Guided tour
A published walkthrough of the whole platform, in order, about twelve minutes from the front page to the receipts.
The pitch in ten steps. Lead with honesty about what's simulated: the disclosure is the credibility pitch, not a caveat to it.
Show · Hero line, the real next meeting, the resident counter, and live issues with their honest early tallies.
Say · Nothing here fakes a town. The council data is real and every claim links to a primary source; the tallies count actual signed-in residents, attested until ID verification, and they start small because the count is real. The founding issue carries a labeled computer-generated example so you can see the mechanics.
Show · The framing paragraph and the ballot sheet. Mark a position: spine, checkbox, footer.
Say · Framings ship as drafts until they pass editorial review, eventually a committee, plus configured neutrality-audit prompts. Positions are private; only aggregates are ever public.
Show · A filled tally, arguments ranked by backing, and a removal notice, with every resident figure computer generated and labeled.
Say · This one page stays filled in so a first visitor can see the product with people in it. The question is the platform itself: should Santa Barbara adopt a channel like this? The labels never come off, and the page retires the day real registrations replace it.
Show · Participation stage, the meter, the headline at its modest size for 44 participants.
Say · At 44 simulated participants this headline renders small on purpose. At town scale it becomes a poster. Humility is a mechanic, not a caption, and that's the answer to 'your users are self-selected.'
Show · Argument cards per position, endorsement counts, the removal notice.
Say · Arguments attach to positions and rank by verified backing, never engagement. No replies by design. Even moderation is on the record.
Show · Real votes with roll calls and ✓ source-checked marks; the failed urgency ordinance is the money row.
Say · January 13: the urgency rent moratorium had majority support on the dais and still failed, because urgency needs a supermajority. Once verified residents register, their tally sits beside rows like that one. Making that kind of nuance visible is the whole product.
- 07The notification moment
Show · The mock below: what every participating resident receives the evening Council votes on their issue.
Say · This is the retention engine and the accountability engine in one artifact. Facts, the roll call, the source, the comparison, never characterization.
SB CIVIC PLATFORMTUE JUN 30 · 9:41 PMCouncil voted on an issue you followThe State Street Promenade, Item 26: maintain the promenade until the Master Plan is implemented. Passed 5–2 (Rowse and Friedman opposed).
Of 132 participating residents, 62% chose “Keep it pedestrian”. The outcome went with the registered majority.
ROLL CALLVIDEO SOURCE ↗YOUR POSITIONMOCK · SENT TO PARTICIPANTS ONLY · FACTS AND SOURCES, NEVER CHARACTERIZATION · THE VOTE IS REAL; THE RESIDENT FIGURES ARE ILLUSTRATIVE (NO RESIDENTS ARE REGISTERED YET) Show · Bio and the filterable vote table, every row linked to its source.
Say · The aligned count is deliberately absent right now: alignment compares votes to a registered resident majority, and the real tallies are just beginning. The table already carries the full sourced history; the comparison switches on when the majorities mean something.
Show · The docket panels, one per meeting, and PENDING stamps on unextracted votes.
Say · The ledger aims at completeness, including votes we haven't processed yet, shown honestly as pending. A record you can't cherry-pick is the defense against 'you only show votes that fit a narrative.'
Show · Machine-detected threads with scores, the machine-proposed labeling, and the published rubric at the bottom.
Say · A trawl of every agenda clusters what's actually in motion, scored by rules anyone can read. Every topic we already tracked was independently re-found, proof the slate comes from the record, not from anyone's politics. Detection proposes; it never publishes.
Show · The packet: sourced position options, the adversarial neutrality audit published verbatim, the gate note, the LIVE AS VTR-007 banner.
Say · The drafter made errors in every run so far, and the published audit caught them every time. That's the AI posture: auditable, never 'unbiased.' A human gate makes the final call, and the packet stays up as the issue's birth certificate.
Show · The intake with the contract printed before you type. Type 'rent' into the ask and the dedup panel steers you to the existing issue instead of splitting support.
Say · Ideas with no meeting attached enter here, gather verified backing, and at the published relative threshold a review is guaranteed, with the answer published either way, advance or not. No suggestion box, no memory hole. Nothing is gathering right now, which is the honest state of a platform with no residents yet.
- 13The close
Show · Nothing. Put the screen down.
Say · Council data: real, sourced, spot-checked. Residents: real accounts, counting from a handful; everything computer-generated is labeled and retires as the real numbers grow. Next: ID verification hardens the tallies, and the notification engine starts on live meetings. What we need is outreach, verification postage, and local credibility, not venture capital.