4 ms·

Ask HN: Rate my startup: openpoll.us

9 points by maresca 15y ago

openpoll is a pure electronic democracy. It will help keep a watchful eye on politicians and be an excellent source of public opinion on the laws that govern America. I have been working on this project for the better part of the past 3 years, and would appreciate it if you guys would take a look. ALL feedback is encouraged and appreciated. Thanks. https://openpoll.us

maresca 15y ago
Clickable: https://openpoll.us https://openpoll.us
jcol 15y ago
You should probably seed some interesting political discussions to get the comments going. I'm surprised it took you 3 years to build this-- it could have been done in a weekend and with a much better UI.
- maresca 15y ago
  Where do you suppose one gets all of the legislative data to a site like this? Saying this can be done in a weekend is a huge underestimation.
  - jcol 15y ago
    They are all on the web (such as http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bills/bills0001.asp http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bills/bills0001.asp) - I would just create a bot to scrape the content automatically. I hope you didn't do it manually... EDIT: Also, the amount you have may not be necessary. It just makes your site look dead when you have 350 pages of legislative bills with no comment activity or voting activity. You would have been better off starting with just a few and building it up from there. Personally, I would have done medical marijuana bills because everyone has something to say about that.
    - maresca 15y ago
      That's exactly what I did. I created bots for every single state. I wanted to scrape as much data as possible so I went for all the data available that every state had. Writing each bot took only a day or two, but running them took much longer. I also did all of this in my spare time on top of a full time job. If I worked on it full time, I probably could have done it in 6 months.
      - jcol 15y ago
        Every successful website starts with a focus area and it grows outward. You simply can't target every legislative policy in every state without overwhelming your visitors or pointing out the fact that your website isn't active. A site like yours, if done properly, could go viral in certain online communities, but not in its current state. If I was in your shoes, I would pony up a few thousand dollars and get it done right by someone who has some experience building websites that receive traction.
        jhowell 15y ago
        What would you have this "someone" do? Are there people you can go to and say, here's a couple of grand, build me a site with traction?
        jcol 15y ago
        Building a website that has the potential to gain traction requires understanding how and why your users are going to use your site. Sure he can A/B test it himself, but at this rate, he's going to spend another 3 years figuring it out and by then he will have burned out and lost motivation. People that want to visit a website that lets you vote on legislative policies and then talk about it, would likely be of above average intelligence. The fact that he has a comment system and nothing but a few "I agree" type posts and submitted it to HN for feedback is a clear sign that he doesn't understand the mechanics of building a website that people want to visit. I'm not sure why everyone these days thinks they can just throw up a website and people will magically appear and start using it-- it's not that easy!
kongqiu 15y ago
Really cool idea to open this data up to the masses. A few ideas: Maybe you could do some sort of "introduction" video or tutorial so that a new visitor can tell what the site is about, use cases, where to find help, etc. Could you maybe create a master list of "issue" keywords and then scrape the legislative text for these keywords, and then use this to tag each bill? Tags would help with discovery. *Similarly, scraping the data for Legislator names would also be interesting.
- maresca 15y ago
  I am working on creating a good landing page right now.
bigsassy 15y ago
I'm all for open government data. You may want to take a look at Sunlight Foundation's various projects: http://sunlightlabs.com/projects/ http://sunlightlabs.com/projects/ And have you seen Open Congress yet? http://opencongress.org/ http://opencongress.org/
- maresca 15y ago
  Both really good sites. Sunlight labs has a great API for state data. They don't have every state nailed down yet, but still a very good amount of data. All of their stuff is in python, but I'm a .NET guy, so I did everything in C#. opencongress is a good site. Sites like those need more exposure to the general public. Other honorable mentions: http://www.govit.com/ http://www.govit.com/ http://www.mygov365.com/ http://www.mygov365.com/
dreamdu5t 15y ago
You need far better UI and design. You need it.

9 points by maresca 15y ago

maresca 15y ago

Clickable: https://openpoll.us https://openpoll.us

jcol 15y ago

You should probably seed some interesting political discussions to get the comments going. I'm surprised it took you 3 years to build this-- it could have been done in a weekend and with a much better UI.

maresca 15y ago
Where do you suppose one gets all of the legislative data to a site like this? Saying this can be done in a weekend is a huge underestimation.
- jcol 15y ago
  They are all on the web (such as http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bills/bills0001.asp http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bills/bills0001.asp) - I would just create a bot to scrape the content automatically. I hope you didn't do it manually... EDIT: Also, the amount you have may not be necessary. It just makes your site look dead when you have 350 pages of legislative bills with no comment activity or voting activity. You would have been better off starting with just a few and building it up from there. Personally, I would have done medical marijuana bills because everyone has something to say about that.
  - maresca 15y ago
    That's exactly what I did. I created bots for every single state. I wanted to scrape as much data as possible so I went for all the data available that every state had. Writing each bot took only a day or two, but running them took much longer. I also did all of this in my spare time on top of a full time job. If I worked on it full time, I probably could have done it in 6 months.
    - jcol 15y ago
      Every successful website starts with a focus area and it grows outward. You simply can't target every legislative policy in every state without overwhelming your visitors or pointing out the fact that your website isn't active. A site like yours, if done properly, could go viral in certain online communities, but not in its current state. If I was in your shoes, I would pony up a few thousand dollars and get it done right by someone who has some experience building websites that receive traction.
      - jhowell 15y ago
        What would you have this "someone" do? Are there people you can go to and say, here's a couple of grand, build me a site with traction?
        jcol 15y ago
        Building a website that has the potential to gain traction requires understanding how and why your users are going to use your site. Sure he can A/B test it himself, but at this rate, he's going to spend another 3 years figuring it out and by then he will have burned out and lost motivation. People that want to visit a website that lets you vote on legislative policies and then talk about it, would likely be of above average intelligence. The fact that he has a comment system and nothing but a few "I agree" type posts and submitted it to HN for feedback is a clear sign that he doesn't understand the mechanics of building a website that people want to visit. I'm not sure why everyone these days thinks they can just throw up a website and people will magically appear and start using it-- it's not that easy!

kongqiu 15y ago

Really cool idea to open this data up to the masses. A few ideas: Maybe you could do some sort of "introduction" video or tutorial so that a new visitor can tell what the site is about, use cases, where to find help, etc. Could you maybe create a master list of "issue" keywords and then scrape the legislative text for these keywords, and then use this to tag each bill? Tags would help with discovery. *Similarly, scraping the data for Legislator names would also be interesting.

maresca 15y ago
I am working on creating a good landing page right now.

bigsassy 15y ago

I'm all for open government data. You may want to take a look at Sunlight Foundation's various projects: http://sunlightlabs.com/projects/ http://sunlightlabs.com/projects/ And have you seen Open Congress yet? http://opencongress.org/ http://opencongress.org/

maresca 15y ago
Both really good sites. Sunlight labs has a great API for state data. They don't have every state nailed down yet, but still a very good amount of data. All of their stuff is in python, but I'm a .NET guy, so I did everything in C#. opencongress is a good site. Sites like those need more exposure to the general public. Other honorable mentions: http://www.govit.com/ http://www.govit.com/ http://www.mygov365.com/ http://www.mygov365.com/

dreamdu5t 15y ago

You need far better UI and design. You need it.