Hi Tim, On average candidates get ~800 views (2.1m views / 2,472 candidates since 2007), being hyperlocal it massively depends on local promotion - campaigns where many or most candidates take part and get a bit of Q/A going tend to attract more visits...
It's quite a different model to YNMP in that we only list elections [1] where we have been explicitly asked by a volunteer. We've found 'blanket listing' all campaigns (such as all the 2009,2010 locals) is of limited use (other than announcing that there is an election happening). Listing campaigns were we have a volunteer on the ground generally gleans much greater interest, traffic, participation and therefore 'usefullness'. Ideally of course we would like to reach a level where we can list all campaigns and have enough volunteers/resources to prod/chase and encourage participation... one day. An accurate postcode search (AFAIK) isn't free so to limit our costs we haven't done it. Not to say we wouldn't if we found a way though.. The only information we (consistently, reliably) have about the candidates is the registered address on the statement of nominated persons (sourced and uploaded to us by our volunteers). We use that to write to them with their login details. From there, they are on their own - they login, post up their manifestso and answer questions, only contacting us if they have trouble uploading in image or similar. So we don't crowdsource info about the candidates themselves, we rely on the candidates' own enthusiasm to login and share their details, generally speaking they are pretty good at it and it means what info we have is always 'first hand'. If they don't take part, the page is blank which in a campaign where for example 3 out of 4 have taken part says quite a lot about the missing candidate, peer pressure in that sense works quite well. Our volunteers; tell us about the campaign, send us the statement of noms and occasionally prod candidates to take part. Love the concept for data seperation and we've looked into a similar approach but as a reasonably self contained service we've not had the reason/motivation to put anything like that in place... yet. If we did share information via an API what do you think would be useful and how might it be used? If there's a demand, quite happy to put an API together.. Cheers, Mark -----Original Message----- From: Timothy Green [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: 19 May 2010 13:16 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: [mySociety:public] Other elections Looks interesting, how many visits did it get for the just gone elections? If it's going to be a full resource for voters on local election info in the same way as YNMP it could do with some features like postcode search (I don't get why it's a candidate search, surely that's the one thing I probably won't know?), full data on who all the candidates are in all local elections (this is something that presumably requires volunteer time) and an API to pull the structured data back for other sites to use (I don't know how you're finding your initial data to contact candidates with at the moment, but it's important that other people can use it). One concept we gradually moved towards for the election was that YNMP is a backend database that holds all the data and tools to fix it/make it, and other sites can handle actually making full featured interfaces for it and adding value (Q&A interfaces etc.), so you have a nice separation of concerns in layers connected by their public APIs - which may be a model worth considering for local elections, especially considering that finding out who the candidates are is even harder. If something like this could be worked out, I'm sure Democracy Club volunteers could help crowdsource info on candidates. Tim On 19/05/10 11:21, Mark Bel wrote: > http://votewise.co.uk has a volunteer network that covers local elections > and by-elections. > > "Votewise is a completely free public information service that tells you > when a local election is held in your area, who the candidates are and what > they stand for." > > The model is slightly different to YNMP in that candidates are invited (a > letter via the snail mail) to login an publish their own data and respond to > questions from constituents directly. > > On average about 38% of candidates participate, in some campaigns they all > do - like this: http://votewise.co.uk/index.php?pg=show&eid=00AMGS-0 > > If anyone wants to help us list, invite and prod candidates that would be > ace you can register here: http://votewise.co.uk/volunteer > > The project's privately funded, completely free to all, utterly impartial > and endorsed by the Electoral Commission, heaps of LGA's, pretty much all > active political parties (88 so far) and thousands of candidates.. > > While we focus on local's we have listed others and are happy to publish > other parliamentary/mayoral campaigns if the demand is there. > > > Cheers, > Mark > > -- > Mark Bell > http://votewise.co.uk > > tel: 0208 123 2862 > mob: 0774 086 1862 > > > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list [email protected] > Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public > _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public No virus found in this incoming message. Checked by AVG - www.avg.com Version: 9.0.819 / Virus Database: 271.1.1/2881 - Release Date: 05/19/10 07:26:00 _______________________________________________ Mailing list [email protected] Archive, settings, or unsubscribe: https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public
