NOTES · 3
Every structured process has a shortlist: too many ideas to examine them all, so the group votes on which to take forward. That vote is where causes get lost. The ideas that lose it are the unglamorous ones, the ones only a few people saw, and in a complex situation those are often exactly the deep causes.
So True Causes holds a few shortlist places back. Anyone can nominate an overlooked idea by attaching a source; it counts once a second person agrees the source is on topic. One reserved seat is filled at random, for exploration. The rest go by nomination count, capped at one per stakeholder group so that no single group can buy them all. An idea with no votes at all can still reach the map: it needs a source, and two people behind it.
In our simulation, a room that ranks purely by what it feels names none of the five real causes at the vote, and building a map afterwards rescues only 0.2 of them. Hold five shortlist places for overlooked ideas backed by a source, and the same room finds 3.5 of the 5 at its worst.
That is the largest single effect we measured, and it costs almost nothing: a few seats, and the discipline of asking for a source. It works because it changes what can get onto the table, not how the table decides.
A reserved seat does not certify anything. It only lets an idea be examined. Once on the shortlist, it faces the same pairwise questions as everything else, at the same 75% of votes cast. Evidence gets an idea examined; it does not decide the result.