Budget Explainer, Help & Tips
How GovWatch Ja Builds Community, Credibility and Local Moderation
GovWatch Ja uses a transparent, points-driven reputation system to incentivize local civic participation, reward quality reporting, and responsibly grant moderation powers. This article explains the roles and permissions available on GovWatch Ja, how users earn points, how the system respects primary constituencies, and how community moderation and appeals work.
Core principles
- Local weight: actions taken within a user’s primary constituency are more valuable and carry higher point rewards because local contribution is more relevant to local accountability.
- Verification-first: community signals (votes and comments) help surface important reports, but moderator verification and Civic Pulse Champion resolution are the strongest credibility signals.
- Transparent & auditable: every point award is recorded in an auditable ledger so scores and promotions can be reviewed and recomputed.
- Anti-abuse and fairness: unique event keys, rate limits, and integrity checks minimise gaming and accidental double-awards.
Roles, what they can do, and how they are achieved
The platform uses earned reputation to assign permissions and roles. All users start as Citizen and can post, vote, comment, and flag.
- Citizen (default)
- Can: Post reports, comment, upvote, flag suspected duplicates or abuse.
- How: Default on registration.
- Trusted Citizen
- Can: Access more detailed report metadata and suggest issue types or projects.
- How: Automatically assigned when a user’s reputation reaches the Trusted threshold (default 250 points).
- Community Moderator
- Can: Verify reports, merge duplicates, edit/delete problematic reports, access moderator tools.
- How: Automatically assigned when reputation reaches the Moderator threshold (default 2,000 points) and the account passes basic checks (account age, warnings); the system can also be configured to require manual approval.
- Civic Pulse Champion
- Can: Resolve verified reports, publish verified scorecards, request exports for constituency datasets.
- How: Automatically assigned at the Champion threshold (default 4,000 points); selection may be constituency-specific and can include human vetting.
- Administrator / Oversight Partner
- Can: Full platform access including exports and user management.
- How: Assigned by platform owners (not purely earned).
How the Primary Constituency is used
Each user has a primary constituency. When a user creates or contributes to a report associated with constituencies, the platform checks whether the report includes the user’s primary constituency.
- If the action occurs in the user’s primary constituency, the primary reward (higher value) applies.
- If the action occurs outside the user’s primary constituency, a reduced non-primary reward applies.
This design encourages local stewardship while still rewarding constructive cross-constituency contributions.
The points system (how points are awarded)
Points are awarded for both report lifecycle events (which increase a report’s credibility score) and user actions (which increase a user’s reputation). All awards are recorded to an auditable ledger so totals are transparent and can be recomputed if settings change.
Report action rewards (reporter points and report credibility)
| Action | Reporter points (Primary / Non-primary) | Credibility impact |
|---|---|---|
| Report created | +10 / +5 | +10 / +5 |
| Add accepted evidence (photo/doc) | +3 per item / +1 per item | +3 / +1 per item |
| Link to project (accepted) | +2 / +1 | +2 / +1 |
| Community upvote | (no direct reporter award) | +1 per upvote |
| Moderator verifies report | +40 / +20 | +40 / +20 |
| Civic Pulse Champion resolves report | +80 / +40 | +80 / +40 and status = resolved |
| Report merged (duplicate) | +5 / +2 | merged report may absorb credibility |
Notes:
- Verified and resolved steps give the greatest credibility boosts. Report credibility is stored with each report and used to sort and highlight trustworthy evidence.
User action rewards (how users gain reputation)
| Action | Points (Primary / Non-primary) | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Post a report | +10 / +5 | Initial report award |
| Add accepted evidence | +3 / +1 per item | Encourages good evidence |
| Comment (useful) | +2 / +1 | Based on upvotes / moderation |
| Upvote another report | +1 / 0 | Small incentive to engage locally |
| Flag (validated duplicate/inappropriate) | +5 / +2 | Reward helpful flags |
| Suggest Issue Type / Project (accepted) | +10 / +5 | For useful taxonomy contributions |
| Verify a report (moderator action) | +25 / +10 | Moderator-level action |
| Resolve a report (Champion) | +40 / +20 | Champion-level action |
| Merge/close duplicate (moderator) | +15 / +7 | Helps keep feed clean |
| Publish to Knowledge Base (editor) | +10 / +5 | For published civic resources |
| Nomination accepted for a role | +100 | One-time promotion bonus |
Thresholds: permissions & roles
| Role / Permission | Minimum reputation (default) |
|---|---|
| Can Suggest a Type Of Issue / Project | 100 |
| Can View Detailed Scorecard Reports | 150 |
| Trusted Citizen (role) | 250 |
| Can Verify other Community Reports | 750 |
| Community Moderator (role) | 2,000 |
| Civic Pulse Champion (role) | 4,000 |
| Can Export Anonymized Data as an Agency | 5,000 |
These values are configurable in the platform’s points settings and are recomputed by running the platform’s recompute operation (available to administrators).
Moderation workflow
- User posts a report.
- Community upvotes, comments, or flags the report (early credibility signals).
- Trusted Citizens or Moderators review reports in the moderation queue. Moderators can verify (increase credibility) or merge duplicates.
- Civic Pulse Champions can mark verified reports as resolved when an agency or project outcome is confirmed.
- All moderation actions are logged. Promotions and high-risk permissions can optionally require nomination and admin approval.
Safeguards and anti-abuse
- Idempotency: External webhooks and repeat requests should include a unique event key so the transparency algorithm only records an award once per logical event.
- Audit trail: Every award is written to an auditable ledger that includes contextual snapshots (report id, constituency snapshot). This allows recomputation and forensic review.
- Rate limiting & checks: The platform enforces daily rate limits and account-age/warning checks before granting high-value actions.
- Recalculation support: If you change point rules, use the platform’s recompute tool (available to administrators) to rebuild reputation and credibility from the ledger.
For community members: how you can contribute safely and effectively
- Post clear reports with evidence (photos, documents). Evidence increases credibility and awards extra points.
- Tag your report with the correct constituency. If it falls within your primary constituency, your contribution is weighted higher.
- Use flags and moderation tools responsibly i.e. valid flags earn reputation and help maintain feed quality.
For moderators & community managers: operational notes
- The platform records granted permissions and account entitlements in its transparency algorithm. These permissions are surfaced with a user’s account details so the interface can enable or disable features appropriately.
- Point awarding is processed reliably and recorded to the platform’s audit ledger; this ensures awards are written once and totals are consistent. When external systems send events, include a unique event key so the transparency algorithm can avoid duplicate awards.
- To change awards or thresholds, update the platform’s points settings via the administration tools and then run the recompute operation (available to administrators) to rebuild reputation and credibility from the ledger.
Frequently asked questions
- Q: Can someone “game” the system by posting lots of low-quality reports?
- A: Rate limits, moderation, quality multipliers, and manual review make gaming difficult; low-quality reports will be down-ranked and may lead to warnings.
- Q: What happens if constituency boundaries change?
- A: Each ledger entry stores a constituency snapshot so historical awards remain auditable. Recomputations use those snapshots for correctness.
Closing
GovWatch Ja’s reputation and moderation system is designed to encourage local stewardship, reward valuable evidence, and escalate trusted community members into moderator roles, while keeping the system auditable and resilient to abuse. If you’d like help tuning the thresholds or creating a local moderation playbook for your constituency, reach out to the GovWatch team.
NB. Updates may be made and will be available here.