User manual

How to use the app, explained in plain words.

This page walks you through the Academy Network app, from the first time you open it to your first published guide. It assumes nothing: if you can install a program and read, you can use the network. The short version: you install one app, it fills up with a library of guides, and you can read, write, and help review, all in the same window.

What is this?

Academy Network is a free library of step-by-step guides that lives inside a desktop app. There is no website to visit and no company server holding the content: every person who runs the app carries a copy of the library on their own computer, and the copies keep each other up to date. That is why nobody can take the library down, charge for it, or watch what you read.

Getting started

Install the app from the Download page and open it. That is the whole setup. On its first run the app does three things for you:

• It creates your identity: a pair of digital keys made on your machine. Your work is signed with these keys. There is no account, and nobody ever asks for an email, a name, or a password.
• It connects to other people's apps over Tor, a network that hides who is connecting to whom. You do not have to install or understand Tor; it is built into the app.
• It starts copying the library onto your computer. You can begin reading while it syncs.

There are no settings you have to touch and nothing to maintain. The app works the same for everyone, straight out of the box.

Reading guides

Open the app and browse. Guides are organized by subject, and every subject starts at the very beginning, so you can pick any topic and start at level 1, even as a complete beginner.

Everything you read comes from the copy of the library on your own computer, not from a website. Once the library has synced, reading works completely offline: on a bus, during an outage, or anywhere without internet.

The app's interface is available in 12 languages.

Writing and editing

Anyone can write; you do not need permission to start, only approval to publish. Guides are written in CommonMark, a simple way to add headings, lists, and links to plain text. You do not need to learn it first: the editor handles it for you.

To write a new guide or edit an existing one:

1. Open the editor inside the app, on an existing guide or on a fresh page.
2. Write in whichever view you prefer. The rich view shows the page as readers will see it; the source view shows the plain CommonMark text. You can switch between them at any time.
3. Save a draft whenever you want to stop. You can come back and continue later.
4. When you are happy with it, submit it. Your work then goes to review, which the next section explains.

What happens after you submit

Your submission does not go to a boss or a company. It goes to a jury: a small group of experienced, verified members who check the work and either approve it or send it back.

The jury is drawn at random for each submission, so nobody can choose who judges a change. As the network grows, juries grow with it.

When a change is approved, it is added to a signed record that every copy of the app checks (the manifest chain), and it appears for everyone. The record shows exactly what was approved, so no one can quietly swap in something different.

The community

There are no moderators appointed from above. Instead, members earn standing: a measure of trust that grows when you write guides that pass review and when you review other people's submissions.

Standing is also how bad content is removed. The community can petition against a guide, a forum board and everything in it, a single thread, or a standalone upload, and removal is decided by a vote weighted by standing, so the people who have earned the most trust carry the most weight. The community can also vote to freeze a busy board or thread, or to feature a board. Nothing is removed by one person's decision.

Beyond guides, the app has a Media section where you can share standalone files, from books to videos, and you can delete anything you upload yourself at any time. Everything else on the network is taken down the same way it goes up: by a community vote, never one person's call.

The full rules are on the Governance page.

Help and updates

There is nothing to configure, so there is very little to go wrong. The app also never installs code on its own: when a new version exists, it tells you in Settings > Updates, and you choose when to download it from this website.