Glossary

The section below provides “Plain-English” definitions of every term used in this document, in the order they matter most to understanding the Listening Process.

Issue — The smallest unit of community voice — one specific concern or desired outcome raised by a resident, in their own words, through a survey, a Kitchen Table Conversation, or the website.

Like — A simple, one-click signal from another resident that they agree an Issue matters. Some Likes also carry an Importance and Satisfaction rating (see below), depending on how they were generated.

Like Count — How many people have indicated support for an Issue. A measure of breadth — how widely felt a concern is — kept deliberately separate from how strongly it is felt.

Importance — Among the people who rated an Issue, how strongly they feel about it, on a five-point scale from Very Low to Very High. A measure of intensity, not breadth.

Satisfaction — Among the same people, how well they feel the Issue is currently being addressed, on the same five-point scale. A measure of current performance, not intensity.

Ratings Count — How many people provided an Importance and Satisfaction rating for a given Issue — not always the same number as the Like Count, since not every form of support comes with a rating attached.

Opportunity Score — A single, sortable number combining Importance and Satisfaction, calculated so that high importance always counts for something even where satisfaction is only mildly low — preventing a low-importance, badly-handled Issue from outranking a high-importance Issue that most people care deeply about.

Quadrant — A plain-language category — Concentrate Here, Keep Up the Good Work, Low Priority, or Possible Overkill — that explains an Issue’s Importance and Satisfaction in words rather than numbers.

Topic — The finest-grained classification NCV applies to an Issue — specific enough to be genuinely useful, without being so narrow it only ever describes one comment.

Category — A broader grouping of related Topics — roughly one Backgrounder’s worth of subject matter.

Working Group — The broadest grouping of all, and the team of NCV volunteers responsible for a subject area — people with relevant skills and life experience who donate some of their time, working together in NCV’s secure online collaboration spaces to turn raw community voice into a rigorous Backgrounder.

Voices Group (VG) — A community organisation like NCV, operating in its own area, independent and self-governing, but sharing tools, evidence, and Working Group know-how with other Voices Groups around Australia facing similar concerns.

Primary Data — The raw, demographically-representative voice of the community — Issues, Likes, and survey responses — captured as directly and honestly as possible, before any analysis is added.

Secondary Evidence — Expert opinion, published research, and statistics from authoritative sources, added by a Working Group on top of primary data to give a Backgrounder real analytical weight.

Backgrounder — The evidence-based groundwork behind a future policy — primary data plus secondary evidence, assembled by a Working Group into a single, well-referenced body of knowledge on one subject area. It goes right up to the edge of a solution and deliberately stops there.

Policy — A specific, adoptable position formulated by a Community Independent, drawing on a Backgrounder, for use in campaigning and representation. NCV does not write Policy — only the evidence that informs it.

Output — Something a government actually delivers — a road, a service, a funded program. Governments decide and control Outputs; that is their role, at every level.

Outcome — The real-world difference an Output makes to people’s lives — whether things objectively got better. Communities cannot control Outputs, but through NCV’s Listening Process they can define what Outcomes matter and measure, over time, whether those Outcomes are actually being achieved.

Doing Democracy Differently — NCV’s description of its own approach: not replacing government’s control over spending and projects, but giving communities an evidenced, ongoing role in defining what a better Outcome looks like, and in holding every level of government accountable for delivering it.

De-identified — Recorded and reported without any name or personally identifying detail — only suburb, age band, and gender are retained, allowing meaningful comparison across the community while protecting every individual’s anonymity.

Roll-up — The process of aggregating Issue-level data — Like Count, Importance, Satisfaction — up through Topic, Category, and Working Group, weighted properly so that Issues with more responses count proportionally more, never just averaged naively.