How it works › People and roles
Who is who
Citizen
Everyone who signs in. Report a problem you are standing next to, join someone else’s report (“Me too”) and say whether it is still there. On cases you reported or joined, say it has been fixed, confirm or question someone else’s fix, and reopen it if the problem comes back. After a few accepted reports your account is established and can do this on other cases too. You cannot hide or delete anyone else’s content, and nobody — not even the services — sees who reported.
Responsible service
For staff of a body that fixes problems in public space (for example the water utility or the city services); the service is named on the account. You can acknowledge a case, say when it will be fixed, decline it with a public reason, and report it fixed with a photo. Your fix still has to be confirmed by people on the spot, or go unchallenged for 21 days. Once your service is the first to act on a case it is your service’s — other services cannot act on it, and only review can move it. You cannot remove a case or a photo, change what citizens wrote, or see who reported.
Reviewer
A neutral person from the FixEcho team who keeps the map safe: looks at new accounts’ photos before they are public, keeps or takes down photos people report, removes reports that break the rules, corrects a wrong problem type, moves a case to the right service, and settles cases stuck between “fixed” and “not fixed”. Every ruling is public with a reason and signed “Review”, never with a name. Reviewers do not work for a service or a party in a town where the app is live.
Administrator
Everything a reviewer does, plus the accounts: gives and removes roles, links staff to their service, marks seeding volunteers, puts an account’s photos under review, teaches the search new words, and handles formal legal requests. Only administrators see e-mail addresses. There is always at least one administrator.
Two options an administrator sets, not roles: seeding volunteer (no daily limit, photos public at once, for the team that maps existing problems before a launch) and check every photo first (for 30 days every photo from the account waits for a reviewer before it is public; also set automatically when an established account’s report is removed). An account becomes established after three accepted reports or reported fixes, disputes and reopenings, or after 14 days and one of them.
How a service gets an account. Nobody declares themselves a service. FixEcho writes to the service's public address, found on its official website or in a public register; every message has one-click answers and a link to open a free account (For responsible services). The account is that address: whoever reads that mailbox opens it and adds colleagues with an address on the service's domain; FixEcho checks any other address first. The account stops working when the address stops being the service's (mail bounces, a check finds it wrong, the service is retired). Free addresses (gmail, yahoo…) are a service's address only when the municipality publishes them as such. The account is the service's; staff are never named in a case's history. A service reports a fix with a photo, and it becomes “fixed” only when people on the spot confirm it, or after 21 days without a dispute — a service cannot close a case alone. Services join town by town, free, whoever runs the town.