About the Registry

Founding

The World Registry of Unverifiable Records was established to address a long-standing gap in the recording of human achievement. Existing bodies concern themselves exclusively with feats that can be measured, witnessed, and confirmed. This leaves the overwhelming majority of human accomplishment undocumented.

Nobody has ever measured how many times a person has said “quick question” before a forty-minute question. Nobody is going to. The Registry holds that this is no reason for the record to go unclaimed.

Principles

• Every record is real. Once entered, a record exists in the Registry. That is what real means here.
• No record is verified. The Registry does not check, test, witness, measure, or inquire. Our motto, Nemo Verificat, is both a description and a promise.
• One holder each. A record cannot be shared. It can only be held, and taken.
• Records may be taken by paying more. The Registry regards this as the purest available measure of how much a person wants a record. It is also the only measure the Registry is prepared to administer.

Procedure

A record is entered for a one-time fee of one United States dollar ($1), whether it is chosen from the Registry’s catalogue of unclaimed titles or written by the claimant, subject to the Registrar’s judgment. A certificate is issued at once and the entry is made public. Any person may thereafter take the record by paying double the current price; once the price has reached $16 it rises by half instead, always rounded up to the whole dollar ($1, $2, $4 … $16, $24, $36, and so on). The dethroned holder is informed in writing and may reclaim their title at the next price. There is no upper limit. There have been consequences.

Seal and certificate

Certificates are issued in the Registry’s green and gold, bearing the Registrar’s seal and a unique registry number of the form WGL-000000. A certificate can be checked against the public register at any time. It is the only part of the process that can be verified, and the Registry would like it noted that this was done on purpose.

Disputes

The Registry does not adjudicate disputes. A record belongs to whoever paid for it most recently. This is the entire legal theory.

Correspondence

The Registry may be reached through the Contact page. It does not accept evidence.