AMHERST - Two students at the University of Massachusetts want to change the way citizens engage with local political issues.

Conor White-Sullivan and Aaron Soules are the founders of localocracy.com, which is set to launch next month in Amherst and, if successful, expand to other towns. They received $10,000 in startup cash last spring from a business plan competition called Innovation Challenge at UMass.

"We want to create a way not just to distribute ideas but allow citizens to find the best ideas and have a voice themselves," White-Sullivan said.

Their idea is to set up a nonpartisan site that will pose questions on local issues and accept opinions from readers. But unlike most of Amherst's blogs and local Web sites, those responders must use their real names and be residents of the town. They will be able to rank others' ideas so that viewers can tell which arguments other readers have found persuasive.

Advertising revenue is projected to come from advocacy groups and "micro-political movements," he said.

Localocracy.com has enlisted two advisors with experience in technology, business and government.

One is Baer Tierkel, of Amherst, co-founder and former executive vice president of PeopleSoft, columnist for the Amherst Bulletin newspaper and an active participant in town government. The other is Jane Fountain, a UMass professor who as founder and director of the National Center for Digital Government seeks to build a new field of study at the intersection of information, communications technology and government.

"When I came across this, I thought it was a fabulous idea," said Tierkel. "There's a hole in the marketplace. Where does the average person go to discuss the pros and cons that affect our town, like the override, plowing sidewalks and paving streets?"

He likens the new Web site to an online barbershop.

"When I want to find out the scoop on the override, I want to go to a neutral place where there are pro and anti arguments, and people can rank them as a good arguments or bad arguments," he said.

Letters to newspapers can take a long time to see print, and even at barbershops you have to stay there a long time to pick up the local buzz, Tierkel said. With so many Google and Yahoo groups and blogs, there is a niche for a "vertical" Web site that's specific to local politics, he said.

"I think they're going to be successful," he said.

White-Sullivan, a senior anthropology major with a background in political organizing, is thinking about expanding the Web site next year to Salem, his hometown. If it works, localocracy.com could expand to Boston, Philadelphia or Chicago, he said.

"We're trying to create a tool people can use that will empower them to be productive citizens and world-changers," he said.

The Internet has nullified the requirement that those seeking to communicate with citizens have access to capital, he said. And the problems the world faces are so extensive that individual innovators are necessary to get the facts out, he said.

"How do you create community? You start with what's right in front of you," White-Sullivan said. "The local issues: the roads you drive on, the schools your children go to, the hospital you go to when you get sick. These are the issues people care most about. You can have more influence on the mayor than the president."

He describes the Web site as "a local political Digg." Digg.com is a social news Web site that enables the discussion and sharing of Internet content, plus voting and commenting on links and stories.

White-Sullivan said he's been in touch with members of the Amherst School Committee and Town Meeting, and plans to contact the League of Women Voters. "It's very hard for regular citizens who have important observations about the community but don't have the time to go to a six-hour Town Meeting," he said. "I want to create a way to not just distribute ideas but allow citizens to find the best ideas and have a voice themselves."