Most forums assign the constitution at the first meeting and adopt it by the third. After that, review it once a year. See a sample finished constitution — a fictional forum’s marks, notes, and the moderator’s copy.
Moderators: to run this with your whole forum — every member marking their own copy, reminders chasing stragglers, the finished document arriving in your inbox — set up a constitution round. The page below is the self-serve pass: mark it yourself and assemble the document on the spot.
Each tenet below is written the way it will appear in your finished constitution. Mark your position on each one, and add a note wherever you have a hesitation.
This is not a vote. A tenet goes into the document as written unless one member says they cannot live with it, and one member is enough to send it back to the group. A hesitation is printed in the finished document, under its tenet, with no name attached. A can't-live-with-it goes only to the moderator, and the tenet waits until the group has talked it through. Your mark covers the whole tenet: if you support one line and not another, say which line in your note. Answers stay private until everyone has finished.