# Confidant

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**Confidant** is a secure text-based chat platform for crowdsourced peer support. The service is powered by **Support Systems**: a syndicate of communities, organizations, and support groups who volunteer their time and diverse experiences to assist others in their time of need.

## Endorsements

**Endorsements** are user-created reviews of the abilities of other users. Endorsements are stored on a user's profile and used by the system to match users to guests requesting support.

## Components

### User Management

The **user management** component is responsible for managing the set of users and groups in the system, as well as the relationships between them.

### Endorsement Management

The **endorsement management** component is responsible for managing the set of endorsements in the system. This includes creating, updating, and deleting endorsements, as well as calculating the endorsement score for a user.

## Entities

### Guests

**Guests** are users who are accessing Support Systems through one of the platforms supported by the network, and they can request support on any topic currently supported as well.

The set of supported topics is defined as the collection of all topics for which at least one active [group](#groups) is qualified to provide support through a system of sensible endorsements.

### Helpers

**Helpers** assist [guests](#guests) with one or more topics for which they are qualified to provide support. This is derived from the endorsements they hold from recognized [groups](#groups).

### Groups

**Groups** could be a community of volunteers on Discord, or a partner organization bound to proprietary platforms on which their business operates. Like helpers, each group has a set of topics for which they are qualified to provide support.

Unlike [helpers](#helpers), that qualification is derived from the quality of their interactions historically. In practice, this is calculated as the sum total of [merit](#merit) with respect to each topic individually, taken collectively amongst all of helpers whom they are actively endorsing for that topic.

### Partners

**Partners** of the Support Systems organization could be an up-and-coming warmline focused on crises amongst the trans community, or perhaps a well-established text line for various crises.

### Experts

**Experts** are employees or contractors of the Support Systems Syndicate who are authorized to review anonymized live chat data as it is produced, then step in if there is an issue. Auditors are able to immediately suspend communications with specific users—guests or helpers—and entire groups as they see fit. A formal written notice must be given to the user with a clearly stated reason in plain language, as well as clear steps to restore their access to the network.

This would typically be to protect the integrity of the syndicate, and to reduce liability for the organization. Typically, an expert would simply be employed to oversee live communications and intervene where appropriate, aside from calling for/enacting punitive or protective actions.

Experts might be well-credentialed healthcare professionals, licensed physicians, attorneys at law, or any other profession whose skill set is required for safe and worry-free operation.

### Admins

**Admins** are employees, contractors, or volunteers of the Support Systems Syndicate who are

## Decentralization

In the case of this platform, the goals of decentralization include ***neither*** the prevention of non-malicious censorship ***nor*** the circumvention of agreeable regulations. Rather, decentralization is a necessity of network design to achieve features of user data privacy, autonomy of governance per support group, and delegation of [trust and safety](#Trust-and-Safety).

### Censorship Considerations
Most communications on the platform can be censored, and nonadherence to laws or standards enforced by agencies overseeing communications within each group's locale would constitute a fair case for unilateral moderation, arguably amounting to "censorship," and this typically would be in response to legal contact from the agencies in question.

### Agnosticism to Governance

Our network model makes for fewer barriers to entry for established or up-and-coming groups. It is likely that new groups will have their own policies and governance already implemented.

Not every group will be interested in—nor free of legal, regulatory, and/or fiscal pressures to permit—partaking in a program that imposes new constraints upon their governance model.

Therefore, it is important that we maintain a flexible and cooperative system wherein members of the syndicate are given as much control as possible over their own communications, while still ensuring adherence to the quality, security, and safety standards of the syndicate.

### User Privacy & Retention

### Governance & Federation

Internal specifics of governance are of no consequence to the greater network or syndicate as long as each group takes care in determining who is able to represent them, in what contexts they are able to do so, and for what periods a person should be endorsed for representation.

These three properties, alongside basic metadata for the group/organization and a list of support topics for which an organization desires to be considered, must be transmitted to the Support Systems organization prior to being recognized by the syndicate as a trusted group.

## Trust and Safety

Trust, safety, and QA are all concerns baked into the core of Support Systems as a requirement of network operation and design. We will go through routes of moderation, then examine some common issues

### Moderation Routes

### Safeguards

Given that this system of [merit](#Merit) as described has not been tested, it will be useful to define in English what safeguards will be in place to protect the network from early failure altogether.

#### Syndicate Moderation

First, It is within the power of any group currently recognized to call for some specific corrective action(s) from any other group whom they feel are failing to meet the standards or abide by the policies, or failing to maintain a healthy group culture as it aset of active endorsements given the , provided that the group has received negative to put to vote the temporary or permanent removal of any other group’s status of recognition by the greater network, meaning the group nominated for corrective action would be temporarily removed from all guest contact.

### Dishonesty

Any misrepresentation of ability, knowledge, or lived experience that is offered during a support session on the network—or in order to participate in such a session—runs contrary to the core philosophies that drive Support Systems as an organization and a syndicate thereof.

### Moderation
Moderation is achieved through delegation of authority to each home group recognized by the network. This means that all groups are in charge of precisely who gets to represent their group in real-world help sessions. Given that many

### Counteraction

It is within the power of any group currently recognized to call for some specific corrective action(s) from any other group whom they feel are failing to meet the standards or abide by the policies, or failing to maintain a healthy group culture as it aset of active endorsements given the , provided that the group has received negative to put to vote the temporary or permanent removal of any other group’s status of recognition by the greater network, meaning the group nominated for corrective action would be temporarily removed from all guest contact.