Civic Assembly: guide
What Civic Assembly does
Civic Assembly lets a council, board or agency put one question to the people it serves and keep what they say whole. Each resident takes part through an invitation link, with no account and no password. They add ideas in their own words, show a name they choose or stay anonymous, support or build on other people's ideas, raise concerns, and can take their own words back.
Nothing is scored, averaged or ranked. Ideas sit under the label their author gave them, and every concern is kept whole beside the idea it concerns. When the round closes, the summary can be sealed as a signed record that anyone given the file can check in their own browser. The software never recommends and never decides: the people who asked the question decide.
A worked example: the pool opening hours
Fernside Council wants to know when residents would like the pool to open. An officer creates a round with the question, a few paragraphs of background and a link to the usage report. The platform operator issues forty invitation links. The officer sends one to each person on the council's list, opens the round for three weeks, and residents start adding ideas.
A swimmer asks for earlier mornings. A parent asks for quiet Sundays and raises a concern about early opening. Others support, or build on, what they read. When the round closes the officer generates the summary, reads it, seals it and downloads the sealed file to hand to the councillors.
If you run the round (owners and admins)
- Create the round: a title, the question in one or two sentences, the background, any evidence links (web addresses starting with https), the closing date (needed before the round can open) and how many days after closing residents can still take their words back.
- Check the wording. A round can be edited only while it is a draft, so the question residents answer never changes under them.
- Ask the platform operator for invitations for the round and say how many. Each link works once, for this round only. You pass them on yourself.
- Open the round. Residents can now add ideas.
- Close the round when you are ready. Residents can still take their own words back until the withdrawal period ends.
- Generate the summary from the Open Floor page for the round, read it, and seal it. Download the sealed file from the round page.
If you are invited to take part
- Open your invitation link and read the notice. Nothing is recorded until you choose to continue.
- Read the question and any background, then add your idea in your own words. Choose Anonymous, or a name you make up.
- Support, build on or raise a concern about other people's ideas.
- You can take your own words back until the date shown. They then leave the list and any summary that has not been sealed.
- When the summary is sealed you can download the record and check it yourself.
What protects the people taking part
- A resident has no account, name or email in the record. Their ideas are tied to a random reference, and the invitation is deleted the moment it is used, so nothing stored links an invitation to the words written under it.
- An invitation link can be used once. It opens a session in that one browser, which keeps the place of the person who opened it until the withdrawal period ends. A new invitation starts a new place and cannot reach words written from the old one.
- A resident can reach only the round they were invited to, and nothing else in the Village.
- A summary that has not been sealed leaves out anything a resident has taken back.
- The organisation that runs the round can read the results. We hold them on its behalf and use them for nothing else.
Checking a sealed summary
The sealed file holds the exact text of the summary, its fingerprint and the signed record. The checker page loads the file in your browser, confirms the text still matches the fingerprint, confirms the record names the same fingerprint and checks every signature. It sends nothing anywhere, and it says what it could not check.
What it does not do
- It does not decide, recommend or rank. A seal shows that a summary has not changed, not that it is right.
- A resident is anyone holding the link: it is not proof of who they are, or that they live in the area. Keep invitations to the people you mean to reach.
- A sealed summary is kept as it was when it was sealed, so it may still hold words a resident took back after it was sealed. The notice says so before they begin.
- Sealing depends on how the organisation's signing is set up. If it cannot be done the summary says so.
- Invitations are issued by the platform operator. There is no self-service signup.