Question 1

What is Civic Filament?

Accepted Answer

Civic Filament is consensus infrastructure. An AI mediator conducts one-on-one interviews with community members to elicit underlying values (not positions), semantic clustering finds latent agreement across those interviews, and the output is a versioned Living Requirement Document (LRD) — "GitHub for community intent" — that decision-makers can reference and revise as understanding matures.

Question 2

How does the AI interview work?

Accepted Answer

Participants talk to an AI mediator guided by Motivational Interviewing and Nonviolent Communication principles. It is instructed to elicit — never persuade, argue, or steer. The mediator surfaces the values, needs, and constraints behind a stated position. Full methodology and mediator instructions are published on the Methodology page.

Question 3

What is a Living Requirement Document?

Accepted Answer

An LRD is a versioned document per issue with four sections: Strong Consensus, Conditional Consensus, Genuine Divergence, and Gaps. Every version has a diff — the same auditability model as source control. LRDs are advisory tools for decision-makers, not binding votes.

Question 4

How is participant data handled?

Accepted Answer

Personally identifiable information is stripped before interviews enter the synthesis engine. Participants can delete their raw interview at any time. When a municipality deploys Civic Filament, data handling — including public records posture — is defined in the pilot agreement before the first interview.

Question 5

Who is Civic Filament for?

Accepted Answer

Built for municipalities, DAOs, enterprises with continuous-listening needs, and researchers. The Community tier is free under 500 participants; Municipal starts at $2,500/mo; Enterprise is contact-for-pricing. Free pilots are available for early communities.

Insights from the protocol

Civic Filament vs. Pol.is: What Changes When the Interview Is the AI

Town Hall Alternatives That Actually Scale Access, Not Just Bandwidth

Why Public Comment Periods Are Broken — And What AI Can Do About It

The 70% Agreement: How Communities Agree More Than They Think

Consensus Infrastructure Should Be a Public Utility

Civic Filament vs. Pol.is: What Changes When the Interview Is the AI

Town Hall Alternatives That Actually Scale Access, Not Just Bandwidth

Participatory Budgeting Tools in 2026: A Practical Comparison

Why Public Comment Periods Are Broken — And What AI Can Do About It

The 70% Agreement: How Communities Agree More Than They Think

Motivational Interviewing Meets AI: A New Framework for Civic Dialogue

Living Requirement Documents: Beyond Surveys and Polls

Privacy by Design in Civic Technology: Why Architecture Beats Policy

From Town Halls to AI Mediators: The Evolution of Public Participation

How DAOs Proved We Need Consensus Synthesis, Not More Votes

What Moral Foundations Theory Tells Us About Community Disagreements

Consensus Infrastructure Should Be a Public Utility