Doctrine Engine
The Doctrine Engine holds your organization's positions: what it stands for on a topic, why, and on which claims and principles that rests. Every change is a new numbered revision; a position is approved by someone other than the person who wrote it before it is published, and its whole history can be replayed from the record.
The claims and principles a position cites come from the Ideology Mapper.
Open it from Research in the main navigation, then Positions: the list, a new position, and each position's page with its current text, revisions and their differences, history, approval and publication.
Who can do what
| Role | Read positions | Write, revise, submit, withdraw | Approve, request changes, publish | AI summary of a change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reader | Yes | No | No | No |
| Researcher | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| Project lead (in their project) | Yes | Yes | Yes, in their project | No |
| Editor | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Owner | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| You, in your personal workspace (owner) | Yes | Yes | Yes, your own positions (flagged) | Yes |
No other organization can see that a position exists, and an information barrier hides a walled project's positions from the members it excludes.
A position
A position has a title, a topic, a body (what you stand for), a rationale (why), the claims and principles it rests on, in order, and where it applies: the jurisdictions (the governments, such as a county or a city) it is about, or not tied to a place. Switching the location in the header never changes a position's scope.
Revisions
Writing a position creates revision 1. Every later change (to the text, the scope, or the claims and principles it cites) is a new revision, numbered in order and in the author's name, with an optional change note. Revisions never change afterwards, and a revision that changes nothing is refused.
History lists every revision, review and publication. Compare shows the difference between any two revisions, paragraph by paragraph and word by word, including claims and principles added or removed. AI can propose a one-paragraph summary of a change; it is a proposal shown next to the diff and never becomes part of the position.
Review and approval
- Submit the current revision for approval, optionally with a note. The position is In review and cannot be revised until the review is decided or withdrawn. Editors and owners other than the author and submitter are notified.
- An approver who neither wrote nor submitted that revision decides:
- Approve: the position is Approved, for that revision. The author and submitter are notified.
- Request changes: a comment is required. The position returns to draft, and the author and submitter are notified.
- The submitter, or an approver, can Withdraw a pending review.
Separation of duties is enforced in the database: in an organization, the author or submitter of a revision cannot approve it. In a personal workspace you approve your own positions, and the review is flagged as a self-approval everywhere it appears.
Revising an approved position makes it a draft again; the earlier approval stays in the record for the revision it was given to.
Publication
An approver publishes an approved revision. Publishing records which revision was published, as which version, and by whom; a later approved revision can be published as the next version. A publication can be withdrawn with a reason; the record of what was published stays. (Rendering and distributing published positions comes in a later release.)
Every step is in the audit log.