(writing on behalf of myself, not mySociety) On Tue, Feb 10, 2009 at 10:11:19PM +0000, Simon Roe wrote: > Being picky, but public whip isn't a mySociety project...
Indeed, it is currently a project of Julian Todd and myself. Could it soon be a project of you? Public Whip existed before mySociety did. We started in June 2003. The voting record stuff that comes from Public Whip is extremely popular. It depends on a wiki-like interface on the Public Whip website which lets anyone group together related votes into a thing we call a "policy". We are looking for people to help maintain these lists of votes on each issue. We've tried for 4 years now. We've tried political parties and NGOs, volunteers. We even tried paying somebody. We haven't got any of them to help on an ongoing basis. The most successful so far was in 2005, when Channel 4 paid mySociety for a co-branded version of TheyWorkForYou for the election, and also paid for a set of policies (developed on and using the Public Whip website) for the 2001 Parliament (fox hunting, foundation hospitals etc.) Basically, Julian and I just haven't been good enough at explaining / marketing / showing what it is we're doing and trying to do. To be honest, we've been tempted to shut down the website due to lack of interest. If you think the Parliamentary voting record feature on TheyWorkForYou is important, please do offer to help. What we would NOT like: * Suggestions for Julian or I to do anything. Sorry, we've already tried everything. We tried getting funding ourselves, improving the user interface ourselves, giving personal tutorials to volunteers, spending our cash to pay somebody to do it. It didn't work. And we're tired. Sometimes you have to admit you need outside help. What we would like: * People who are good at fundraising to get some money to pay for the improvements that Public Whip could have. * Volunteers to help make policy bundles of Parliamentary votes on particular issues. You need to be prepared to spend several days learning and understanding, and then to indefinitely spend a small amount of time (probably a couple of hours a month) maintaining your favourite policy. It's a blast, and you will learn lots about politics that you wouldn't any other way. * Offers to run (or help run) the site. It's heavily trafficed, reasonably well known, and has lots of opportunties to be improved, and give you fame, satisfaction and opportunities. No, I'm not making that up. For example, I've been on Radio 4, and I work for mySociety, both directly as a result of running Public Whip. Some of the opportunities and future ideas, not even mentioned yet in this email, if driven by the right charisma, could change the face of politics. Wondering what they could be? Brainstorm some ideas of your own and post them here, and we'll tell you ours - it is a subject that deserves a separate email thread. I honestly don't think I've ever offered a more fantastic opportunity in an email. Lots of love, Francis _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
