[IDEA] Civic Forum and Ideas Hub with Proposal Tracking

[mzowera]

Problem
The current Ideas feature in BetterGov.ph is focused mainly on simple idea submissions, but civic participation requires more flexible tools. Citizens and volunteers need a space not only for proposals, but also for announcements, issue reporting, discussions, and collaboration. Without such a forum, conversations become fragmented across different platforms and lose momentum.

Proposed Solution
Create a Civic Forum and Multi-Purpose Ideas Hub where users can post proposals, raise concerns, make announcements, and engage in discussions. This would expand BetterGov beyond a one-way suggestion box into a true digital town hall. The forum would allow structured participation while keeping conversations transparent, accessible, and accountable.

Key Features

• Multi-Purpose Posting: Citizens can submit proposals, raise issues, post announcements, or start discussions.
• Voting and Ranking: Users can vote on proposals and issues, helping the community set priorities.
• Discussion Threads: Each post has its own thread for clarifications, debate, and collaboration.
• Categorization and Tagging: Posts can be grouped by topics such as health, infrastructure, education, tourism, disaster response, and governance.
• Proposal Lifecycle: Submissions can move through statuses such as Raised, Under Review, In Progress, Resolved, or Declined.
• Duplicate Detection: Similar posts can be flagged to reduce redundancy.
• Official Responses: Agencies, volunteers, or moderators can provide updates or acknowledge posts.
• Announcement Board: A section where moderators, volunteers, or agencies can share public service announcements or civic updates.

Benefits

• Expands BetterGov from an idea box into a civic forum with multiple use cases.
• Encourages participation beyond proposals, giving space for urgent concerns, community news, and collaborative discussions.
• Improves accountability through transparent tracking of proposals and issues.
• Reduces duplication and increases clarity through categorization and duplicate detection.
• Creates a bridge between citizens, volunteers, and government representatives.
• Serves as a historical record of issues, announcements, and solutions.

Call to Action
BetterGov.ph can begin by implementing a basic forum structure where citizens and volunteers can post different content types (ideas, proposals, announcements, issues). Over time, features such as lifecycle tracking, duplicate detection, and official responses can be added. While volunteer-driven at the start, the system can remain open for collaboration with DICT or other government agencies to expand its impact.

[niculistana]

@mzowera this is a great idea I suggest we move this to the petition repo so since it seems like the right audience could read it.

Please recreate the discussion here: https://github.com/bettergovph/petition