Frequently asked questions

No. Project North Star is a civic platform, not a political party. We don't run in elections or nominate candidates. Our goal is to create infrastructure for meaningful civic participation. A party is a possible long-term tool, if the community matures and the demand arises. But it is not the starting point.

Not yet — we are at the platform stage. Registering as a nonprofit or civic organization is the next institutional step, once a community is formed and real working experience is built up.

An ordinary forum has chaotic threads with no structure, outcome, or accountability. We have: issue pages with a lifecycle, annotations at the level of a specific text, a reputation system, working groups, and a verified history of decisions. Discussion has to turn into something.

Moderation is multi-layered. Basic rules are applied automatically. Disputed cases are reviewed by moderators — members with high reputation. All moderation decisions are public and can be appealed.

Karma is earned for quality contributions: annotations, arguments, and proposals that win community support. Not for the number of posts. Reputation unlocks additional capabilities: proposing new issues, joining working groups, moderating.

Yes. The platform supports a civic alias — a public pseudonym detached from your real name. Your civic history and reputation are still tied to your account. Some actions may require identity verification.

Several layers of protection: verification at registration, a karma system (new accounts have limited rights), reputation-weighted voting, AI detection of anomalous patterns, and manual moderation of disputed cases.

AI here is a tool for structuring, not a replacement for people. Specific tasks: clustering similar positions, finding related issues, detecting duplicates, and acting as a research assistant on a topic. AI suggests — people decide.

So that results can't be rewritten after the fact. Versions of proposals and voting results are recorded with timestamps. Anyone can check what exactly was adopted, who participated, and when.

Each issue has a level (federal / state / local) and a link to a jurisdiction. State-level data is shown in a separate State Landscape tab. Issues can be filtered by state.

For now — editors and administrators. In the future, members with sufficient reputation will be able to propose new issues through the Submit Issue form, which then go through moderation before publication.

Yes — but not as lobbyists. We prepare structured drafts of bills and amendments based on community discussions. Politicians who want to hear their voters but lack the resources for deep analysis can take this work and introduce it under their own name. What matters to us is the result, not the credit.

At the local level — yes. School boards, city commissions, sheriff elections are places where one person with real community support can win. We are ready to support specific candidates who work by our methodology: an open agenda, verified positions, accountability to voters. This is not a party slate.

Because legislative influence doesn't require party status. Civic organizations, think tanks, and expert communities around the world regularly prepare legislative proposals that politicians adopt and advance. It is one of the most effective channels of influence — given a reputation and quality work.

It is a circle of people — activists, local officials, journalists, independent candidates — who share the principles of evidence-based policy. Not a party structure, but a trusted network. You can join it through active participation on the platform, accumulated reputation, and a real contribution to the work of topic-specific working groups.

For now — by the founders. The next step is grant funding from foundations that support civil society and civic tech, and crowdfunding from early supporters. We do not plan an advertising model or monetization of user data.