Wiki

Operating model

This is the working governance proposal for the first Uitwijken.nl pilot. It translates the society-owned thesis into a responsibility split that can survive a change of municipal leadership.

It is a design proposal, not legal advice. Before launch, the legal form, contracts, privacy roles, moderation procedures, insurance, and appeal routes need Dutch legal review.

The proposal in one sentence

A resident-owned association owns the platform; a replaceable open-source technical steward runs it; resident-led local boards govern community norms and moderation; the municipality funds, publishes, and answers without owning or editorially controlling the layer.

The four responsibilities

Responsibility	Proposed owner	Boundary
Legal ownership	Resident-owned Vereniging Uitwijken, protected by a public charter and members' assembly	No municipal ownership, advertising sale, or vendor lock-in
Technical operation	Independent mission-led tech steward under contract	Runs infrastructure and security, but does not set content or civic priorities
Content and moderation	Physical, accountable local moderation boards; central safety function for urgent cases	Public rules, reasons, deadlines, and appeals
Municipal interface	Standing municipal liaison and multi-year public agreement	Funds public functions, publishes official context, and answers for municipal decisions

Eight operating answers

1. Who legally owns the platform?

The working proposal is a resident-owned association. Verified residents are members with one vote each. The association holds the name, code, data infrastructure, contracts, insurance, and staff relationships. Residents elect and can recall at least a majority of the board, approve the public charter, and decide on major changes to ownership, data, licensing, merger, or closure. Resident organizations can join as partner members; the municipality and businesses can participate or advise, but do not get votes that override residents.

The exact statutes still need to be designed. The important decision for the pilot is that the municipality is a funder and participant, not the owner, and that resident control is structural rather than consultative.

2. Who runs the technology?

An independent tech steward runs hosting, security, releases, backups, data ingestion, accessibility, and incident response. The contract must be replaceable. Code should use an open-source license, data should be exportable, and documentation should make handover possible. Members should approve any transfer that would materially change control of the code or data.

3. Who governs content and moderation?

The community sets public norms. Formal areas and themes receive physical, accountable moderation boards. Informal initiatives can use lighter participant-led rules. A central safety function can handle urgent safety and unlawful-content cases, but it should not become an invisible editorial authority.

4. What does the municipality fund, publish, and decide?

The municipality funds core public-interest capacity: accessibility, security, moderation support, open-data access, community connectors, and evaluation. It publishes plans, permits, budgets, deadlines, source data, and responses. It decides its own statutory matters. It does not own the platform, decide resident speech, or receive a special surveillance view.

5. Who is responsible for harmful or unlawful content?

The association is the first accountable platform operator and provides notice-and-action, escalation, moderation logs, insurance, and a contact point for competent authorities. The tech steward operates under contract. Municipal bodies remain responsible for their own official publications and legal decisions. The precise legal allocation must be reviewed before launch.

6. Which decisions are binding, advisory, or informative?

Every survey, plan response, and community rule should show its decision type, responsible actor, mandate, closing date, and response date.

Binding: made by an actor with the relevant legal or charter authority.
Advisory: resident or participant input that requires a public response, but does not itself replace a legal decision.
Informative: a source makes an event, plan, permit, dataset, or deadline findable; it is not a vote.

7. How does a resident appeal?

The route is: flag or challenge → see the reason and status → local reconsideration → independent escalation. The original decision and its reason stay visible. For municipal decisions, the platform links to the formal municipal objection route rather than pretending a civic thread replaces it.

8. How does the platform survive political change?

The association signs a multi-year public agreement with transparent funding, service commitments, and evaluation. A standing municipal liaison replaces dependence on one official. Annual financial, moderation, and impact reports create continuity. Open code, exportable data, documentation, and replaceable suppliers make the platform portable. The general members' assembly protects the charter when political leadership changes.

The ownership test

Community ownership means residents have power, not only a consultation channel. If residents cannot elect or recall the board, approve the charter, see what happens with money and data, and stop an unwanted sale, merger, or closure, the platform is not genuinely community-owned.

Decision labels

Label	Meaning	Example
Binding	An authorized actor makes a decision within its legal or charter mandate	Municipal decision, charter amendment, platform safety decision
Advisory	Residents set direction and the recipient must publicly respond	Neighborhood budget priority, plan feedback, theme survey
Informative	A source makes context findable; no vote is implied	Event, permit publication, open dataset, deadline

Pilot checklist

Review the association's legal form, membership rules, and draft charter with Dutch legal and governance expertise.
Define the technical-steward contract, open-source license, data portability, and exit plan.
Test moderation, notice-and-action, and appeals with a physical community board.
Agree the municipality's mandate, data responsibilities, response deadlines, and liaison.
Budget multi-year funding rather than a one-off demo grant.