6 ms·

Show HN: Fantasy Congress – a fantasy sports website for politics

95 points by asebold 6y ago

asebold 6y ago
Hey HN, I've been hacking away at this for the past couple of years. Launched in February. Hope you get a kick out of it as much as I do. Fantasy Congress is an online game where data about members of congress is converted into points. Players select members of congress for their team and acquire points based on legislative activity of the U.S. House and Senate. Like fantasy sports, teams compete in small groups called leagues. At the end of a predetermined number of weeks (called a “season”), the team with the most points in their league wins.
- sam1r 6y ago
  Why not make this more direct-to-consumer with a more friendly UI? Versus just a demo. From a product perspective, a lot of awesome viral feature possibilities with twitter integration + timestamps + clout on predicting their next moves/outcomes
  - asebold 6y ago
    ? Not sure what you mean. This isn't a demo, you can actually sign up and play. But yeah, it's a work in progress and the UI could be improved.
- munk-a 6y ago
  Just a pair of UX comments: Being able to search via State as well would probably help a fair bit. The US has a reputation for being quite bad when it comes to awareness of representation - so forcing a name based search probably isn't great for supporting users - if the search was made into a live responsive search (where the table view was refreshed on each keypress) that'd probably be even better. Your arrangement of Next/Prev page really messes with my brain - it'd be good if these buttons stayed in the same horizontal position when you move from the first page to any other - it's particularly confusing in this case since there isn't any standard pagination widget bar thingy - instead there are just two naked buttons which swap places when you move from the first page to the second.
  - asebold 6y ago
    Oh thank you. These are very valid points. Appreciate the feedback!
ngonzal 6y ago
This is a very cool idea, I'm curious what kind of data sources/APIs your using to calculate points?
- asebold 6y ago
  Hey thanks! All data comes from the US Government Publishing Office https://www.govinfo.gov/features/api https://www.govinfo.gov/features/api and https://api.data.gov/ https://api.data.gov/
tectonic 6y ago
Great idea!
- asebold 6y ago
  Thanks!
zrail 6y ago
Gosh. I'm having trouble expressing how I feel about this. I mean, good work I guess, but this seems to fundamentally misunderstand what the political process is supposed to accomplish. It's not about (or shouldn't be about) scoring points and winning. It should be about serving constituents and doing things to make the city/county/state/country better. I realize there's a lot of "should"s up there. In my opinion the attitudes that exist in the current political machines are much to blame for the divisions in our societies. McConnell is at the top of your leaderboard because he's driven by a naked lust for power, not because he's ever done anything right by his constituents.
- milkytron 6y ago
  I don't think this is meant to improve the political process, or demonstrate who is a "better" politician. Based on the website, it seems like a humorous way to play in a fantasy league while major sports are cancelled.
  - zrail 6y ago
    I get that. I personally feel that playing fantasy politics is in poor taste when the political process is a) so extremely important to the proper functioning of our society and b) relatively easy to get involved with IRL.
    - JSavageOne 6y ago
      > relatively easy to get involved with IRL. How is the political process easy to get involved in? If I want to make a difference in politics, what can I do? Other than voting, seems to me that it is extraordinarily difficult to make any impact beyond the local level.
      - JoshuaDavid 6y ago
        The phrase that has stuck with me is "pull policy ropes sideways[1]." Basically the idea is to find an area of policy that is impactful but not highly politicized (ideally boring, technical, and important), and push for changes there. If you can't think of any things that government could be doing better that aren't already well-publicized and politicized, consider that you may not actually be more politically informed than the average voter, and the way we collect preferences from voters with average levels of insight into government systems is called "voting". Note that there's nothing wrong with this approach, and in fact it is the approach I use the vast majority of the time. In terms of how to push for changes in terms of concrete actions, write an actual physical letter to your congress person. [1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/05/policy_tugowar.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/05/policy_tugowar.html
LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago
Where is the fun in it when it lacks the theme of 'Genesis - Land of Confusion' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7FKO5DlV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7FKO5DlV0 , or more general https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image ?
JSavageOne 6y ago
Interesting concept. If I had some advice - I clicked into a congress member's profile, and had no idea what to do next. I think you'll get more engagement if you have something more actionable there, like a button saying "Draft this representative!"
- asebold 6y ago
  Oh, that's a great idea. Thank you for the clear feedback!
vorpalhex 6y ago
I thought this was a really neat idea, so I went to sign up and found it's $19/month. I'm entirely cool with paying for neat games, but $19/month for a simple drafting game is a whole lot of cash. $5 - $10 a year? Sure, maybe after some kind of quick trial like a single league.
- asebold 6y ago
  Hey thanks for the feedback. I'm still working on pricing. I've been thinking of adding the ability to pay for one league at a time, as opposed to monthly. For $19/mo, the thought is that you'll invite other people to play in your league (anyone you invite gets to play for free), and that it's easier to get one person to pull out a credit card as opposed to coordinating 8 or 12 people to do so. So if you split the cost with your league members and you're playing with 9 other people, it comes to $2/mo for each person (if you play for 8 or 12 weeks, that's $4 or $6 per person total). Also I figure some people would want to pay for some of their players, for instance educators playing with students. Also I would consider this more than just a "simple drafting game". The application gathers and reconciles all the data to calculate daily points and manages various league, draft, and team states. It was labor intensive to make and there's a lot of features people still want implemented.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - lostmsu 6y ago
    Maybe you should make a way to split subscription more prominently? Or at least say something like "Subscribe, and invite up to X friends to play for free with you". P.S. I am not a marketing person, so have the idea massaged by one before actually adding that.
bovermyer 6y ago
I love this. But when I went to sign up, I discovered that it would cost $19 a month. If I'd known up front that it would cost, it would have been less of a shock. As it stands, that killed my buy in, at least for now.
- asebold 6y ago
  Hey thanks for the feedback. I'll make that more clear on the website.
Fauntleroy 6y ago
A deeply saddening statement on the current state of US politics.
jimkleiber 6y ago
Similar to what @zrail said, I felt a lot of things when I read this and feel even more as I explore it. A few weeks ago, I pejoratively told my friend that politics is following the fantasy sports trend, emphasizing the individual's performance over the team performance, and how I wish we cared more about the team. That being said, I initially felt really annoyed about this. The more I dig into it, the more I relax, not knowing in which direction it would go. More people may learn about the process as you've mentioned. We may also put even more focus on the individual performance and care less about the team. But maybe, just like fantasy football, people start having less loyalty to their team (in this case, basically Team Republican and Team Democrat), breaking the strong party affiliations that seem to exist today. I really don't know how it'll go. I guess the thing I'm most curious about right now: How did you decide to distribute the points in the way you did?
lostmsu 6y ago
Have you considered a different model, where people play for free, but when they want to bet real money you take a small cut instead? I think it would be hugely more popular and profitable. Not sure if that would be classified as gambling though, with all related regulations.
anxman 6y ago
How is "fantasy congress" different than what we have now? All I see are a bunch of elderly white people fighting about who is lying more. It's like watching octogenarian married couples.
sandymcmurray 6y ago
Reminds me of a small detail from John Brunner's sci-fi book "Shockwave Rider". If I remember it correctly, citizens who voted were then allowed to bet on who would win the election.

95 points by asebold 6y ago

Hey HN, I've been hacking away at this for the past couple of years. Launched in February. Hope you get a kick out of it as much as I do. Fantasy Congress is an online game where data about members of congress is converted into points. Players select members of congress for their team and acquire points based on legislative activity of the U.S. House and Senate. Like fantasy sports, teams compete in small groups called leagues. At the end of a predetermined number of weeks (called a “season”), the team with the most points in their league wins.

sam1r 6y ago
Why not make this more direct-to-consumer with a more friendly UI? Versus just a demo. From a product perspective, a lot of awesome viral feature possibilities with twitter integration + timestamps + clout on predicting their next moves/outcomes
- asebold 6y ago
  ? Not sure what you mean. This isn't a demo, you can actually sign up and play. But yeah, it's a work in progress and the UI could be improved.
munk-a 6y ago
Just a pair of UX comments: Being able to search via State as well would probably help a fair bit. The US has a reputation for being quite bad when it comes to awareness of representation - so forcing a name based search probably isn't great for supporting users - if the search was made into a live responsive search (where the table view was refreshed on each keypress) that'd probably be even better. Your arrangement of Next/Prev page really messes with my brain - it'd be good if these buttons stayed in the same horizontal position when you move from the first page to any other - it's particularly confusing in this case since there isn't any standard pagination widget bar thingy - instead there are just two naked buttons which swap places when you move from the first page to the second.
- asebold 6y ago
  Oh thank you. These are very valid points. Appreciate the feedback!

ngonzal 6y ago

This is a very cool idea, I'm curious what kind of data sources/APIs your using to calculate points?

asebold 6y ago
Hey thanks! All data comes from the US Government Publishing Office https://www.govinfo.gov/features/api https://www.govinfo.gov/features/api and https://api.data.gov/ https://api.data.gov/

tectonic 6y ago

Great idea!

asebold 6y ago
Thanks!

zrail 6y ago

Gosh. I'm having trouble expressing how I feel about this. I mean, good work I guess, but this seems to fundamentally misunderstand what the political process is supposed to accomplish. It's not about (or shouldn't be about) scoring points and winning. It should be about serving constituents and doing things to make the city/county/state/country better. I realize there's a lot of "should"s up there. In my opinion the attitudes that exist in the current political machines are much to blame for the divisions in our societies. McConnell is at the top of your leaderboard because he's driven by a naked lust for power, not because he's ever done anything right by his constituents.

milkytron 6y ago
I don't think this is meant to improve the political process, or demonstrate who is a "better" politician. Based on the website, it seems like a humorous way to play in a fantasy league while major sports are cancelled.
- zrail 6y ago
  I get that. I personally feel that playing fantasy politics is in poor taste when the political process is a) so extremely important to the proper functioning of our society and b) relatively easy to get involved with IRL.
  - JSavageOne 6y ago
    > relatively easy to get involved with IRL. How is the political process easy to get involved in? If I want to make a difference in politics, what can I do? Other than voting, seems to me that it is extraordinarily difficult to make any impact beyond the local level.
    - JoshuaDavid 6y ago
      The phrase that has stuck with me is "pull policy ropes sideways[1]." Basically the idea is to find an area of policy that is impactful but not highly politicized (ideally boring, technical, and important), and push for changes there. If you can't think of any things that government could be doing better that aren't already well-publicized and politicized, consider that you may not actually be more politically informed than the average voter, and the way we collect preferences from voters with average levels of insight into government systems is called "voting". Note that there's nothing wrong with this approach, and in fact it is the approach I use the vast majority of the time. In terms of how to push for changes in terms of concrete actions, write an actual physical letter to your congress person. [1] http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/05/policy_tugowar.html http://www.overcomingbias.com/2007/05/policy_tugowar.html

LargoLasskhyfv 6y ago

Where is the fun in it when it lacks the theme of 'Genesis - Land of Confusion' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7FKO5DlV0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yq7FKO5DlV0 , or more general https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spitting_Image ?

JSavageOne 6y ago

Interesting concept. If I had some advice - I clicked into a congress member's profile, and had no idea what to do next. I think you'll get more engagement if you have something more actionable there, like a button saying "Draft this representative!"

asebold 6y ago
Oh, that's a great idea. Thank you for the clear feedback!

vorpalhex 6y ago

I thought this was a really neat idea, so I went to sign up and found it's $19/month. I'm entirely cool with paying for neat games, but $19/month for a simple drafting game is a whole lot of cash. $5 - $10 a year? Sure, maybe after some kind of quick trial like a single league.

asebold 6y ago
Hey thanks for the feedback. I'm still working on pricing. I've been thinking of adding the ability to pay for one league at a time, as opposed to monthly. For $19/mo, the thought is that you'll invite other people to play in your league (anyone you invite gets to play for free), and that it's easier to get one person to pull out a credit card as opposed to coordinating 8 or 12 people to do so. So if you split the cost with your league members and you're playing with 9 other people, it comes to $2/mo for each person (if you play for 8 or 12 weeks, that's $4 or $6 per person total). Also I figure some people would want to pay for some of their players, for instance educators playing with students. Also I would consider this more than just a "simple drafting game". The application gathers and reconciles all the data to calculate daily points and manages various league, draft, and team states. It was labor intensive to make and there's a lot of features people still want implemented.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- lostmsu 6y ago
  Maybe you should make a way to split subscription more prominently? Or at least say something like "Subscribe, and invite up to X friends to play for free with you". P.S. I am not a marketing person, so have the idea massaged by one before actually adding that.

bovermyer 6y ago

I love this. But when I went to sign up, I discovered that it would cost $19 a month. If I'd known up front that it would cost, it would have been less of a shock. As it stands, that killed my buy in, at least for now.

asebold 6y ago
Hey thanks for the feedback. I'll make that more clear on the website.

Fauntleroy 6y ago

A deeply saddening statement on the current state of US politics.

jimkleiber 6y ago

Similar to what @zrail said, I felt a lot of things when I read this and feel even more as I explore it. A few weeks ago, I pejoratively told my friend that politics is following the fantasy sports trend, emphasizing the individual's performance over the team performance, and how I wish we cared more about the team. That being said, I initially felt really annoyed about this. The more I dig into it, the more I relax, not knowing in which direction it would go. More people may learn about the process as you've mentioned. We may also put even more focus on the individual performance and care less about the team. But maybe, just like fantasy football, people start having less loyalty to their team (in this case, basically Team Republican and Team Democrat), breaking the strong party affiliations that seem to exist today. I really don't know how it'll go. I guess the thing I'm most curious about right now: How did you decide to distribute the points in the way you did?

lostmsu 6y ago

Have you considered a different model, where people play for free, but when they want to bet real money you take a small cut instead? I think it would be hugely more popular and profitable. Not sure if that would be classified as gambling though, with all related regulations.

anxman 6y ago

How is "fantasy congress" different than what we have now? All I see are a bunch of elderly white people fighting about who is lying more. It's like watching octogenarian married couples.

sandymcmurray 6y ago

Reminds me of a small detail from John Brunner's sci-fi book "Shockwave Rider". If I remember it correctly, citizens who voted were then allowed to bet on who would win the election.