# Over the Fence

> A neighbour-dispute map drawn as a garden fence. Say what is going on with a neighbour - leaves in the gutters, a branch over the roof, a car across the driveway, smoke from a fire pit - what you want, what your neighbour wants or has said, how you get along and what has been tried. Each issue becomes a fence panel with your position and need on your side and your neighbour's on theirs, sorted into common ground, trade or stuck, followed by trades you could offer, what each of you can do without an agreement, and a first word that fits how things stand.

URL: https://over-the-fence.skillsafe.ai/
API tutorial: https://over-the-fence.skillsafe.ai/api.html

## Free, in the browser
- Flashpoints: a fixed word list run over everything you typed finds the topics - leaves and gutters, trees and branches, noise, parking and driveways, the fence and boundary, smoke and fires, water and drainage, lights, bins, building work, cameras and privacy, pets, splitting a cost. The five most-mentioned become starter panels on the fence.
- Heated words: your own text is checked for absolutes ("always", "never"), labels for a person ("selfish", "rude"), judgements ("ridiculous", "fed up"), shouting (capitals, "!!") and escalation words ("lawyer", "police"), each with a calmer swap.
- The first move, by a fixed rule from your answers: bring in a mediator (you feel unsafe, someone was threatened, a third party or a formal step is already involved, or you are not speaking); otherwise send a note first (things are frosty, you have never really spoken, or a talk or a note already went badly); otherwise knock on the door.
- Exports: Markdown, JSON, the first word as a text file, print; saved maps in the browser, or in your account when signed in, so you can come back after your neighbour answers and map it again.

## Metered (gpt-terra), one task: map the dispute
- Every issue with both positions and the need underneath each; a need nobody stated is marked as a guess ("Probably ...") and a position nobody stated is "Not known yet."
- Each issue's status, checked in a fixed order: stuck (it needs a fact or a rule neither neighbour can settle alone, or one side has flatly refused), common ground (both needs point the same way), otherwise trade.
- The ground you share, two to four trades the two of you could agree between yourselves, each side's fallback without an agreement, a raising order (common ground first, stuck last), questions to ask your neighbour, and an opener: what to say at the door, a short note, or a message to a local community mediation service.
- The page re-checks every reply: the first move against its rule, a panel for every flashpoint, a status on every panel, the raising order, the opener's form, length and heated words, and internal field ids in the prose.

## Limits and honesty
- General information, not legal advice. It never says who is right or what the law says; rules on trees, boundaries, noise and parking differ from place to place. Trades never involve lawyers, police, complaints, recording or watching a neighbour.
- If anyone threatens you or you feel in danger, contact your local emergency services first.
- Nothing is sent anywhere until you press "Map the dispute".
- Trend it answers: leaf season. English Wikipedia's "Autumn leaf color" article went from 843 views (1-7 September 2026) to 1,431 (14-20 October 2026), per the Wikimedia pageviews API.

## Source
Built on the SkillSafe skill @lawvable/mediation-dispute-analysis by Jinzhe Tan (https://skillsafe.ai/skill/@lawvable/mediation-dispute-analysis): a mediator's analysis of a dispute - a neutral summary, the issues in dispute with each side's position, the interests underneath, each side's fallback (BATNA), settlement options and an order for raising the issues.