Terms of Use

Citizen Playbook is three things: a website, a printed book, and an app. The parts below say which one they are about, so you can read the part that applies to you.

Part 1. Everything here

Accepting these terms

By using the Citizen Playbook website or the app, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use them. These terms are between you and Mike Webb, operating under the Citizen Playbook name.

Who may use the services

They are built for adults following local government in their own community.

Changes to these terms

These terms may change as the website, book, and app change. The effective date at the top will be updated. Continuing to use the services after a change means you accept the updated terms.

Contact

Questions about these terms can go to support@citizenplaybook.com.

Part 2. The public website

This part is about citizenplaybook.com, the pages you are reading now.

The website is published for general information and education about local government and about the Citizen Playbook project. You may read, print, and share pages for your own non-commercial civic use.

There is nothing to sign up for, nothing to buy, and no form to submit on the website today. If that changes, these terms will change first.

The website may be unavailable at times, and pages may change or be withdrawn.

How the website handles information is covered by the Website Privacy Policy.

Part 3. The book, information and intellectual property

This part is about Citizen Playbook the book, and about the material published under the Citizen Playbook name.

The book, the website text, the design, and the software are protected by copyright. Sharing a page or a quotation for civic or educational purposes is fine. Reproducing the book, or repackaging the material as your own product, is not.

The book is a general guide. It is not legal advice, it is not tailored to your situation, and following it does not guarantee any outcome.

Government records, agendas, ordinances, and other public documents are not owned by Citizen Playbook, and nothing here claims any right over them.

Part 4. The Citizen Playbook app

This part is about the application at citizenplaybook.app.

What the app is

The app is a set of tools that help with specific tasks: finding officials, reading a government document, preparing a records request, or drafting a public comment. It helps with those tasks. It does not contain the instruction, context, and judgment that the book provides, and it is not a replacement for it.

Access during the test period

The app needs an account. The private beta has ended and beta access codes no longer work; anyone who held one needs an account to carry on. Accounts are for one person, so please do not share your sign-in.

Your responsibility

You decide what to send, what to say, and what to do. You are responsible for reviewing anything the app drafts before you send it, present it, or file it. The app never sends an email, a comment, or a records request on your behalf.

Acceptable use

Please do not use the app to break the law or to harass, threaten, or defame anyone. Please do not try to break, overload, or gain unauthorised access to it, and do not scrape or resell it.

Material you put into the app

You keep whatever rights you already have in the documents and text you put in. You give permission to process that material in order to give you the result you asked for, which includes sending the text to the AI provider. Please do not upload material you do not have the right to use, and please do not put confidential, legally protected, or highly sensitive material into it.

How the app handles information is covered by the App Privacy Policy.

Part 5. AI-generated results

This part is about results the app produces with artificial intelligence.

AI gets things wrong. It can miss an item, misread a document, describe a rule that does not apply where you live, or state something confidently that is not true. Treat every result as a starting point and not as a finding.

Nothing the app produces is an official government record, a legal opinion, or proof of anything. Meeting dates, agenda items, votes, contact details, deadlines, and legal requirements should be confirmed against the jurisdiction's own published record before you rely on them.

Availability varies. Some jurisdictions publish very little and some block automated access, so a tool may return nothing even when a record exists.

Where a result quotes a page, that citation is not a check. The app asks the AI to name the page each claim came from and turns those markers into references you can open. Nothing verifies them: we do not confirm that a cited page says what the answer claims, an answer with no citation is still shown, and a citation naming something we do not recognise appears as plain text rather than being rejected. So check anything that matters against the page. That is what the references are for.

Which tools use AI, and which do not, is set out in the AI and Data Use Disclosure.

Part 6. Accounts and paid access

Accounts

You need an account to use the paid features. Give accurate registration information and keep your sign-in secure. Accounts are for one person. Team and organisation accounts are not offered at this time.

You must be old enough to enter into a contract where you live.

Where we sell

Subscriptions are sold to customers in the United States. When you subscribe you confirm that you are purchasing from the US, and no checkout is created until you do.

Two things about that, stated plainly rather than implied. We do not verify your location: this is a condition of sale, not a technical restriction, and nothing prevents a purchase from outside the United States, so subscribing from elsewhere is a breach of these terms rather than something the app stops. And your own consumer rights still apply wherever you are; confirming a US purchase does not waive them.

We do record the country you confirm, and the country Stripe collects from your billing address. The App Privacy Policy says what happens to both.

What it costs, and what the allowance is

Citizen Playbook costs $19 per month and includes $7 of usage allowance each billing period. Tax is added where it applies, and is calculated and collected by Stripe.

• The allowance is a balance of usage credit. Each request that sends text to the AI service consumes credit according to how much work it takes, so a long packet costs more than a short agenda item.
• Most of the app does not use the allowance at all. Reading documents, browsing agendas, opening packets, and re-reading or printing something you already generated are free and unlimited.
• Before each billable request an estimated amount is held against your allowance. When it finishes you are charged the actual amount and never more than the amount held. If a request costs more than estimated, we absorb the difference.
• If a request fails, or we cannot establish what it cost, you are credited in full.
• Your remaining allowance is shown before and after you spend it.
• The allowance resets each billing period and unused allowance does not carry over. Each period is granted its own $7 when that period’s payment succeeds.

Additional usage credit is not for sale. There is no top-up option, and the included allowance is the only usage credit that exists.

Payment, renewal and failed payments

Payments are processed by Stripe, which is the merchant of record for the sale. We never see or store your card details. Your card statement will show LINK.COM, because Stripe’s Link is the merchant of record.

Subscriptions renew automatically each period until cancelled.

If a payment fails, your account keeps working for 72 hours while your card is retried. The 72 hours run from the first failed payment; a retry that also fails does not start the clock over. During that time you can spend whatever is left of the allowance from the month you already paid for, and no new allowance is added. If a payment succeeds, everything returns to normal immediately. If the 72 hours pass without one, the paid features switch off, your saved work is untouched and stays readable, and paying restores everything.

Cancelling

You can cancel at any time, in the app or at link.com. Cancelling stops future renewals and does not take any money back. You keep access until the end of the period you have already paid for, so nothing switches off on the day you cancel.

Refunds

There is no satisfaction refund, and subscription payments are not refundable as a matter of course.

Three things are unaffected by that, and each is stated because none of them is ours to promise away:

• Refunds required by law. Where consumer law where you live entitles you to a refund or to cancel, you have that right whatever this part says.
• Refunds Stripe makes. Stripe is the merchant of record. You can contact Link support, and Stripe can issue a refund within 60 days of a transaction, and applies consumer protection requirements such as cooling-off periods where those apply. Stripe needs no agreement from us to do either.
• If we end your subscription and you have done nothing wrong — for example if we stop offering the service — we refund the unused part of the period you paid for.

A refund does not cancel your subscription, and a refund does not remove allowance you have already used or still hold. If you are refunded, your subscription carries on and renews on its normal date unless you cancel it. If you want both, ask for both, or cancel yourself.

Refunds are handled by a person, not automatically. Email support@citizenplaybook.com.

Changes to what you are paying for

Where a change materially affects what you are paying for or what you receive, we will give you at least 30 days’ notice before it takes effect, and you may cancel before it does. Two narrow exceptions may take effect sooner: where a shorter timescale is required by law or by a regulator, and where a change is needed urgently to address a security problem. Where either is used we will say what changed and why, as soon as we reasonably can.

Part 7. Third-party government sources and other services

Both the website and the app link to and draw on systems run by other people, including city and town websites, meeting portals, public records systems, and an AI provider.

Those are governed by their own terms. Citizen Playbook does not control them, does not guarantee that they are available or accurate, and is not responsible for them. A link is not an endorsement.

Part 8. Legal terms

Citizen Playbook is operated by Mike Webb, trading as Citizen Playbook, a sole proprietor in Arizona, United States. Contact: support@citizenplaybook.com, which is the address to use for anything in these terms.

Disclaimers

The services are provided as they are. Citizen Playbook does not promise that results will be accurate, complete, current, or suited to your purpose, that a jurisdiction's information will be reachable, or that the services will be uninterrupted or error free.

Citizen Playbook does not give legal, financial, engineering, or other professional advice, and using it does not create a professional relationship.

Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows, Citizen Playbook is not liable for indirect or consequential losses arising from your use of the services, including a decision you made based on a result you did not verify.

Nothing here removes a right you have that cannot be waived under Arizona law.

Indemnification

If someone brings a claim against Citizen Playbook because of how you used the services or what you submitted, you agree to be responsible for it.

This applies only to claims arising from your own use of the services.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of the State of Arizona, and disputes will be handled there.