4 ms·

Hey there, I worked on this. BSD, BlackBaud, and Salsa all deliver messages to congress, but only for advocacy organizations who are willing to pay. Beyond Ope

by sinak 11y ago

Hey there, I worked on this. BSD, BlackBaud, and Salsa all deliver messages to congress, but only for advocacy organizations who are willing to pay. Beyond OpenCongress, I don't think there are any tools that make it easier for constituents to write their own non-cookie-cutter messages to Congress. Change.org, for example, doesn't deliver emails. The reason why Congress receives millions of messages is because advocacy organizations send millions of form letters. Congressional staff already have plenty of tools for separating those form letters from real, constituent-written letters. I can dig up their names, but they're built by high-level contractors. Finally, one of our plans for Democracy.io is to measure response rates from representatives, and to use that to release a public report on how well MoC respond to real constituent messages. Both in terms of timeliness, and the relevance of their response.

Balgair 11y ago
I mean, how can that be? How stupid easy is it to have a web app that sends out an email? Like every 2 person start-up out there has something like this for messaging them. Honest question here, are you really the first, in the year 2015, to do this for congress in one 'clearinghouse' type site? As I have your ear, some more questions then: How about a direct calling option? I've used your calling to eff then connect to a congresscritter function before and it works great. I also remember hearing that a phone call is much more important than some email. What about accountability? My emails mean nothing if I still vote for them or have no other options. I signed up for GovTracker.us to send me email on my rep's voting, but I honestly cannot make heads or tails of the 300 odd bills they all voted for the last week. Some sort of editorial function is really needed if accountability is to be implemented.
- sinak 11y ago
  You have no idea how complicated sending message to Members of Congress is. There's no way to email legislators directly. The only way is to fill out their forms. Each form is unique, and many have CAPTCHAs. To do that, we first had to develop an open source dataset that describes to a computer the steps necessary to submit messages via each contact form for 538 representatives. That was quite a lift, but was made possible by about 100 volunteers who chipped in. The dataset is called contact-congress, and is online here: https://github.com/unitedstates/contact-congress https://github.com/unitedstates/contact-congress Then we had to create a system to fill in the forms based on the dataset. The system we designed is called phantom-of-the-capitol and it does that by firing up 3 browser windows on an AWS instance each time a user submits a message. If the legislator has a CAPTCHA, we take a screenshot and return that to the user. The code for that system is here: https://github.com/EFForg/phantom-of-the-capitol https://github.com/EFForg/phantom-of-the-capitol
  - comrh 11y ago
    Wow that contact-congress data set alone is awesome. Thanks for doing that leg work!
  - kajecounterhack 11y ago
    Wow thanks for explaining, that's a lot of good work.
  - arenaninja 11y ago
    Ahh yes, unitedstates/contact-congress. I remember when I tried to contribute, several reps had multiple topics listed in a <select>, but the <option>'s value was the same for multiple topics and the tests kept failing.... good times
  - Balgair 11y ago
    WOW! That is terribly bad then! You are very correct, I thought it was just some email account they had in their name, not something like that. Great work arounds for the captchas too, nice idea. Honestly, I never even new they had forms that you had to fill, I typically call them on the phone and don't bother with email. Still though, any thoughts on using the eff phone integration here to also prompt users to call the congresscritter? Awesome work. Sometimes it is nice to see how much hard work goes into some simple idea.
cjoh 11y ago
> Congressional staff already have plenty of tools for separating those form letters from real, constituent-written letters. I can dig up their names, but they're built by high-level contractors. Intranet Quorum. Last updated in about 1996. It's probably what 95% of staff uses, and it's woefully inadequate. Clearly you talked to zero congressional staffers in the creation of this software. Which is a shame. Because if you had, your software would be effective. Heck, even if you'd read one of the dozens of reports from the Congressional Management Foundation _FROM 10 YEARS AGO_ http://www.congressfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67&Itemid= http://www.congressfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_conte... you could spot the problem here. Whether advocacy organizations "send" the emails or whether they're sent by an individual has no bearing on either the legitimacy of the message, or whether or not they will remain unread. I'd encourage you to hop on a plane, and go visit some congressional staffers and ask them how they'd like to receive your messages. Then build a tool starting from there. Like it or not, they're the customer.
- sinak 11y ago
  Clay, I have read those Congress Foundation reports. And we regularly visit congressional staffers in DC. I'll also try not to resort to all caps in responding :). Obviously your product, ScreenDoor, addresses some of the concerns you're raising around better data collection. Glad to hear you're so enthusiastic about that approach. The EFF isn't planning on selling software to members of Congress. However, we are considering offering users the ability to make their comments public, which'd create a large public dataset about messages sent to Congress. If we decide to go ahead with that, the open dataset would then be available for anyone to run analytics on and create reports for members of Congress. Improving the ways people contact Congress is one piece of the puzzle. The other part is making sure that people get better responses, and we hope to work on that too.
  - cjoh 11y ago
    > Obviously your product, ScreenDoor, addresses some of the concerns you're raising around better data collection. Glad to hear you're so enthusiastic about that approach. Not sure what that's about other than it being a strange comment to make. > The EFF isn't planning on selling software to members of Congress. Who said anything about it being commercial? I think that if you talk to a member of Congress, or an LA or SA inside of the hill, they'll all tell you the same thing: we take electronic messages and basically throw them away. That's nearly universal feedback. And before we start thinking it's out of cynicism or dislike of the constituent, it isn't out of malice. It's because if they started reading every message they receive right now, they'd be stuck in July of 2015 for the next 10-15 years with the resources they have. So my point is: why bother with increasing their volume. It's a bit like shipping gasoline to a forest fire. The reason this is a problem is because it drives up apathy and cynicism. People will send more messages, get worse responses, and continue to be validated with the idea that Congress doesn't care about what they have to say.

by sinak 11y ago

Balgair 11y ago

I mean, how can that be? How stupid easy is it to have a web app that sends out an email? Like every 2 person start-up out there has something like this for messaging them. Honest question here, are you really the first, in the year 2015, to do this for congress in one 'clearinghouse' type site? As I have your ear, some more questions then: How about a direct calling option? I've used your calling to eff then connect to a congresscritter function before and it works great. I also remember hearing that a phone call is much more important than some email. What about accountability? My emails mean nothing if I still vote for them or have no other options. I signed up for GovTracker.us to send me email on my rep's voting, but I honestly cannot make heads or tails of the 300 odd bills they all voted for the last week. Some sort of editorial function is really needed if accountability is to be implemented.

sinak 11y ago
You have no idea how complicated sending message to Members of Congress is. There's no way to email legislators directly. The only way is to fill out their forms. Each form is unique, and many have CAPTCHAs. To do that, we first had to develop an open source dataset that describes to a computer the steps necessary to submit messages via each contact form for 538 representatives. That was quite a lift, but was made possible by about 100 volunteers who chipped in. The dataset is called contact-congress, and is online here: https://github.com/unitedstates/contact-congress https://github.com/unitedstates/contact-congress Then we had to create a system to fill in the forms based on the dataset. The system we designed is called phantom-of-the-capitol and it does that by firing up 3 browser windows on an AWS instance each time a user submits a message. If the legislator has a CAPTCHA, we take a screenshot and return that to the user. The code for that system is here: https://github.com/EFForg/phantom-of-the-capitol https://github.com/EFForg/phantom-of-the-capitol
- comrh 11y ago
  Wow that contact-congress data set alone is awesome. Thanks for doing that leg work!
- kajecounterhack 11y ago
  Wow thanks for explaining, that's a lot of good work.
- arenaninja 11y ago
  Ahh yes, unitedstates/contact-congress. I remember when I tried to contribute, several reps had multiple topics listed in a <select>, but the <option>'s value was the same for multiple topics and the tests kept failing.... good times
- Balgair 11y ago
  WOW! That is terribly bad then! You are very correct, I thought it was just some email account they had in their name, not something like that. Great work arounds for the captchas too, nice idea. Honestly, I never even new they had forms that you had to fill, I typically call them on the phone and don't bother with email. Still though, any thoughts on using the eff phone integration here to also prompt users to call the congresscritter? Awesome work. Sometimes it is nice to see how much hard work goes into some simple idea.

cjoh 11y ago

> Congressional staff already have plenty of tools for separating those form letters from real, constituent-written letters. I can dig up their names, but they're built by high-level contractors. Intranet Quorum. Last updated in about 1996. It's probably what 95% of staff uses, and it's woefully inadequate. Clearly you talked to zero congressional staffers in the creation of this software. Which is a shame. Because if you had, your software would be effective. Heck, even if you'd read one of the dozens of reports from the Congressional Management Foundation _FROM 10 YEARS AGO_ http://www.congressfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=67&Itemid= http://www.congressfoundation.org/index.php?option=com_conte... you could spot the problem here. Whether advocacy organizations "send" the emails or whether they're sent by an individual has no bearing on either the legitimacy of the message, or whether or not they will remain unread. I'd encourage you to hop on a plane, and go visit some congressional staffers and ask them how they'd like to receive your messages. Then build a tool starting from there. Like it or not, they're the customer.

sinak 11y ago
Clay, I have read those Congress Foundation reports. And we regularly visit congressional staffers in DC. I'll also try not to resort to all caps in responding :). Obviously your product, ScreenDoor, addresses some of the concerns you're raising around better data collection. Glad to hear you're so enthusiastic about that approach. The EFF isn't planning on selling software to members of Congress. However, we are considering offering users the ability to make their comments public, which'd create a large public dataset about messages sent to Congress. If we decide to go ahead with that, the open dataset would then be available for anyone to run analytics on and create reports for members of Congress. Improving the ways people contact Congress is one piece of the puzzle. The other part is making sure that people get better responses, and we hope to work on that too.
- cjoh 11y ago
  > Obviously your product, ScreenDoor, addresses some of the concerns you're raising around better data collection. Glad to hear you're so enthusiastic about that approach. Not sure what that's about other than it being a strange comment to make. > The EFF isn't planning on selling software to members of Congress. Who said anything about it being commercial? I think that if you talk to a member of Congress, or an LA or SA inside of the hill, they'll all tell you the same thing: we take electronic messages and basically throw them away. That's nearly universal feedback. And before we start thinking it's out of cynicism or dislike of the constituent, it isn't out of malice. It's because if they started reading every message they receive right now, they'd be stuck in July of 2015 for the next 10-15 years with the resources they have. So my point is: why bother with increasing their volume. It's a bit like shipping gasoline to a forest fire. The reason this is a problem is because it drives up apathy and cynicism. People will send more messages, get worse responses, and continue to be validated with the idea that Congress doesn't care about what they have to say.