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Welcome to the Deep Dive. We take your sources, your notes, all that material, and

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really

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try to pull out the key insights for you. Today we're looking at Console Democracy.

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We've got some info from their website and their GitHub code repository. Our goal

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here

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is to unpack what this thing actually is, especially if it's new to you. Sort of a

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beginner's guide, getting straight to the important stuff from the sources you

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provided.

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And before we really dive in, just a quick shout out to the supporter who made this

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Deep

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Thought possible, Safe Server. They handle software hosting and support digital

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transformation,

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things like hosting this kind of software. You can find more info at www.safeserver.de.

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Okay, so, Console Democracy. Let's start with the big picture. The material we have

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really paints it as a pretty complete toolkit for citizen participation, you know,

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designed

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for open, transparent government. They actually call it the most complete citizen

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participation

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tool. The most complete. That's quite a claim. Do the sources give any hints as to

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why? Well,

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I think it comes down to the range of things it lets people do, which we'll get

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into. But maybe

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the first really key thing the source has stressed is that it's open source. Ah,

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right. Meaning,

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free to use, free to modify. Exactly. Not some locked down commercial product. And

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that feels

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pretty central to its whole purpose, doesn't it? Yeah, definitely. If you're aiming

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for public

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participation, making the tool itself open and adaptable makes a lot of sense. The

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source has

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mentioned its public mission is recognized and supported. And it's not just an idea,

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it's actually out there being used. The material highlights it has been used by

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more than 250 cities

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and organizations all over the world. Over 250, that's significant. It really is.

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And they give

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specific examples too. Like where? Madrid, obviously, where it started. But also

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places

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like mentioned in Germany, Sao Paulo, in Brazil, Glasgow, in Scotland. Okay, so

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major cities,

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global reach. Yeah. That's just pretty robust, handles complexity, not just a niche

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tool. Right.

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So yeah, the headline is open source platform used globally, trying to change

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citizen engagement.

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Okay, that's the what and where. So how does it do that? What are the actual

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features? What

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does the software let people do? The sources lay out the main functions, kind of

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the core tools in

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the box. First, there are spaces for debate, just, you know, online discussions on

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different topics.

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Standard enough. What else? Then critically, it supports gathering and evaluating

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citizen proposals

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so people can submit ideas and those ideas can actually be assessed. Okay, so

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beyond just talk,

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actually putting forward concrete suggestions. Exactly. And then moving towards

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decisions,

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it facilitates voting, collective decision making. Formal voting within the

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platform.

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Seems like it, yeah. And there's also participatory budgeting.

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Ah, that's a big one. Giving citizens a say in where the money goes.

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A really direct form of influence, yeah. And one more key feature they mention is

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collaboratively drafting laws or regulations. Wait, really? So people can actually

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work

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together on the text of official documents? That's what the source material

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suggests.

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So yeah, you can see it covers quite a spectrum. Hmm, yeah. It's not just one thing.

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It's debate,

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proposing, budgeting, voting, even drafting text together. That starts to sound

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like why they might

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call it most complete. It seems to integrate participation much deeper than say

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just a comment

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section. It definitely aims for a broad range of engagement types. Now, naturally

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you might wonder

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about the tech side, the sort of under the hood stuff. The sources give a little

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glimpse, keeping

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it fairly high level. Good. Keep it accessible. So we know it's open source. Where

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does the code

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actually live? It's hosted on GitHub, which for anyone unfamiliar, is basically the

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go-to place

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for collaborative software development, especially open source projects. That's

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where the community

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works on it. Right. And they mention the license. They do. Aferro GPLv3. Now, this

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is kind of

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important in the open source world. It basically means if you modify the code and

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use it to provide

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a service like a city running its participation website, you generally have to

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share your

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modifications back with everyone. Ah, so it reinforces the collaborative aspect.

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Yeah. Keeps

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improvements in the open. Exactly. It prevents someone from just taking it,

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improving it privately,

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and locking those improvements away. And the origin story is interesting, too. It

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wasn't just

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cooked up in a lab somewhere. No. Where did it start? The sources say it was

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originally developed

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for the Madrid City government e-participation website, specifically decide.madrid.es,

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launched

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back in September 2015. So born from a real world need in a major city. That's a

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solid grounding.

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It is. And it's grown since then. It's now maintained by the open source software

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community

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in collaboration with the Consul Democracy Foundation. Okay. So it transitioned

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from just

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Madrid to a broader community effort with a foundation supporting it. That shows

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sustainability.

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Yeah. And you can see signs of that community activity. The sources mention 145

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contributors

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on GitHub. That's a fair number of people writing code. And things like stars and

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forks.

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What do those numbers mean? They mentioned 1.5k stars and 1.1k forks. Those are

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GitHub metrics.

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Stars are basically like bookmarks or shows of appreciation. Forks mean people have

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copied the

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code base often to work on their own version or contribute changes back. So 1.5

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thousand stars

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and over a thousand forks. Yeah. That signals quite a bit of interest in activity

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for a project

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like this. Definitely indicates a living community. And that activity seems ongoing

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if you look at the latest news section mentioned in the sources. Right. It seems

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pretty current.

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They mention a spring newsletter dated, well dated today actually, May 28th, 2025.

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And previous ones

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too. It shows regular communication. Yeah. And specific updates like a video

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recording of 28

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April Meetup featuring North Ayrshire in Starlin. So sharing real use cases. What

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else stood out

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from the recent news? Well something really interesting from March 2025. An

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announcement

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of a new project. Open source LLM powered civic assistant. LLM large language model.

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Like AI.

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Exactly. Think conversational AI like chat bots but potentially much smarter. They're

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exploring

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using that kind of tech within this open source civic tool. That's pretty cutting

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edge for this

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space. Wow. Okay. Bringing AI into citizen participation tools. That could really

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change

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things. Maybe help people understand complex issues or even draft proposals and crucially

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doing it open source. That transparency is key. Yeah. The news also mentioned some

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external

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validation. A digital participation tools rating by an organization called People

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Powered. And

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apparently open source wins according to their February 2025 news. That's a nice

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endorsement

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reinforces their approach. Definitely. And you also see practical stuff like recent

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software

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releases version 2.3.1 in April 2025 shows the core product is still being

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developed plus community

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events like a console con 25 throwback suggesting they have conferences. So it

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sounds active

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evolving and getting recognition. Now for you listening if this sounds like

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something you'd

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want to explore more. How would you do that based on the sources. They make it

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pretty easy to dip

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your toes in. You can check out our demo right on their website lets you see an

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action without

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installing anything. Okay a demo is useful what if you're more technical. Then you

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can get the code

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straight from GitHub dive right in. And for an organization thinking about using it.

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The site

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says you can get started right away with the installation and implementation. Suggest

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there's

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guidance available and naturally they mention ways to support them like become a

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sponsor. How

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about just keeping up with news. You can sign up for the console quarterly

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newsletter or follow them

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on Mastodon or LinkedIn. And direct contact. Yep they list an email dot info at

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console foundation

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dot org. Okay so lots of ways to engage. Pulling this all together then why should

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you care about

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console democracy. What's the big takeaway. Well I think it matters because it's a

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really tangible

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example of using technology specifically open source tech to try and deepen

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democracy. It's not

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just theory it's being used globally. Yeah it moves beyond just government telling

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people things

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online towards actual interaction collaboration even shared decision making. It's a

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tool for that.

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And the open source aspect is crucial. It's built by a community not owned by one

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company that aligns

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with the whole public service mission. It's a different way of building what's

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essentially

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becoming critical digital infrastructure for cities and organizations. Right it's a

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model

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for how digital tools could work to make governance more transparent and participatory.

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And thinking

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about that future especially with that LLM project they mentioned. Yes that leads

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perfectly to a

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final thought for you the listener. How might AI especially AI developed openly

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like this change

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how citizens and governments interact down the line. What new possibilities could

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it unlock for

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participation. But also what are the challenges or risks when you bring powerful AI

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into these

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civic processes. Especially when the code itself is open for anyone to see and

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maybe even misuse.

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Definitely some big questions there for the future of civic tech. Absolutely lots

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to ponder.

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And one final thank you to our supporter Safe Server their experts in software

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hosting and

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digital transformation support. Find out more about them at www.safeserver.de.