Democracy.io by EFF
Web and SaaS
civic advocacy messaging
SHOW HN2015
144points
51comments
#147of 2,565 in 2015
Top 6%of 2015 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
6 positive, 11 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 5 critical, out of 23 comments about the project. Thread score -0.03.
Idea: 3 for, 4 againstExecution: 3 for, 0 againstDesign: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Open dataset of contact forms is valuable
From 3 comments
Wow that contact-congress data set alone is awesome. Thanks for doing that leg work!
comrh on HNWow thanks for explaining, that's a lot of good work.
kajecounterhack on HNCongrats on shipping, guys! Cool to watch this project evolve. Awesome that it's open source, too. There is a lot of value in a platform that can abstract all of the shitty…
Mizza on HN
Free alternative to paid vendors
From 2 comments
Respectfully, @cjoh, that's pretty out of touch. Blue State, Salsa, all of those vendors charge money and create necessarily limited ecosystems. EFF and Sunlight collaborated to…
konklone on HNCongrats on shipping, guys! Cool to watch this project evolve. Awesome that it's open source, too. There is a lot of value in a platform that can abstract all of the shitty…
Mizza on HN
Objections
Congress already overwhelmed by messages; more volume doesn't help
From 2 comments
Sigh. Yet another tool that makes it easy to write your representative. As though this is an actual problem. It isn't. The Market is saturated with so many tools to send messages…
cjoh on HN> Obviously your product, ScreenDoor, addresses some of the concerns you're raising around better data collection. Glad to hear you're so enthusiastic about that approach. Not…
cjoh on HN
Existing tools already solve the problem
From 2 comments
Sigh. Yet another tool that makes it easy to write your representative. As though this is an actual problem. It isn't. The Market is saturated with so many tools to send messages…
cjoh on HNThere was already "http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/" for lookup. It even has map integration, if your ZIP code isn't enough.
Animats on HN
Accountability is the real problem, not writing
From 2 comments
I don't think writing to Congress has really ever been the problem, I think the problem is accountability. The two things we need to see in one place are our representatives…
Zmetta on HNI mean, how can that be? How stupid easy is it to have a web app that sends out an email? Like every 2 person start-up out there has something like this for messaging them.…
Balgair on HN
Requests
Add phone calling option
From 2 comments
I mean, how can that be? How stupid easy is it to have a web app that sends out an email? Like every 2 person start-up out there has something like this for messaging them.…
Balgair on HNWOW! That is terribly bad then! You are very correct, I thought it was just some email account they had in their name, not something like that. Great work arounds for the…
Balgair on HN
Make responses public
From 2 comments
Congrats on shipping, guys! Cool to watch this project evolve. Awesome that it's open source, too. There is a lot of value in a platform that can abstract all of the shitty…
Mizza on HN>However, we are considering offering users the ability to make their comments public, which'd create a large public dataset about messages sent to Congress. If we decide to go…
sroerick on HN
Show party affiliation of representatives
From 1 comment
having the party affiliation of the representatives would be useful, and easy to add.
foolinaround on HN
Questions
Cookies required for the form?
From 1 comment
Heads-up to the creator: I browse with cookies disabled by default, and when I go to this site this is what I see: http://cl.ly/image/3W3D28153S0t I'm not sure how deep the form…
jordanlev on HN
Can it verify constituents?
From 1 comment
Sigh. Yet another tool that makes it easy to write your representative. As though this is an actual problem. It isn't. The Market is saturated with so many tools to send messages…
cjoh on HN
Alternatives named
Blue State Digital, Salsa, BlackBaud (paid advocacy vendors)
From 2 comments
Sigh. Yet another tool that makes it easy to write your representative. As though this is an actual problem. It isn't. The Market is saturated with so many tools to send messages…
cjoh on HNHey there, I worked on this. BSD, BlackBaud, and Salsa all deliver messages to congress, but only for advocacy organizations who are willing to pay. Beyond OpenCongress, I don't…
sinak on HN
WriteToThem (UK)
From 1 comment
This UK site https://www.writetothem.com/ that does a similar job works fantastically. Using it took a significant amount of pain out of working out where to send my emails, what…
glomph on HN
pubmail.io
From 1 comment
Congrats on shipping, guys! Cool to watch this project evolve. Awesome that it's open source, too. There is a lot of value in a platform that can abstract all of the shitty…
Mizza on HN
house.gov representative lookup
From 1 comment
There was already "http://www.house.gov/representatives/find/" for lookup. It even has map integration, if your ZIP code isn't enough.
Animats on HN