Topics are important on OpinionFirst. A proposal, statement, 360, or idea is always related to a topic.
Would you like to initiate a conversation in your neighborhood, town, province, country, or group about an important issue? Then start with a new topic.
It does not matter where you live or who you are; little or big, rich or poor, educated or not... You are affected personally by decisions that are taken every day everywhere. Some decisions can be of great importance to you and can have a considerable impact on your daily life. With OpinionFirst you use the platform to influence changes in your communities.
Every registered voter can start a topic for any neighborhood, place, province, state, country, or group that was joined. With a new topic, you invite everyone to respond with a proposal, petition, 360°, statement, poll, or in any different way. The moment you publish your topic you can immediately monitor the response of your community.
Naturally, you also can add your proposal or contributions in response to the topic that you just started yourself! In particular, we urge experts, policymakers, and managers with extensive experience and knowledge in their field to involve their citizens, members, and employees.
Politicians, policymakers, directors, experts, leaders, .. lead their town, state, country, company, team, association, club, or community by using the skills and talents of their inhabitants, employees, members, or networks. Starting topics help decision-makers and their communities to reach concrete decisions based on open dialogue without endless debate and discussion.
A topic allows everyone involved to respond and have their say. Thus you make the most use of every individual’s views, expertise, and knowledge to contribute. OpinionFirst helps you to access these skills, allowing you to use the wisdom of everyone involved. Their contribution and preferences are used by you to make sound decisions easily and quickly which are embraced and supported by the population or organization at large.
Do you struggle with how to efficiently include your community in decision-making? With your topic, you will attract many citizens to engage, respond, and participate. You facilitate collaborative discussion and encourage participation and engagement in communities.
You don't see involving your members or employees as a burden, but as an opportunity for improvement? Then starting a topic is excellent to get everyone involved and to measure which proposals gain popularity.
The platform provides many unique advantages to initiate a discussion that can't be found elsewhere. Take a look and read about some practical examples of why a parent, a policymaker, or anyone else could start a topic.
OpinionFirst is a worldwide platform. Consequently, it is important to inform the right people about your topic. Who should respond to your topic? Which citizens, employees or members does it concern? OpinionFirst gives you a 'place' or 'group' suggestion, which you can change if needed.
Now that is clear who should be informed on your topic, let's start it:
A topic consists of a very short neutral title, an explanation, an appealing picture, and a category. Think carefully, and read underneath about the guidelines and standards on how to start a successful topic. Verify existing topics before you place a new unique topic. This helps to prevent duplicate topics and ensures better attention to your issue.
Your explanation:
Explain in short and neutral words what your topic is about. Remember that people do not always know everything about the issue you raise.
Next, you indicate what questions you would like to see answered. People will respond based on your topic, explanation, and questions.
If you are satisfied, then keep your topic in draft format for yourself, or confirm to publish your topic for your community.
Naturally, you want people to take your issues seriously, so read below on how to start a successful topic:
It's important to state your topic concisely. Use short sentences to explain what your topic is about and use open questions to guide and stimulate a response.
If you want people to take your topic seriously, then you need to spell-check and to put in the time to make sure your topic is well formulated. It is a good idea to have others review your topic before publishing it.
It is good to have more persons to review your topic before publishing. More ideas and thoughts could clarify your topic before publishing it. Other eyes read differently.
Your topic should be strictly 100% neutral. The best topics sound reasonable, intelligent, and acknowledge all proposals and points of view. If visitors to your topic think it is one-sided or that you have already made your mind up, they will be unlikely to respond or participate, even if they have great proposals or views.
Our moderators maintain the quality of OpinionFirst. They are warned if something isn't decent and or does not comply with the 'Rights and Responsibilities' or our standards. They may decide to remove any contribution if it's:
You can help us meet OpinionFirst's standards by immediately reporting any abuse under 'About' which can always be found with every contribution.
A topic can be edited until a contribution has been published for that topic.
A topic can be removed until a contribution has been published for that topic.
Registered voters can warn our moderators if a topic is not appropriate or does not comply with the 'Rights and Responsibilities'.
Once you publish your topic, you can immediately start promoting it with a click on the share icon. You have many possibilities to promote your topic!
Temporary topics concern a temporary situation or an event. As soon as the situation is resolved, then voting will cease to continue. A permanent topic is, for example, a request to change the law. These types of topics will continue to evolve in time and voting will never stop. You will not see a distinction on OpinionFirst between these types of topics.