4 ms·

Where is the StackOverflow for upcoming bills? There should be a simple site (which I may have to make myself) where people can vote on bills they think are im

Where is the StackOverflow for upcoming bills? There should be a simple site (which I may have to make myself) where people can vote on bills they think are important and draw attention to them. For the uninvolved citizen, they could visit the site and see that [something like] SOAP 2.0 is voted most important to watch. They could then cast their own disproving vote for the bill, which the site would track so that come election time a notice such as "Senator John votes in accordance with your votes 20% of the time." The user could easily express their opinions, the site would remember their opinions, and would tell the user when their representatives did not represent them. Personally, I don't know what bills are important, and even if I did I wouldn't remember how my Senator voted 5 years from now when he's up for reelection.

cavilling_elite 13y ago
opencongress.org exists. but that doesn't mean that Congress looks at it.
- hga 13y ago
  Congress doesn't have to look at it, enough voters have to look at it. This is what political parties and eeeevil special interest groups that are powerful through the votes they influence do. In the case I'm most familiar with, the NRA's political lobbying arm (and eeeevil 501(c)(4)) grades politicians, and will send out alerts for the more important elections (as well as actions on bills). Many former politicians who were send back home to spend more time with their families in part due to NRA and general gun owner action can attest to the effectiveness of this. The same could happen in this area, the first vote on it was extremely encouraging.
jdp23 13y ago
That would be Popvox: https://www.popvox.com/ https://www.popvox.com/
- hga 13y ago
  Here's their entry on the Amash amendment: https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/hamdt101 https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/hamdt101 I found it through their June 25th "Top 20" list, which shows no particular bias as far as I can tell: http://www.popvox.com/blog/2013/roundup-8-1-2013/ http://www.popvox.com/blog/2013/roundup-8-1-2013/ Their curated "Issue Spotlight: Firearms and Gun Control" looks honest to me: http://www.popvox.com/blog/2013/issue-spotlight-firearms-113th/ http://www.popvox.com/blog/2013/issue-spotlight-firearms-113...
- Buttons840 13y ago
  Thanks for bringing that site to my attention. Although, I was picturing something more "dumbed down" like StackOverflow. I didn't see any important issues mentioned on the front page. It took me a few tries before I could find a link to important issues. I ended up clicking the "Get Started" button which I expected to take me to a registration page asking for my personal information. The "Get Started" link did take me to important issues though. Upon closer inspection, I do like the site.
  - jdp23 13y ago
    Yeah, it isn't so easy to get to the important issues ... seems like their expectations is that users already know what bill they want to comment on when they get there. So, okay, not Stack Overflow yet. But more positively they've done a good job looking at it from the congressional staffers' perspective as well.
AnthonyMouse 13y ago
>For the uninvolved citizen, they could visit the site and see that [something like] SOAP 2.0 is voted most important to watch. They could then cast their own disproving vote for the bill, which the site would track so that come election time a notice such as "Senator John votes in accordance with your votes 20% of the time." Can I just point something out here? This doesn't want to be a website. It wants to be a piece of software. You don't want to create a website that records everybody's preferences and creates a big database for the NSA to suck up over the wire and discover everyone who doesn't like them. So do it the other way. Have a piece of software that downloads the public information (what the bills are and how your reps voted) but keep all the data about the user's preferences on the local machine. If you want to do statistics and publish them, look into homomorphic encryption and do it P2P. You can get aggregate numbers that way without revealing any individual's preferences.

cavilling_elite 13y ago

opencongress.org exists. but that doesn't mean that Congress looks at it.

hga 13y ago
Congress doesn't have to look at it, enough voters have to look at it. This is what political parties and eeeevil special interest groups that are powerful through the votes they influence do. In the case I'm most familiar with, the NRA's political lobbying arm (and eeeevil 501(c)(4)) grades politicians, and will send out alerts for the more important elections (as well as actions on bills). Many former politicians who were send back home to spend more time with their families in part due to NRA and general gun owner action can attest to the effectiveness of this. The same could happen in this area, the first vote on it was extremely encouraging.

jdp23 13y ago

That would be Popvox: https://www.popvox.com/ https://www.popvox.com/

hga 13y ago
Here's their entry on the Amash amendment: https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/hamdt101 https://www.popvox.com/bills/us/113/hamdt101 I found it through their June 25th "Top 20" list, which shows no particular bias as far as I can tell: http://www.popvox.com/blog/2013/roundup-8-1-2013/ http://www.popvox.com/blog/2013/roundup-8-1-2013/ Their curated "Issue Spotlight: Firearms and Gun Control" looks honest to me: http://www.popvox.com/blog/2013/issue-spotlight-firearms-113th/ http://www.popvox.com/blog/2013/issue-spotlight-firearms-113...
Buttons840 13y ago
Thanks for bringing that site to my attention. Although, I was picturing something more "dumbed down" like StackOverflow. I didn't see any important issues mentioned on the front page. It took me a few tries before I could find a link to important issues. I ended up clicking the "Get Started" button which I expected to take me to a registration page asking for my personal information. The "Get Started" link did take me to important issues though. Upon closer inspection, I do like the site.
- jdp23 13y ago
  Yeah, it isn't so easy to get to the important issues ... seems like their expectations is that users already know what bill they want to comment on when they get there. So, okay, not Stack Overflow yet. But more positively they've done a good job looking at it from the congressional staffers' perspective as well.

AnthonyMouse 13y ago

>For the uninvolved citizen, they could visit the site and see that [something like] SOAP 2.0 is voted most important to watch. They could then cast their own disproving vote for the bill, which the site would track so that come election time a notice such as "Senator John votes in accordance with your votes 20% of the time." Can I just point something out here? This doesn't want to be a website. It wants to be a piece of software. You don't want to create a website that records everybody's preferences and creates a big database for the NSA to suck up over the wire and discover everyone who doesn't like them. So do it the other way. Have a piece of software that downloads the public information (what the bills are and how your reps voted) but keep all the data about the user's preferences on the local machine. If you want to do statistics and publish them, look into homomorphic encryption and do it P2P. You can get aggregate numbers that way without revealing any individual's preferences.