This is *awesome* On Wed, Sep 02, 2009 at 11:22:47AM +0100, Tom Steinberg wrote: > Hi all, > > I often hear people say that mySociety can be difficult for a coder to > volunteer for because you have to learn so much about our systems > before you can contribute much. > > We're now in a rare situation where there's a major volunteer task, > the building of a really useful, standalone website which will hugely > help mySociety to tackle the next election in a better way than has > ever been done online before. > > Here's a spec that comes from conversations I've had over the last > week, including with Julian Todd and Richard Pope. It isn't set in > stone, but it's a bit more than a straw man. > > ------------------ > > Short Summary > > ConstituencyVolunteersNetwork.org - A constituency based volunteering > system that people can sign up to in order to help mySociety and > TheStraightChoice.org in the run up to the next election. > > > Fuller explanation > > At the next election both mySociety and TheStraightChoice.org are > going to need a variety of tasks doing that are best done as widely > distributed volunteering tasks. These include: > > 1. Getting people to scan and upload election leaflets > 2. Gathering candidate details in order to be able to email or post > them the questions required for an election quiz (and yes, we know > that Seb Bacon and Paul Youlten are working on parts of this, so we > are hoping they'll leap on board this project with especial vigour). > 3. Publicising things like vote analyses in local papers around the country. > 4. Other stuff we haven't even thought of yet. > > We therefore need a system that will let people say 'I'll become a > volunteer in my constituency', email them assigned tasks, record the > outputs of their tasks into a database, and make that data accessible > for end-user sites like the election quiz. > > > Functional Spec > > Phase I. > > Homepage should show map of the UK with constituencies filled in > different colours depending on whether anyone (or several anyones) has > volunteered in a particular constituency yet. > > Homepage includes signup form for name, email and postcode (just like > HearFromYourMP.com really) , plus an explanation of what we're asking > people to sign up to. Signup should ask volunteers to consent to > having their email address CCed to other people who sign up in their > constituency, for low barrier connection between volunteers. > > Signup involves email verification, but once done offers the chance to > volunteer for tasks in up to two other constituencies, as many people > have connections with more than one place. > > In the first instance, this is all that needs to be done - the site > can start gathering volunteers before anything has been built beyond > this. It will be advertised prominently on TheyWorkForYou to get > traffic. > > Phase II. > > Build system that allows admin to mail all volunteers to ask them to > gather MP candidates details. Emails should contain a unique link to a > page for their constituency(s) with a simple, usable form for adding > Name, Party, email, postal address, perhaps even photo. Each field > should be referenceable to an external website, or have an annotation > field where the user can explain where they got the info. The database > would then store any info they added, along with time and user > details. Volunteers would be able to login whenever they liked, using > the link in their email, to update and improve the data present. This > database could be pre-populated with Julian Todd's scraper code for > Wikipedia, which has already been able to get several hundred current > MP candidate names into structured data. > > Phase III > > Add feature so that admins can send arbitrary tasks out via email, and > have volunteers click links to indicate whether or not they did them, > for example uploading a leaflet to the StraightChoice, or asking > people to find local campaign groups that would contribute questions > to the election quiz (when that gets built). > > Add feature so that if more than one person is signed up in a > constituency, they can communicate and work together easily. > > Phase IV > > Have huge election night party for 600+ volunteers :) > > ------------ > > I might be wrong, but I feel there are quite a lot of people who'd > like to be a volunteer in a mySociety national network, doing > rewarding but non-coding tasks, and who would like to be part of > something larger that could lead to them meeting other interested, > motivated people. > > This site could hardly be built too soon (remember, when it is done we > still have to research and build the whole election quiz too). Is > there anyone out there, or anyones plural who'd like to give this some > love? If not, the core team will ultimately be given the job, but > they're so busy that this wouldn't be seeing the light of day for a > little while, at least. > > all the best, > > Tom > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list [email protected] > Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public >
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