How about option 4. Create modular contracts. I’ve always, always, ALWAYS hated electronic contracts because the idea of signing a complete contract without being able to edit or negotiate terms seems insane to me. More so is the idea that by downloading a contract you agree to it. You could just want to download it to read it or share it.
So how about this. What if we stop think about a contract as a piece of paper that one must agree to or not agree to but rather like… a collection of gems. Each “gem” represents a different value. Each “gem” is unique and represents one specific belief or rule. Like one gem could be for “Thou shalt not kill.” And that’s it. Another could be “If you are caught killing you get hung upside down over an active volcano.” Obviously not everyone is going to agree to the SAME rules and the SAME consequences. So while some people might agree with “Thou shalt not kill.” They might opt for a different “gem” for a consequence like “You get 20 years in prison.” A COLA could chain these gems together in sequences like a collection. However the gems, rules, beliefs, would still exist in a database somewhere for others to assemble into new collections of their own. When a user “signed” the COLA they would simply be collecting these “gems.” Another way to put it would be that a requirement for a particular COLA would be that one have a prerequisite that one agree with a set of rules beliefs, similar to how there is a prerequisite of minimum software and hardware requirements when you want to run any particular app. If you haven’t collected the right (or perhaps have collected the wrong) gems then you can’t join the community in question because you don’t meet the minimum belief system requirements.
So how this might be coded is each belief would have it’s own hash. It would be a very simple rule, preferably binary. It COULD refer to other rules but must in itself be extremely simple. If else statements or true or false statements. Nothing more complicated than that. Another reason for this is so that if one rule links to another rule one can set it into code. If person is proved to do x and punishment is to be fined y then system automatically deducts y from his account and awards it to plaintiff. Minimum of beaurocracy. Or situations like that. Of course it can’t be that simple as there’s things like poverty and what not but you get the idea.