This is another great use of the "PopIt" Poplus component. Let's help build out this platform so we can use it across multiple countries for pro-actively surfacing candidates not just on the web but crucially across social media FAR EARLIER in the election process.
The best place to land from outside the UK is on the Poplus Online Group: http://bit.ly/poplusgroup Steven Clift E-Democracy and now Engagement Lead, Poplus P.S. In January I'll officially be starting a special project with mySociety and their Poplus partners to grow engagement in their efforts starting with their lively online group where people are getting stuff down through technical collaboration. From: http://bit.ly/mysocyournextmp Let’s Not Reinvent the Wheel When When Can All Use the Same Wheel Every general election there are a *load* of projects that all need the same thing – a nicely formatted, accurate list of the candidates who are standing at the election. Loads of people need this data – journalists, app builders, campaigners, Wikipedians, everyone. But the government doesn’t actually publish the lists until right before the election, and when it does the data isn’t the least bit suitable for modern use (think unstructured PDFs and worse). It’s way too little and way too late. That’s why we’re big fans of the new YourNextMP.com <http://yournextmp.com/>, a collaborative project headed up by our friends at Democracy Club <http://ift.tt/1vVbPsi>, and endorsed by various other organisations, including mySociety. YourNextMP.com is a totally *free, open* database of candidates, that is made partly from screen scraping and partly from *volunteer* contributions from people who think that having a good quality single list is a sane idea. It publishes the open data gathered both through a nice clean website, and through a nice modern API. Soon it’ll also provide csv export,too. And it means we can have nice shared identifiers for candidates, meaning greater potential connectivity between election-related journalisms, tools, sites and projects run by different people and organisations. The builders of YourNextMP have also taken steps to ensure accuracy and deter abuse, most strikingly by forcing all new data to be sourced, and keeping nice public logs of all the changes (and who made them). To be clear, YourNextMP is *not* a mySociety project. We are just very happy to endorse the idea, and to supply one of our open source tools (PopIt <http://popit.poplus.org>) to help store and share the data in useful ways. Plus some of us have been chipping in in our spare time, for instance by adding data. *How can you help?* There are two main ways: *1)* *Add data!* The main thing needed today, 146 days before the election, is the most basic data on *who is known to be standing, today*. We think that YourNextMP is *probably* already the most up to date candidate list out there, despite being very much unfinished. Additional data, about candidates’ Facebook pages, birth dates and so on, isn’t such a high priority right now. You can help by looking up your constituency on the site, or choosing a random constituency, and just using your best Googling/telephoning skills to find out who’s definitely standing this time. If you want to chat to other people who are doing the same thing, use the #yournextmp hashtag. We’ve put together a few tips on canny ways to find information on prospective candidates, here <http://ift.tt/1BoJSJG>. Don’t feel you have to stop when you’ve filled in your own constituency – there are plenty more to complete <http://ift.tt/1yIcY8P>. *2) Spread the word that a single, high quality, free and shared database of candidates is just A Good Thing that people should support.* Who loves time-wasting? Nobody! What is YourNextMP if not an anti time-wasting project?* Nothing! *So, please, if you’re planning an election-related project, tell people that YourNextMP is a good idea, and consider letting them use your logo on their site, as a sign of good will. And if you see someone in your office about to *pay* for a proprietary database of candidates, why not suggest they give the money to YourNextMP instead? Image: Duncan Harris <http://ift.tt/1BoJQSh> (CC <http://ift.tt/N3rZKX>) from mySociety http://ift.tt/1yIcVtE via IFTTT <http://ift.tt/1bODNcb> ----------------------------------------- Group home for Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire: http://groups.dowire.org/groups/newswire Replies go to members of Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire with all posts on this topic here: http://groups.dowire.org/r/topic/2ITIow347nVKJ1i18f88lr For digest version or to leave Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire, email [email protected] with "digest on" or "unsubscribe" in the *subject*. Newswire - Steven Clift's Democracies Online Newswire is hosted by Democracies Online - http://dowire.org.
