What is Omniforum
This page briefly describes what Omniforum is meant to be. It is an accessible version of the Omniforum whitepaper: each part links to the full text.
Omniforum is to be a shared space for conversation where anyone can speak on any topic and be heard. In it, digital intelligence helps, always under the author's control, to break a statement down into individual thoughts and to connect them with sources and with other people's thoughts. The conversations that participants choose to share leave behind a body of work you can return to. It is to be made available to people from every part of the world as a digital public good with open source code.
Today Omniforum has a first prototype under construction; everything we describe below is at the design stage.
More: manifesto, introduction, section 3.2 and Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 1.
Why ordinary comments are not enough#
In a stream of quick comments, good arguments easily get lost, and the same disputes keep starting all over again. In a single sentence we convey many assumptions, values and expectations; as long as we understand each other, that is enough. When a misunderstanding arises or we need to decide together what to do, it helps to see what each of us means by the same words and where our reasoning diverges.
The point is not to pick the winner of a dispute; the conversation is meant to leave room for changing one's mind without humiliation. We consider a visit successful when afterward someone understands the issue better and can calmly return to their own affairs. Neither the number of clicks nor the time spent on the site is a measure of benefit.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 1 and section 1.1.
What a conversation looks like#
You start with ordinary text, and digital intelligence suggests how to break it down into individual thoughts and concepts. For example, the sentence “It's worth planting trees on our street, because they give shade, although they need watering” contains three thoughts: the conclusion “it's worth planting trees,” its justification “trees give shade” and the caveat “trees need watering,” built from concepts such as “tree,” “shade” and “watering.” The whitepaper calls concepts atoms and thoughts molecules. Next to each thought you can see which part of the statement it comes from.
In a dispute we often get irritated with each other not out of ill will, but because one sentence carries several assumptions and each person responds to different ones. The simple question “So you mean this and that, do I understand you correctly?” changes the tone of the conversation on both sides, and it is precisely this reflex that the whole technical layer of Omniforum is meant to support.
Then you correct the places where the model may have strayed from your intention, confirm the interpretation and consciously publish (the whitepaper calls this step the Ignis workshop, and the manifesto calls the moment of publication itself the Ignis Ceremony). After that, the community considers the thought, adds arguments, sources and caveats, and looks for a shared agreement (in the whitepaper: Formatio and Consensus); an honestly described disagreement is also a result of this work. Confirmation only means that you recognize your thought in the breakdown, not that you are right. You can also leave your statement whole, without dividing it.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 3.
Issue map#
An issue map is an organized collection of experiences, arguments and open questions that you can return to; it sets the reasoning of different people side by side, including reasoning that is mutually contradictory, together with sources. On the issue of trees on our street, one line of reasoning may lead from shade during heat waves to the conclusion that they are worth planting, and another from the cost of watering and roots under the sidewalk to the conclusion that shrubs would be better. When the same word means something different to the participants, we record it as separate atoms, so the source of the misunderstanding is visible right away.
The map is meant to open calmly: first one main conclusion, below it a few paths of justification to choose from, and at any moment you can get to the original statement. When you come back after a week or after a year, you are meant to see only what has changed.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 5.
What is free#
Our plan is this: reading, publishing statements, dividing them into thoughts by hand, adding sources, consultations and voting are to be free, and money does not grant greater reach or a stronger voice. A cost arises only when someone uses help from a model. It is covered by the person's own balance in Suveria or by a model on their own device, and people without a balance are to be able to use a free queue within the limits of the support budget and earmarked donations. Once confirmed, a breakdown is saved where the author placed it (privately, in a group or publicly in Omnium, the open database of Omniforum's public body of work), so no one pays again to open it.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, section 1.2.
Shared decisions and their limits#
An organized conversation prepares a decision, but does not replace it. We distinguish between:
- consultations: requests for opinions without verifying participants, open to everyone; we treat their result as a voice in the conversation, not as a measurement, because someone may have several accounts;
- binding votes on shared resources: they require voluntarily joining the decision-making community, free of charge, and obtaining eligibility through one of the transparent verification paths; we are working toward each person having one effective vote.
We are designing several paths to the right to vote, and none of them requires biometrics. No one gets more votes for a payment, for wealth or for a position they hold, the absence of a vote is not consent, and no one loses the right to vote because of their views or because they criticize the foundation.
This is one of the most difficult parts of the project. It is hard to ensure all at once one vote per person (without a central identity database), a secret ballot and access for people from all over the world; we do not yet know how to fully reconcile these. Voting will gain binding force gradually, starting with trials without financial consequences; for a result to formally bind the foundation, a change to the statute is needed.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 8.
Privacy and other people's words#
Each thought can be in one of three places: in the private space of Suveria, in a group that someone has chosen themselves, or publicly in Omniforum; moving it further always requires explicit confirmation. You do not need an account to read, and you can publish under a permanent pseudonym.
People have a right to privacy also when someone else quotes them. If someone attributes a statement to another person without a public source, for example from a private conversation, this can be reported, and until the matter is clarified such a statement is not publicly visible. A statement with a public source remains, but its author can add a correction or their current position next to it; the right to change one's mind does not erase history, but it does allow history to be supplemented.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 7.
Current status#
As of 30 October 2026: the Omniforum prototype is under construction, and we have not yet completed any of the trials described. We want to test the whole thing in small steps.
The first step is one complete path of a single thought: someone enters their own text, digital intelligence proposes a breakdown, the author corrects what was misunderstood, saves the result with its source and later returns to it in another conversation. We want to open the first public issue maps on claims from our manifesto and whitepapers, so that anyone can challenge them, and on everyday questions, from caring for plants to cooking recipes. We record the results of the trials in the log, also when a trial fails.
More: Omniforum whitepaper, chapter 9.
Read it and tell us what you think#
Read the full Omniforum whitepaper. If something puzzles you or seems wrong, highlight that passage in the document and use the “I have a comment” button, or write to salve@novusignis.org. Eventually, such comments are to go to Omniforum, where others will be able to discuss them.