A plain guide
What is this?
It is a way for people in the same area to help each other lend a hand, share what they have, and decide things together.
What makes it unusual is what is not here. There is no company running it. No account to sign up for. No password. Nothing is stored on anybody’s computer but your own phone, and most of it works with your data switched off.
Three things to know
Your phone makes you a stamp
When you start, your phone creates a private stamp that only it has. Everything you do here gets stamped, so anyone can check it really came from you and nobody can copy it or pretend to be you. You never make a username or a password, because the stamp already is you.
You will be shown twelve words. Write them on paper. If your phone is lost or stolen, those words bring your stamp back on a new one. Nobody can send them to you not us, not anyone because nobody else has them.
Standing comes from people, not the app
A new stamp means nothing on its own. Anyone can make one in a second, so the app gives it no weight at all.
You get standing the way you do anywhere else: someone who is already known says “I know this person.” They do it face to face, by holding up a code on their phone for yours to read. It is the same as being introduced at a meeting, except the introduction is written down and cannot be faked.
Standing is what unlocks the more serious things : donated medicine, a shared tool, taking help before you have given any.
An hour is an hour
Help is counted in time. One hour of anyone’s work is sixty credits: a lawyer’s hour and a cleaner’s hour are worth exactly the same. That is on purpose. It is a time bank, not a market.
Everybody starts at zero. Help someone and you go up; receive help and you go down. Being below zero is normal; it just means it is your turn to give something back.
Getting started
Step 1
Look around first
Open Mutual aid and tap Add the commons this app came with. That is one tap and it needs nothing from you: no name, no number, no account.
A commons is just a shared noticeboard: the offers, requests and conversations for an area. What arrives is checked on your phone against the signature of whoever wrote it, stays on your phone, and works offline from then on.
Step 2
Make your stamp when you want to join in
Reading needs nothing. Posting, voting and agreeing an exchange are signed by you, so those need a stamp of your own. Open Identity and put in the name people know you by; your phone does the rest in a second.
Write down the twelve words before you carry on. This is the one part that cannot be undone later.
Step 3
Get someone to introduce you
Find someone already using it. On your phone tap Show my code; they tap Vouch for someone and point their camera at your screen. They choose how well they know you, and their phone shows a code back for you to read.
If you cannot meet, you can send the codes to each other as messages instead but call them and read the short code aloud to each other first, so you both know who you are really talking to.
What you can do
Ask for help, or offer it
Post what you can do or what you need: a bag of rice, an hour of tailoring, a lift to the clinic. When the help actually happens, the two of you settle it: one phone shows a code, the other agrees. Both of you have to agree, so nobody can charge you for something that never happened.
Work out what people actually think
Someone asks a question, say, how the market levy should be spent. People write short statements, and everyone else just agrees or disagrees. There is no replying and no arguing, because there is nothing to reply to.
The app then finds the groups that really exist and shows you the statements that everyone agrees with not the ones the biggest group shouted loudest about. It also shows you honestly where people are split.
Deal with something out of order
You can flag something abusive. But here is the important part: if only one side flags it, nothing happens. That is a disagreement, and disagreement already has a button. Something is only hidden when people from every group object so one side can never silence the other.
Even then it is only folded away, never deleted, and you can always tap to read it.
Questions people ask
Who is in charge?
Nobody. There is no owner, no moderator and no admin account, not even for whoever built it. There is no login to give anyone that power.
The closest thing is a body everybody already knows: a market association, a co-operative, a union. Your phone can choose to take their word as a starting point. But it is your phone’s choice, one by one, and you can undo it whenever you like.
What if I lose my phone?
Your twelve words bring everything back on a new phone. Without them it is gone, and nobody can recover it for you. That is the cost of there being no company holding your account, so write the words down.
Does it need internet?
Only to swap updates with people far away, and only for a moment. Everything else works with your data off: being introduced, posting, settling help, voting. Two phones side by side need no network at all.
Who can see what I do?
Anything you post is meant to be shared, so treat it as public. Your private stamp never leaves your phone, and you can lock it with a PIN.
Nothing is tracked, because there is nowhere to send it. No advertising, no profile being built about you.
What does it cost?
Nothing, and there is nobody to charge you. The only cost is the small amount of data used when you sync, which is kept deliberately tiny.
How do I bring someone in?
Open Sync, then Sources, and use Invite someone. You get one link. Send it however you already talk, or hold the square code up to their camera; their normal camera app opens it, with nothing to install first.
The link does two things when they open it. It offers to add the noticeboard, which is one tap. And it shows them the twelve characters that identify whoever your group treats as its starting point: a market association, a co-operative, a union. That second part they have to confirm themselves, after checking those characters with you. A link is not allowed to decide who someone trusts, and this one does not.
Does it only work where I live?
It works anywhere. You pick your country and type your own area in your own words town, ward, barangay, bairro, estate, whatever you actually call it. Nobody has to fit their home into another country’s list of names.
You are not joining a global network, though. A group is simply the people who sync with the same list, so what you see is your own community and not the whole world. If your group wants its own noticeboard, anybody can run one; nobody needs permission, and there is nobody to ask.
The short version: it is a noticeboard and a record of favours that belongs to the people using it, with nobody in the middle.
Make your stamp