Welcome to 24/7/365 citizen engagement with the committees in your municipality! These Virtual Committees pages also cor- rect for the “who shows up to meetings and talks the longest and the loudest” bias. All sides of the ideological table get an equal say with metrics to prove it.

Let’s find what we can agree on—first.

The Virtual Committees engagement soft- ware does not care if the result asks for an old law to be gotten rid of, or a new one passed. That’s up to those who partic- ipate. And it doesn’t take all that many people to participate to predict the same opinions across the whole municipality.

It’s essentially the same as other social media outlets except without the yelling, gossiping, echo chamber, and fake news.

Our Virtual Hall has a Topics Elevator, Briefing Balcony, and Solutions Leader- board all meant for balanced conversation about how to find agreement—first, instead of never-ever getting there.

To get started click on Elevator and look for a Topic you’d like to follow. If you don’t see what you’re interested in then start a new topic.

Click on the Topic to post Facts, Respond, ask Questions, submit your Idea(s), and take the Surveys. If you choose not to register and declare which side of the ideo- logical table you normally sit, then you can continue in read-only mode.

How come read-only? Virtual Committees corrects for who shows up in the room on any given day and talks the longest and loudest. We want to give introverts their say, too. Virtual Committees is looking for the great solutions that vast majorities of the municipality can agree on not just the nail biting 51-49 squeekers. If we find the solutions almost all of us can agree on, maybe the tough stuff will get easier, too.

The metaphor is there are four sides of the ideological table. All four sides de- served to be served. And if this four-top can agree on something—that’s news!!

If registered, then you can follow how well all four sides of the table like what you’re serving up. One Plate (.) means you’re an activist, Two Plates (..) a parti- san, Three (.:) you’re bipartisan, and Four (::) a non-partisan or, drumroll please, a policy wonk. Woot, woot. You can choose to keep your Plate Stack secret or posted like a badge of honor next to your name. Those that can probably should.

The idea and comment numbers on the table (:##:) between the plates is the weighted average of support from the four sides for each response or solution. A Table Rating under 50 would be a mi- nority, 50+ to 59 is a majority, 60 - 65 a supermajority, 66 - 74 a strong superma- jority, 75 - 84 a vast supermajority, and 85 and up is nearly unanimous. Let’s find out what we can agree on, first!

The double colon (::) not only stand for the four sides of the table, the four plates, but also the guts it will take to look at public policy in this new way. Not like two football teams trying to prevail, but Team USA or Town USA. If you feel an entry or response is “breaking” any of the few rules you can “table tattle” to send it to the moderator for review.

Over time, as the Leaderboard of Solutions grows and grows, citizens and committees will have a clear way forward for a winning public policy playbook. Let’s get started, Balcony is the live feed, or choose a topic in the Elevator.