All posts in the topic Let 'em Know? (Short link)
Summary
- There are 27 posts — by 17 authors — in this topic.
- Latest post made by laurence.millar at May 06 20:59 NZST
Hoping to get feedback on an idea to see if it is likely to be useful and if something similar already exists. I'd like to be able to go to a website and set up an online petition or message (similar to say http://petitions.number10.gov.uk/ or a local version of http://www.gopetition.com/). But, at the end of the message or sign-up period, a message goes to each MP with a list of people who've signed it in their local area or electorate. This will need automation of finding out a MP's contact details (http://www.parliament.nz/en-NZ/AboutParl/GetInvolved/Contact/2/9/d/00PlibHvYrSayContact1-Contact-an-MP.htm) based on post code. When signing, people will have to enter their post code (to find out who their MP is), email address (not displayed), and can choose if they want their name displayed/sent to their MP. As an example, my organisation (InternetNZ) could use it to develop a message to MPs about excluding software from patents. The idea is for MPs to know the level of interest in their local community and what the issues are in plain English. Perhaps other people may also find it useful, e.g. the online equivalent of the Queen St. protest against mining. Questions: - will this be a useful site (in the mySociety style, call it something like "Let 'em Know" and it lives or dies if it meets a specific need) - does something like this already exist (or a logical extension to some website?)
Related, the Wellington City Council runs this: http://www.wellington.govt.nz/haveyoursay/e-petitions/index.php I could guess it has been effective because I have seen quite large petitions there.
Thanks Matthew.
The problem with petitioning a Council is the disconnect between the community
and its representation. What I'm looking for is a way to tell indviduals, in
this case MPs, what the community they represent is interested in.
I've wanted this, too. I've been designing a variation for lobbying
as well. I'd love to see it come real.
Postcode may not be an accurate reflection of electoral boundaries.
That's an assumption that'd have to be validated. Bugger all in geo
aligns: everyone builds their own boundaries and doesn't give a toss
about anyone else's :-)
On Mon, May 3, 2010 at 3:18 PM, Nathan Torkington <email obscured>> wrote: > Postcode may not be an accurate reflection of electoral boundaries. > That's an assumption that'd have to be validated. Bugger all in geo > aligns: everyone builds their own boundaries and doesn't give a toss > about anyone else's :-) > And map-data of NZ postcode boundaries isn't free (speech or beer)... Anyone is welcome to use the Koordinates API [1] to lookup an electorate [2] given a point (eg. geocoded address or a user's click on a map). Rob :) [1] http://help.koordinates.com/faqs/api/vector-query [2] http://koordinates.com/layer/1250-nz-electoral-wards-2009-yearly-pattern/
Right, 1 vote in favour from Nat plus a couple of good points to keep in mind.
Doesn't sound like a big need for this? Unless, the silent majority are putting
up their hands as in the 2 degrees advert?
Oh there is a need.
Over the last 12 months. I have made about a dozen submissions on various
bills going through parliament. I have spoken at two select committee
hearings on the Auckland (not so) super city. So have many of my friends.
yet I would count myself as not particularly political.
Someone stood up at a meeting last week and said. Hello, my name is --- and
I am a serial submitter.
On top of that I've signed a bunch of petitions and I am currently helping
to organise what may prove to be one of the biggest grass roots organised
ballots in the country - see www.ourauckland.org.nz
There is a big need for a consistent mechanism of communication with the
powers that be. I still turn up at public meetings but many people cannot
and rely on online systems.
What is needed is
1. a clear list of the current issues, bills in parliament etc.
2. reference material giving the main points of contention.
3. a sub 20 minute way of making your voice heard.
What often happens is that those organisations with more resources such as
political parties and community organisations, create template submissions
and then encourage people to either sign up to one of these or roll their
own.
I suspect though that the readers tend to pile the 1000 identical copies of
a submission together and call it one point of view that gets dismissed
anyway.
So it would be good if an online system made it easier to make one's voice
heard. It would also be good if it could accumulate other people's assents
or confirmations.
On 4/05/10 8:51 AM, <email obscured> wrote:
> Right, 1 vote in favour from Nat plus a couple of good points to keep in
mind.
>
> Doesn't sound like a big need for this? Unless, the silent majority are
putting up their hands as in the 2 degrees advert?
>
I'm in favour, but I don't have any time at preset to work on it.
Rowan Crawford (@wombleton) is doing some work on OIAs (fyi.org.nz) -
this may have some connection and I'm sure hed be happy with some dev
funding ;-)
Thanks Mark. And yes, InterentNZ can put in some $s to get a quick and basic service in place. If people find it useful and actually use it, we can put in some more $s to improve and mainstream it. Andrew, have you seen online tools like Bang the Table http://bangthetable.com/ That is one of the many examples of facilitating public policy discussions. From what you've said, what's missing is a link to the current policy and consultation agendas?
Happy to push it into the stack, but my hobbyist's rate of knots is not exactly what I'd call awesome. Alternately give me a pull request for fyi <http://github.com/wombleton/fyi>and I'll apply it.
On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 10:59 AM, Mark Harris <email obscured>> wrote: > On 4/05/10 8:51 AM, <email obscured> wrote: >> Right, 1 vote in favour from Nat plus a couple of good points to keep in mind. I have some time on my hands and am pretty decent at doing rails coding. There are some rails projects which have already done most of the work for us like tog http://www.toghq.com/ communityengine http://www.communityengine.org/ and lovedbyless http://lovdbyless.com/ (I am sure there are others). I even have a couple of domain names that might be appropriate. If what we want to build is simply a place for petitions I think that it might be possible to set that up as a stand alone application pretty quickly. Making it pretty is what takes time.
I'd love to help you design this, and manage the build if you want. I think it's a great idea. As I said, for petitions I think we should go through Facebook because most everyone I know is on there. We might get a few grumbly geeks who say they don't have Facebook accounts and don't want to have to sign up to petition, but a small public bolt-on site could handle that. I've also been chewing on a different system I'd love to see built, something to connect geeks to their politicians. I'd like to build a network of geeks who stay in regular contact with their MPs via the constituency office meetings. This means: - register where you live, to find your local MP's office - commit to regular meetings (collecting dates and times, reporting back) - discussions and briefings, talking points of things to take to those MPs with a regular series of examples of stories in the news that illustrate the points we want to make (lock-in, open standards, patent evil, copyright holder abuse, etc.) This would get the MPs realising that there are geeks in their voting constituency, and more aware of how the issues we have will affect those constituents. Constantly getting in their ear will raise the profile of our issues. I think this would be a channel for the messages from NZOSS and InternetNZ. No idea how to fund its creation or the ongoing creation of the messages. Thoughts? Nat On 4/05/2010, at 12:00 PM, <email obscured> wrote: > Thanks Mark. And yes, InterentNZ can put in some $s to get a quick > and basic service in place. If people find it useful and actually > use it, we can put in some more $s to improve and mainstream it. > > Andrew, have you seen online tools like Bang the Table http://bangthetable.com/
On 4 May 2010 15:07, Nathan Torkington <email obscured>> wrote: > I'd love to help you design this, and manage the build if you want. I > think it's a great idea. As I said, for petitions I think we should > go through Facebook because most everyone I know is on there. +1 Was thinking Facebook would be an easy way to do facilitate the end goal this morning too. It's very developer friendly & has some native widgets that help things like petitioning.[1] Then again, does clicking 'Like' button equate to signing a petition? Tim. [1] http://developers.facebook.com/docs/reference/plugins/like
> Then again, does clicking 'Like' button equate to signing a petition?
Like responding +1 to threads ;-)
Facebook is definitely one of the end points that you would want to support. I
shouldn't be the only end point but it should be the first end point outside of
the website that should be implemented.
On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 3:33 PM, Tim McNamara
<email obscured>> wrote:
> On 4 May 2010 15:07, Nathan Torkington <email obscured>> wrote:
>
>> I'd love to help you design this, and manage the build if you want. I
>> think it's a great idea. As I said, for petitions I think we should
>> go through Facebook because most everyone I know is on there.
>
>
> +1
>
> Was thinking Facebook would be an easy way to do facilitate the end goal
> this morning too. It's very developer friendly & has some native widgets
> that help things like petitioning.[1] Then again, does clicking 'Like'
> button equate to signing a petition?
-1
There should always be a way to participate without signing up to facebook.
Many folks will not create an account there due to real concerns about privacy.
On 4/05/10 3:51 PM, Brenda Wallace wrote:
> -1
> There should always be a way to participate without signing up to facebook.
> Many folks will not create an account there due to real concerns about
privacy.
>
I'm confused. If I add a +1 to Brenda's comment, does it negate the -!
she made on the thread?
Anyway, what she said.
Facebook is a company that makes money selling your behavioural (and
personal) information. Creating an application on there because "most
everyone I know is on there" is exactly the same as specifying .docx as
the only valid format because "everyone uses Microsoft". It's a lock-in
and, to my mind, is antithetical to the aim of open-ness that started
this discussion.
On Tue, May 4, 2010 at 5:30 PM, Mark Harris <email obscured>> wrote:
>
> Facebook is a company that makes money selling your behavioural (and
> personal) information. Creating an application on there because "most
> everyone I know is on there" is exactly the same as specifying .docx as
> the only valid format because "everyone uses Microsoft". It's a lock-in
> and, to my mind, is antithetical to the aim of open-ness that started
> this discussion.
>
Easy-up. Nobody said exclusively to have a Facebook app, Nat & Glen both
talked about websites as well. Multi-pronged attacks ftw.
It's not a lock-in if you have an option of doing it another way - last time
I checked Office didn't open odf, so offering both .doc(x) and .odf beside
each other would cater to a larger audience - doesn't seem like a bad
thing... ?
Rob :)
On Tue, May 4, 2010 3:07 pm, Nathan Torkington wrote: > I've also been chewing on a different system I'd love to see built, > something to connect geeks to their politicians. I like this idea. I certainly feel that the meeting Bevan Rudge, Dave Lane and I had with Lianne Dalziel was a positive step towards the outcome of the select committee re software patents (see http://drupal.geek.nz/blog/nz-software-patents-meeting-lianne-dalziel-commerce-committee-chairperson-amp-labour-mp ). It would be great to have a site tracking key technical issues, select committees etc. and opportunities to educate politicians on the technical implications. The League of Technical Voters might be a good model: http://www.leagueoftechvoters.org/ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Technical_Voters It might be one and the same as a MySociety type organisation: I see quite a continuum (and many of the same people involved) between activism for internet freedom, education of politicians and officials on technical issues, submitting on political issues affecting the internet, implementing internet (esp. web & mobile) services to (a) educate, (b) demonstrate, running Open Gov barcamps, etc.
On 4/05/2010, at 5:30 PM, Mark Harris wrote:
> Facebook is a company that makes money selling your behavioural (and
> personal) information. Creating an application on there because "most
> everyone I know is on there" is exactly the same as specifying .docx
> as
> the only valid format because "everyone uses Microsoft". It's a lock-
> in
> and, to my mind, is antithetical to the aim of open-ness that started
> this discussion.
At some point in the conversation, someone deleted the part of my post
that said "we'd build a pure HTML interface for people who don't like
Facebook". Brenda replied to this truncated seemingly-Facebook-only
message saying "what, only Facebook? Evil!" and now you're reacting to
that. Let's stop this in its tracks.
We're all talking about a database-backed web app for the petitions,
with a Facebook interface and a pure HTML-no-Facebook-needed
interface. We use Facebook to reach people who use Facebook, we offer
the pure HTML for people who don't use Facebook, and nobody has to
compare anybody to Hitler :-)
Cheers on the Godwin ref, which was just about to become palpable.
Ignoring FB in anything like this is, well, purist.
On 4/05/10 11:23 PM, Nathan Torkington wrote:
> We use Facebook to reach people who use Facebook, we offer
> the pure HTML for people who don't use Facebook, and nobody has to
> compare anybody to Hitler :-)
>
But you were looking so good with a mustache ;-)
Hi
Good on you all for coming up with a solution.
> Ignoring FB in anything like this is, well, purist.
The non-purist point I would make is not to put FB at the heart of
something like this. Whilst it is an important channel it has a puerile
reputation which may not suit the people this sort of service is trying
to influence.
Many thanks for the great discussion.
There is enough support to get this to first base, i.e. to put up a basic
website that does the job. InternetNZ will put in the $s to do this.
I'd like to put together a couple of people who can act as the reference
group/thinkers. Who wants to join? It'll require a couple of whiteboard
sessions and probably some emails with ideas and reviews of work.
Anyone who has an interest, you're in. Please put in a comment here and I'll
then take the discussion onto an email list.
We can then come back to this thread and post updates.
I love being able to move from idea to action quickly!
On 5/05/2010, at 5:51 PM, <email obscured> wrote:
>
> I'd like to put together a couple of people who can act as the reference
group/thinkers. Who wants to join? It'll require a couple of whiteboard
sessions and probably some emails with ideas and reviews of work.
Happy to be involved.
Happy to get active and not only talk. Sign me up. (+ Nat's "get active" points in the previous thread are something I'm aiming to do in the next week) Cheers, Mike Riversdale tel: +64 (0)21-169 1359 Skype: mike.riversdale email: <email obscured> web: http://www.miramarmike.co.nz
Great idea Vikram. It is utility computing that would be of great value to the
comunity and voluntary sector.
There must be an equivalent already in place (in US or UK state/city) that
would just need different calls to the Koordinates NZ geo-data
Co-producing the front end and database means we could get sustainability on
longer term development.