Decentralized Deliberation Standard
An open protocol for sovereign, verifiable, interoperable, and resilient deliberation.
Why DDS?
Deliberation tools are siloed. Results from a Polis deliberation can't feed into a voting app without custom integration. Users must trust the platform with no way to verify results. When a provider disappears, communities lose their data and history.
DDS defines the shared layer. Any app reads any other app's deliberation data through common schemas on a shared data stream. No bilateral integrations, no vendor lock-in. You own your identity, you can verify the results, and your data survives regardless of what any operator does.
How it works
DDS separates deliberation into three open interfaces. Different tools from different teams handle each one, composing freely through shared schemas.
Plan
Design the consultation: rounds, modules, eligibility, feedback loops. This interface is open: a community platform, a DAO, or a government portal can each define the process their way.
Collect
Gather participant input: opinions, votes, comments. Different collection tools write to the same shared format, so you can swap or combine sources freely.
Analyze
Derive insights from collected data. Multiple independent analyzers can process the same inputs with different algorithms, competing on quality, not on data access.
Iterative by design. Analysis from one round triggers the next. All phases are loosely coupled.
What makes DDS different.
Four properties inherited from the protocols DDS is built on, passed to every tool built on DDS.
Sovereign
You own your participation. Choose a provider you trust, self-host your PDS, or walk away from any operator at any time. Every layer of the protocol can be self-hosted however you like.
Interoperable
Any app can build on DDS. No bilateral integrations, no walled gardens. One shared deliberation legible to every frontend, every analyzer, every governance tool.
Verifiable
Every piece of data is cryptographically signed at origin. Algorithms are open source. Anchor results on-chain for tamper-evidence. As zkML matures, verify that the analysis was computed correctly, on any device, in milliseconds.
Resilient
Works like the apps you know: fast, searchable, real-time. Data can be archived to censorship-resistant storage, so your deliberations survive even if operators don't.
Flexible participation.
DDS separates three concerns that traditional platforms bundle together. Mix and match per deliberation.
What can you build?
DDS is a substrate. The use cases are as broad as human deliberation itself.
Deliberation platforms
Opinion clustering à la Polis. Live conversation capture with AI-assisted transcription. Any structured deliberation where surfacing consensus matters.
Surveys & consultations
Citizen assemblies, public comment periods, participatory budgeting. Collect input at scale while keeping results auditable and participants sovereign.
Voting & governance
Quadratic voting, ranked-choice, token-weighted decisions. DDS handles the deliberation layer and composes cleanly with dedicated voting protocols like Vocdoni, Freedom Tool, and CarbonVote.
Built on proven layers.
DDS doesn't reinvent the wheel. AT Protocol is the foundation: federated transport, identity, machine-enforceable schemas. Beyond that, every layer is opt-in. Add permanent archival when you need it. Anchor results on-chain when verifiability of the result matters.
Build the future of collective decision-making.
DDS is an open working draft. Read the spec, join the discussion, implement the protocol.