7.1 Source integrity
Source material must be preserved so that quotations, extracts, and summaries can be checked against their context.
The source, date, originator or institution, and relevant location within the material must be recorded where possible.
Altered, shortened, translated, or anonymised sources must be marked as such.
7.2 Counter-material and alternative accounts
A finding is strengthened when relevant contrary information and alternative explanations are tested rather than hidden.
Known counter-material capable of changing the principal finding must be presented or explicitly recorded as unavailable.
The audit should formulate at least one reasonable alternative account where the material permits more than one interpretation.
Documentation and traceability
Documentation must make it possible to distinguish what was recorded, interpreted, calculated, and concluded.
The audit must maintain a traceable record of central sources, decisions, changes, limitations, and uncertainties.
Direct observation, party statement, documented fact, expert assessment, and inference must be marked so that the categories are not conflated.
Version control should be used where documents, datasets, analyses, or conclusions change during the work.
Audit procedure
The procedure follows an ordered movement from mandate to review. Stages may overlap, but they cannot be hidden where doing so breaks traceability.
- Bound the audit object and mandate.
- Distinguish object, claim, appearance, interpretation, model, and decision.
- Register sources, observations, data, and relevant rules.
- Test reference, correspondence, inference, and presupposition.
- Test counter-material and alternative explanations.
- Assess error, uncertainty, and capture risk.
- Classify the finding and its strength.
- Determine correction and the time of review.
Every stage that cannot be completed must be recorded together with its effect on the strength of the finding.
Findings and strength
The finding must state what the material supports, what it does not support, and what remains unresolved. The language must not be stronger than the grounds.
- F1 — Supported correspondence.
- F2 — Qualified or partial correspondence.
- F3 — Unresolved uncertainty.
- F4 — Insufficient grounds.
- F5 — Error or contradiction.
- F6 — Capture risk.
- F7 — Capture identified.
Every principal finding must include its category, reasons, central grounds, material counter-evidence, uncertainty, and limitation.
Absence of grounds must not be presented as proof of the contrary.
Capture risk and capture findings
Capture risk arises when a frame increasingly governs what may count as actual while relevant correction is rejected, redefined, or made unavailable. The existence of a frame, ordinary error, or the necessity of interpretation does not by itself constitute capture.
A capture finding must identify the frame, what it replaces, how governance occurs, what relevant correction has been resisted, and what documentation supports the relation.
Where documentation shows only risk or tendency, the finding must be classified as capture risk rather than capture identified.
Capture language should be directed at the documented mechanism or relation, not used as a loose identity label for persons or groups.
Correction and measures
Correction must answer to the finding and remain as bounded as possible without becoming ineffective. Its purpose is improved correspondence, traceability, and responsibility—not symbolic punishment.
Every corrective measure must be linked to a documented finding and state responsibility, timeframe, expected effect, and method of review.
Measures affecting rights, reputation, position, access, or participation must receive a separate assessment of necessity, proportionality, and possible harm.
Correction may consist of clarification, narrowing, new documentation, recalculation, changed procedure, withdrawal, temporary suspension, or renewed audit.
Response, challenge, and review
A person materially affected by a finding should be able to inspect factual premises, identify missing material, and respond before final publication, insofar as this does not destroy evidence, safety, or legally required protection.
Preliminary adverse findings should be presented to relevant parties with a reasonable response period and clearly bounded questions.
Responses capable of changing the finding must be assessed, and the result of that assessment must be documented.
Review must examine whether correction actually improved correspondence and practice, not merely whether the measure was formally completed.
Records, confidentiality, and publication
Openness and traceability must be balanced against privacy, confidentiality, safety, source protection, and legitimate secrecy. A public edition may therefore be less detailed than the complete audit record.
Access, storage, anonymisation, and publication of material must comply with applicable legal and ethical duties.
Where material is withheld, the reason and effect on reviewability must be stated insofar as this can be done without defeating the protection.
Limitations and revision of the standard
No procedure can guarantee complete access to actuality, remove all interpretation, or render auditors infallible. The standard governs working order and the treatment of uncertainty; it does not make its results incorrigible.
Known methodological limits, knowledge gaps, and conditions capable of affecting the result must appear in the final record.
New information materially weakening a published finding must trigger consideration of correction, notice, temporary suspension, or renewed audit.
The standard should be revised publicly with version number, dated change log, and explanation of material changes.
Foundation and related documents
- DET SOM ER — An Independent Foundational Work of PhilosophyFoundational work and primary source for Røyndalism.
- Reality Audit — Methodology OverviewOverview of methodological architecture, principles, findings, and applications.
- Corrigible RealismThe philosophical position grounding corrigibility.
Revision history
- Document version
- 1.0
- First published
- 18 June 2026
First public edition.