A napkin sketch,
born from frustration.
In 2016, during an election full of citizen initiatives, Jérémy Chevallier hit a problem familiar to nearly every voter: the questions were important, but the language felt designed to resist understanding.
What if every section of a proposition could be read in true plain English—and improved in public?
First: make the vote legible.
The first sketches sat alongside ideas called City Suggestions, feedback.to, and ChangeMachine. They shared one instinct: public decisions should have a public feedback loop.
Early WikiProp prototypes broke propositions into sections and translated each one into language a normal person could use—closer to an honest “what a yes or no means” than a campaign ad.
Then: bring it where people already talk.
On Instagram, WikiProp used concise carousels and direct calls to action: shut out propaganda, see what a bill actually does, ask questions, and contact your representatives when something feels wrong.
The voice was urgent but the idea was deeper than alerts. The goal was to help people understand and influence the laws that matter to them.
Finally: move from reaction to collaboration.
The rebuilt WikiProp keeps the clarity and loses the outrage machinery. It puts official text beside plain-English explanation, calls attention to bundled or unrelated provisions, and invites disagreement around the words—not the personalities.
The long view is a civic workshop: citizens proposing laws, revising them together, and identifying old rules that should come off the books. More law is not automatically better law.
Less theater. More understanding.
Source before spin.
Every claim should lead back to official language.
Issues before figureheads.
Ideas deserve scrutiny independent of who proposed them.
Revision before division.
Disagreement can improve a clause instead of ending a conversation.
Sunset before sprawl.
Good civic work includes asking which laws no longer belong.