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Shared Vision (public platform page)

Shared Vision is Symthink's public, shareable view of someone's published Vision branch — the page other people see after a leader publishes from Dashboard → Sharing. Publishing serializes the entire Vision branch, including Ballot Research under Vision.

Think of it as the public interface of a knowledge tree: readers explore a civic platform as an argument map, not a social post.

What Shared Vision is for

  • For readers: explore a leader's civic thinking in a way that stays navigable and specific.
  • For leaders: publish a version of your work that other people can actually follow.
  • For communities: build a shared reference point for ongoing civic discussion (with the ability to revisit later).

What you can do on Shared Vision

Explore (even if you're not signed in)

  • Navigate the tree by question and branch.
  • Get oriented to what the leader is prioritizing and how their reasoning is structured.

Follow what you care about

On a published Question that accepts responses, open the speed-dial menu and choose Follow this question. If you are signed out, Symthink prompts you to sign in before completing the follow. When the leader publishes an update that affects that area, activity appears on Home → Following — use the overflow menu to View changes.

If you already follow the question, the action reads Unfollow this question instead.

See: feed.md

Speed-dial actions (context-dependent)

Open the speed-dial menu (lower right). Non-owner reader actions are visible even when you are signed out. Choosing Follow this question, a Copy… action, or a build/contribute action prompts you to sign in before Symthink completes it.

Reader actions (not the tree owner)

The build action defaults to Build on this vision; on most nodes Symthink renames it by type:

Label Node type
Add an idea from your tree Question
Build on this idea from your tree Idea
Add supporting evidence from your tree Claim

Other reader actions:

Action When it appears
Follow this question Question that accepts responses, when you do not already follow it
Unfollow this question When you already follow this question
Copy this branch to my tree Non-root nodes with children
Copy this question/idea/claim to my tree Leaf nodes (wording matches node type)
Support this vision Root view only, when the leader added a fundraising link and did not publish anonymously

All of the above reader actions except Support this vision require sign-in to complete.

Tree owner actions

Action When it appears
Start open forum On a published Question (not the Vision root); up to 3 open forums at a time
Analyze reasoning On a Question you own
Print ballot information On ballot-research content with printable choices

Signed-in followers (not the owner)

Action When it appears
Analyze reasoning On the exact Question you follow

Print ballot information may also appear for any viewer on eligible ballot-research nodes.

See civic-listening.md and evidence-aware-article-drafting.md for open forums and article drafting.

Collaborate

Symthink keeps collaboration specific and attributable:

  • Signed-in readers can add an idea on a published Question (footer input) or use a build/contribute speed-dial action above to send a tree item from My Vision for the owner to review in Suggestions. Signed-out visitors see those speed-dial actions but are prompted to sign in before completing them.
  • Tree owners can Start open forum on a published Question to collect anonymous suggestions for 1–7 days. See civic-listening.md.
  • Copy this branch to my tree (or the leaf-specific copy label) duplicates a branch into your own tree under Copied, with citation to the source leader.

When a forum closes with enough submissions, synthesized ideas land in the leader's Suggestions bin on My Vision for accept/reject review.

If a leader has added a fundraising platform in Settings, their Shared Vision root includes Support this vision.

  • The action is shown only on the root view.
  • It is hidden when the leader publishes anonymously.
  • The dialog shows the platform name and a visible external link before you leave Symthink.

What changes when a leader publishes

Shared Vision is tied to the leader's published Vision branch.

  • When they publish, the Shared Vision view updates.
  • People who follow your questions may see activity on Home → Following and open change summaries from the overflow menu.
  • Metrics and transparency analytics may update after publishing.

See: publishing-updates.md