Re: FW: [TechTalk] "Action Center" project idea for the ambitious, bored, or obsessive...

Michael-

What a happy coincidence.  There is work being done on this as we 
speak.  The geocoder.us folks are doing all the GIS stuff (turning zip+4 
into congressional districts) and downhillbattle.org (a music/copyfight 
group that I help run) is doing the rest.  Civicspacelabs.org (they make 
a distro of the Drupal CMS for activists) are providing support.  The 
goal is to make the kind of functionality provided as a pay service by 
congress.org completely free to everyone.

We're planning to have our first release out by August 1.  For the 
initial release we're providing contacting Congress functionality 
(email, phone, fax) as well as skeleton functionality to build an 
entirely free database of media contacts (phone, fax, letter to the 
editor emails) for the whole U.S.  We're scraping the data from public 
sources, so all the information should stay fresh as things get updated.

Phase 2 will be extending it to cover state and local governments in the 
U.S., and internationalizing it.

A detailed description of phase 1 is up here:
http://advocacydev.blueoxen.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?DownhillBattleLabs

There's more general info about the scope of the project, and a mailing 
list, here;
http://advocacydev.blueoxen.net/cgi-bin/wiki.pl?OpenDatabases

Y'all NPOtechs folks should get involved in this.  There will very soon 
be a TON of work to be done.

Holmes Wilson
downhillbattle.org
worcestercoop.org


Michael Maranda wrote:

>I've been quiet on the debian -np list for a while, but thought I'd
>stick my neck out there again as I have slightly more time available,
>expect another follow-up message in a moment!
>
>
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: techtalk-admin-Y0+jBL/[email protected] [mailto:techtalk-admin-Y0+jBL/[email protected]]
>On Behalf Of Michael Maranda at NPOTechs
>Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2004 1:27 AM
>To: techtalk-Y0+jBL/[email protected]
>Subject: [TechTalk] "Action Center" project idea for the ambitious,
>bored, or obsessive...
>
>
>Greetings all,
>
>I assume that many of you are familiar with the
>"Action Center" element of many policy/advocacy web
>sites.  The eff.org is a great example of such a
>site....
>
>(if you arent familiar, basically the sites determine
>who your legoslators are, based on your address, and
>these sites facilitate getting your message to these legislators through
>email or fax or via printing which you can snail mail...)
>
>
>So... I think it would be useful to community
>technology interests if we establish and host such
>services for our geo-political level(s)   state and
>other municipalities if relevant.
>
>It would perhaps also be of use and interest to the
>other non-technology organizations we serve.
>
>Where would we need to start?   I am hoping that some
>open-source software framework exists,and all we would
>have to do is supply our geographic/legislative detail
>for state orother municipalities... but if not, I am
>guessing that such a database wouldnt be too difficult
>to design.
>
>Skipping a step to the infrastructure level.. I guess
>the capacity to send faxes and other modes of
>transmittal may require some discussion (not ot
>mention resources)  - any ideas?
>
>If anyone out there is interested, lets take  a crack
>at tabulating what such a project would entail...
>
>
>database w/legislative district coding
>address parsing utility to match legislators to the
>individual
>
>information with multiple contacts means for the
>legislators (and updating of same data)
>
>issues framed in timely manner related to legislation
>or to advancinging policy goals in community interest
>(this requires someone to do policy leg-work on
>ongoing basis-so with this latter, I guess what I am
>curious about is what it would take to establishthe
>mechanisms for us in Illinois, and then using it our
>making it available to those among us with interest in
>pursuing coordinated policy efforts).
>
>
>Well, I am serious about this endeavor.  I dont want
>for us to reinvent the wheel, but not sure how to have
>it available for use at the multiple levels relevant
>to us in Illinois:  State (House/Senate), County, City
>(Alderman), and other municipalities.   I had in mind
>that the system would be extensible, as some one from
>whatever municipalities should take the effort to be
>on top of things in their area.
>
>If I was to start with what I saw as immediate goals,
>I would deal with State House and Senate, and
>Aldermanic wards for Chicago.
>
>
>(If anyone has ideas for fundingor other resources for
>such a project, that would be welcome too)
>
>Regards,
>
>Michael
>_______________________________________________
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