How it works

The mechanism, the framing, and the protocol.

Four short sections. What this is. How a signature works. The legal framing every reader deserves up front. And the open protocol underneath.

What this is

thebiglid.org is a civic campaign operated by Santa Prosper LLC, a Delaware for-profit limited liability company. Its purpose is to gather Cambridge residents’ conditional commitments on what should be built on top of Gold Star Mothers Park after the city’s planned excavation is complete. The campaign runs on the open Ringpost civic coordination protocol. Santa Prosper LLC is a commercial operator. It is not a gift-receiving organization, it does not claim any public-benefit exemption, and it is not an investment vehicle. Residents who wish to support the operating costs of running the site can contribute commercially via /support.

How the mechanism works

Commitment engine flow Four steps: commit, count, publish, deliver. 1 Commit 2 Count 3 Publish 4 Deliver
Commit, count, publish, deliver. Nothing happens below the 500-signature threshold.

A resident reads the draft coalition letter for a proposal and signs a conditional commitment: “I support this proposal if at least 500 other Cambridge residents do too. I understand my signature will appear on a coalition letter to Cambridge City Council if the threshold is reached.”

Each signature is confirmed by a magic-link email before it counts — a click in the inbox of the email used to sign, plus the signer’s own attestation that they live in or near Cambridge. Below the 500-signature threshold, nothing happens. Commitments are counted but inert. The coalition letter remains a draft. No signatures are revealed. No public event occurs.

When a proposal reaches 500 signed and confirmed commitments, four things happen at once. The proposal card turns and shows “the coalition has formed.” The draft letter on the proposal’s detail page becomes the live letter. The /coalition page lists the letter under “Upcoming coalition letters” with a scheduled delivery date. And every neighbor who signed the crossed proposal receives a single confirmation email pointing to the live letter and the delivery date.

Santa Prosper then delivers the coalition letter at the next Cambridge City Council public comment window. Public comment at Cambridge City Council meetings is three minutes per speaker at the start of each meeting, with no pre-registration required. That is how scattered civic intent becomes legible collective action.

This is a commercial campaign, not a gift-receiving organization. Santa Prosper LLC is a Delaware for-profit limited liability company. Any contribution made via /support is a commercial payment toward the operating costs of the campaign. Such a payment is not a gift, provides no deduction from the payer’s taxable income under any public-benefit exemption, and is not asked for as one. No part of this site claims any religious, educational, or public-benefit exemption, and no part of this site represents Santa Prosper LLC as anything other than a for-profit operator.

This is not an investment offering. No financial instrument of any kind is being offered or sold on this site. No commitment, contribution, or signature carries any expectation of financial return. No equity, debt, revenue share, or investment interest is on offer at any page of thebiglid.org, and nothing on this site should be read as inviting any person to place capital with Santa Prosper LLC or any related entity.

Conditional commitments are expressions of civic intent, not legally binding contracts. A signature on a proposal is a statement of preference contingent on other neighbors joining. It is honored by Santa Prosper through the public coalition letter mechanism described above. A signature does not obligate the resident who signed it to any future action and does not create any legal relationship between the signer and Santa Prosper LLC.

The open protocol

The commitment engine that powers this site is the open Ringpost civic coordination protocol. Ringpost is community-built infrastructure for conditional commitments — the kind of civic question where nobody wants to go first alone but many people will act together once they know others are ready. Other communities with their own local questions are welcome to use the same protocol. The source is public. The design is documented. See ringpost.live for the full protocol, and this page for the smallest working example of what it can do.