Terms of Use

Effective October 25, 2026. Version 2026-10-25.

Who runs Framers

Framers is operated by an individual under the pen name Silence Dogood (after the pen name Benjamin Franklin used in 1722). For questions about these terms, privacy, moderation decisions, or legal notices, write to notifications@framersproject.org.

Framers is an independent, non-commercial civic project. It is not a registered nonprofit or tax-exempt organization, and it is not operated, endorsed, or authorized by the United States government, Congress, any state government, or any government agency.

What Framers is

Framers is an experimental legislative simulation for public participation and research. Participants propose short, single-issue bills ("Frames"), and randomly selected participants ("Reframers") review and vote on them in stages. A Fully Framed Frame has passed this experiment only: it has not been introduced in, approved by, or enacted by any legislature. Nothing on Framers creates law, has legal force, is an official legislative proceeding, or is legal advice. The review criteria, including constitutional compatibility, guide Reframers' judgment; a vote is not a legal determination that a Frame is or isn't constitutional.

Who may take part

• You must be 18 or older and live in the United States. You confirm this when you join; we don't ask for documents to prove it.
• One person, one account. If a new account's address reaches the same mailbox as an earlier one (for example, the same address with a "+" tag, or a Gmail address with extra dots), the newer account can sign in but can't submit, vote, or be selected. If that happens to you by mistake, for example because two people share an address, write to us. Using several accounts, or someone else's, to submit, be selected, or vote is not allowed.
• You must verify your email address and keep your password and any two-factor codes private.

The rules of the experiment

How many stages a Frame goes through, how many Reframers review each stage, the passing threshold, quorum, voting periods, how ties and non-responses count, who can be selected, and submission limits are set out in the published rules. Each Frame is governed by the version of the rules in force when it was submitted, through every stage. Versions are numbered, never edited once in force, and stay published permanently; a new version applies only to Frames submitted after it takes effect. If an error ever required correcting how a Frame in progress is handled, we would do it openly and record it in the Frame's history.

Submitting a Frame

• A Frame is limited to 500 characters and one agenda item. It should be clear, constructive, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights.
• Don't submit spam, advertising, harassment, threats, hate, illegal content, or anything that names or exposes a private person. Submit only text you have the right to share.
• The rules in force may ask you to answer one Constitution question correctly before you submit. You can try as many times as you need. Like the Question of the Day and the practice questions, these are a learning aid: a right or wrong answer isn't a judgment of your knowledge, of your Frame, or of what the Constitution requires, and it never affects whether you're selected as a Reframer.
• You can't edit a Frame after you submit it. You can withdraw it until it enters Stage 1. A withdrawn Frame still counts toward your submission limit.
• Frames are published without your name or email address. Administrators can see who wrote a Frame.

Your content

You keep whatever rights you have in your Frame. You grant the operator a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, publish, display, archive, and analyze your Frame's text without your name, including in aggregate research findings and public reports about the experiment, for as long as the retention schedule keeps the text. Our hosting and email providers process it only to run Framers for us. We won't sell your Frame or use it for unrelated commercial purposes.

When Frame text is deleted under the retention schedule or removed by moderation, it comes off Framers. Published text may already have been copied by visitors, quoted, or archived by others outside our control, and deletion from Framers can't reach those copies.

Reviewing as a Reframer

• If you're selected, you may vote Yes or No once on that Frame's current stage before the deadline. You can't change a vote once cast. You can pause selection at any time in Settings; three missed assignments in a row pause it for you.
• Judge the Frame on its merits, using the review guidance in the Voting Room. Don't sell, trade, or coordinate votes, and don't let anyone else vote for you.
• Individual votes are not displayed publicly or to other participants, and no page of Framers, including staff pages, shows how a person voted. Votes are recorded so each stage's outcome can be calculated, verified, and audited; only stage totals are published, after each stage closes. The Privacy Notice explains who can access the underlying records.

Moderation and enforcement

• When you submit a Frame, automated checks look for links, contact details, identifying numbers (such as Social Security, card, license, or passport numbers), dates of birth, street addresses, slurs, threats, and strong profanity. A match doesn't reject anything: it holds the Frame where only you and moderators can see it, and a moderator then releases or rejects it. A Frame rejected because it contains personal information is deleted immediately.
• Each idea should go through review once. Resubmitting a Frame that failed, or rewording an existing Frame, doesn't earn a fresh review: exact copies are refused, and if your Frame closely resembles an existing one you'll be shown it and asked to confirm yours is different. A close rewording is held for a moderator, who may reject it as a duplicate.
• A moderator may remove a published Frame that breaks these rules. Its text is hidden at once. If it was still in the process, its current stage and any open assignments are cancelled and it goes no further. If it had already finished, its recorded outcome and stage results stay exactly as they were.
• An administrator may suspend an account, with a stated reason that the account holder can see. A suspended account can sign in but can't submit, vote, report, or be selected. Its open assignments are cancelled, so they don't count as missed or toward any stage's quorum; votes it already cast still count.
• Moderation decisions appear on your dashboard; we don't email about them. If you think a decision was wrong, write to notifications@framersproject.org and a person will review it. Recorded stage results are never changed by moderation.

Results and records

Stage outcomes are decided by the published rules for the Frame's version and recorded with a fingerprint of those rules, so anyone with access can recompute and check them. Records are kept and deleted as described in the Privacy Notice.

No warranty

Framers is an experiment, provided free of charge "as is" and "as available." To the fullest extent the law allows, the operator makes no warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. We don't promise that Framers will be uninterrupted, error-free, or available at any particular time, that any Frame will be selected, reviewed, or reach any stage, or that Frames or results are accurate, lawful, or constitutional. Frames are written by participants and don't reflect the operator's views. Framers may change, pause, or end at any time; if it ends, we'll say so on the site and keep the published record available for as long as we reasonably can.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, the operator will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or loss of goodwill, arising out of or relating to Framers or these terms, even if told they were possible. Framers is free, and these limits reflect that.

These limits don't apply to liability for the operator's gross negligence, willful misconduct, or fraud, or to any liability that the law doesn't allow to be limited or excluded. If the law where you live gives you rights that these terms can't take away, those rights still apply.

Your responsibility

You're responsible for what you submit and how you use Framers. If a claim is brought against the operator by someone else because of content you submitted or because you broke these terms, you agree to cover the operator's reasonable costs of that claim, including reasonable legal fees. This doesn't apply to the extent the claim was caused by the operator.

Disputes

If you have a problem with Framers, please write to notifications@framersproject.org first and give us 30 days to try to resolve it informally. There is no arbitration requirement and no class-action waiver: if we can't resolve it, either of us may go to court.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules and without limiting any rights the law where you live gives you.

General

• These terms, together with the Privacy Notice and the published rules, are the whole agreement between you and the operator about Framers.
• If any part of these terms is found unenforceable, it will be enforced to the extent possible and the rest stays in effect.
• If we don't enforce a provision right away, we haven't given up the right to enforce it later.
• You can stop using Framers at any time, and you can close your account in Settings. The sections on your content, no warranty, limitation of liability, your responsibility, disputes, and governing law continue to apply after that.
• The operator may transfer Framers and these terms to a successor that continues the experiment, such as a nonprofit or other organization formed to run it, on the condition that it honors these terms and the Privacy Notice. We'll tell participants by email if that happens.

Changes to these terms

Each version of these terms is dated and numbered, and we record which version you accepted. We'll post a new version here and, for significant changes, email participants before it takes effect. Changes apply from then on, not to anything that happened before.