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First of all 4us.com is completely free. We've been working on this site for the last 2 years and have been funding this entirely from our pockets. If you have

by bbrez1 10y ago

First of all 4us.com is completely free. We've been working on this site for the last 2 years and have been funding this entirely from our pockets. If you have some free time on your hands please signup to check out some of the stuff you've been missing out. The basic idea behind 4us is that you can: - Browse all bills, voting records and members of Congress (kind of what GovTrack does) - Get notified (email and site notification - facebook style) when there are changes to bills or members of Congress that you follow - Discuss each bill in the discussion section - Read simplified bills written by us or the users (that should be nonbiased) - Join the discussion boards to discuss the latest events and news - Vote on bills (similar to Countable) - See how your votes align with what your Representative actually voted (for example if I vote on 10 bills and one of my Senators also voted on those 10 bills, then the site will build an approval rating based on those 10 votes compared. The approval rating or compatibility rating (as we also like to call it) will be on a scale from 0 - 100. The more our votes align the higher the approval rating. Which probably means I should vote for them again. The idea is that when we vote for our new Senators and Representatives we usually just vote based on what others think about them or what we hear in the media. This tool will tell you exactly how you should vote). What we do is we compare your voting habits to your Congressional Representatives' (you can vote on bills the same way as your senator would) and educate yourself on the laws (we try to make the laws as simple as possible to the everyday citizen - by creating simple videos of the bills, finding and posting short summaries and by enabling discussion in the comment section) that affect us all. It's the only site out there that will tell you how you actually align with your Reps based on how YOU and THEY feel about important bills. While this is still a long-shot to actually try and see some positive changes.. what we do want to do is help you BE BETTER INFORMED. Thanks!

aerioux 10y ago
have you seen fiscalnote.com ?
- bbrez1 10y ago
  Will check it out. Thanks
tfgg 10y ago
> - Discuss each bill in the discussion section > - Join the discussion boards to discuss the latest events and news > - Vote on bills (similar to Countable) Based on my experience of other similar sites in other countries, these features will largely be a ghost town. Even if they aren't a ghost town, they can never be representative samples of the US population. I'd really encourage you to focus on features that are useful even if you only have one user. It's too easy for this sort of site to try to do everything, successful ones tend to be narrowly focused -- I like your notification approach.
rezashirazian 10y ago
Awesome website and idea, I really hope it succeeds. Here are some pointer to perhaps improve it. - User Angular's ng-cloak to hide your variables while the controller is loading. The {{item.display}} makes the site look amateurish - Don't do nested left panels. Have the options for bills or representatives on the same page that has the trending bills instead of a second left panel - The dashboard page tries to show too many things at once. I know you're using an admin bootstrap template and that is not a good choice for what you're trying to do. Try to have the main dashboard page focus on a specific topic (trending stories, users, discussions) - Hire a UX designer instead of using a generic bootstrap template. Here are some things that I think you're doing really well: - The search works really well. Are you using ElasticSearch? - You're doing a good job of showing what I need to know about a specific bill or a representative. The details pages for bills and representatives are complete and well structured good job!

by bbrez1 10y ago

aerioux 10y ago

have you seen fiscalnote.com ?

bbrez1 10y ago
Will check it out. Thanks

tfgg 10y ago

> - Discuss each bill in the discussion section > - Join the discussion boards to discuss the latest events and news > - Vote on bills (similar to Countable) Based on my experience of other similar sites in other countries, these features will largely be a ghost town. Even if they aren't a ghost town, they can never be representative samples of the US population. I'd really encourage you to focus on features that are useful even if you only have one user. It's too easy for this sort of site to try to do everything, successful ones tend to be narrowly focused -- I like your notification approach.

rezashirazian 10y ago

Awesome website and idea, I really hope it succeeds. Here are some pointer to perhaps improve it. - User Angular's ng-cloak to hide your variables while the controller is loading. The {{item.display}} makes the site look amateurish - Don't do nested left panels. Have the options for bills or representatives on the same page that has the trending bills instead of a second left panel - The dashboard page tries to show too many things at once. I know you're using an admin bootstrap template and that is not a good choice for what you're trying to do. Try to have the main dashboard page focus on a specific topic (trending stories, users, discussions) - Hire a UX designer instead of using a generic bootstrap template. Here are some things that I think you're doing really well: - The search works really well. Are you using ElasticSearch? - You're doing a good job of showing what I need to know about a specific bill or a representative. The details pages for bills and representatives are complete and well structured good job!