FaxYourRepresentative

Tweaks Currently Up For Discussion

Nisha: "Directions for using site are hard to find, are located under “help” at the bottom of the page. Create a well-labeled link on the main page to “How the site works” in order to provide the user with easily accessed information about the site.

Create a well-labeled link on the main page to “How the site works” in order to provide the user with easily accessed information about the site."

Write to all of your councillors and all of your MEPs as main option for contacting them.

Saul: Allow user to (optionally) enter strutured data relating to upcoming debates, early day motions and other parliamentary mechanisms, or keyword search their faxes for edm numbers, references to bills etc. Then offer to email them when their representative speaks on that subject (I don't really care what my MP has to say about fox hunting), or offer to email them with a link to publicwhip's transcript when the debate/edm they're referring to comes up. Maybe this is too difficult, but it takes some of the onus off MPs to answer a million emails if they know that their actions in the house speak louder to more people - a bit like hearfromyourmp, but without creating a new forum, just interlinking existing systems.

This Project is now called WriteToThem.com

You can see the finished website at http://www.writetothem.com

Summary

An update of FaxYourMP.com to allow easy faxing and emailing of more representatives.

Project Status

Live Beta Test

Mailing List Signup

http://www.mysociety.org/mailman/listinfo/mysociety-fyr

Update: WiKi changes for the FaxYourRepresentative pages should automatically be mailed to the FYR list. Or at least it should do.

Project Wiki structure

Most of the action for the moment will happen in these pages:

• /OurWonderfulPeople

• /FunctionalityQuestions

• /TechnicalQuestions

• /NameOfTheSite

• /BetaSpecification

• /FinalSpecification

• /ExistingFaxYourMPService

• /SoftwareVersionsAndPatches

• /LocalisationMatters

• /InstallationInstructions

• /AntiAbuseRules

• /PostLaunchExpansionsAndUpgrades

The User's View

Users enter a postcode, and are told who their representatives are. They select the one they wish to speak to, and enter a message, along with their own email address. They hit submit, and the email/fax is sent.

Definite Features

• All the user has to do is enter a postcode, an email address, and a message.

• Ready to be rolled out in other countries where volunteers can supply the hosting and the Fax/Email information.

• Abuse prevention

Core Developer(s)

ChrisLightfoot of Downing Street Says fame

How to get involved

Just sign up to the mailing list and say hello, or check this WiKi

Timescales

Working demonstration by late October, site public beta by late November (note - aspirations, not promises )

Additional Comments

Cameron Gray I have a feeling that most development effort for this will be on finding a way to ensure a level of decency and preventing representatives from being bombarded with non-useful items. Also the DPA implications? Or are we going to assume that this is just a conduit for information flow and hold users responsible for their own remarks?

Rhys Jones [rhys at sucs dot org] Not sure if this is a philosophical issue or a UI one, but devolution has made things more difficult for those in Wales/Scotland/NI to know who to contact about what. I'm in Swansea; if I used faxyourmp.com to contact my Westminster MP about education, or health, I would probably get a letter from the Commons saying my fax had been sent to Cardiff, and then a reply from the Welsh Assembly. Given the system of ministers in the Assembly, that reply may or may not come from my local Assembly Member. There are a few possible workarounds to this. Maybe present the user with a list of possible categories of 'issue' and say "if you're writing about this, we suggest you contact Representative X, because..."?

Imran Ghory: It might be worthwhile to allow users to enter a summary of their letter which can be made available to everyone. One advantage of doing this would be the ability to see if a representitive is more responsive on a particular issue. Another advantage would be being able to mine the data in a similar way to DayPop to see what issues are causing people to write to their representitives.

Owen Blacker [owen at faxyourmp dot com]: With FaxYourMP.com, we strive to keep the opinion that we're merely a (responsible) conduit. Having to do something about the responsible bit (chase up abuse, implement blocks) is, thankfully pretty rare. We're DPA registered for everything (as we have to store the fax whilst it sits in our queues, as well as holding a database of MPs' fax numbers), but the implications beyond Notification are pretty limited, given we don't store anyone's data for very long.

The old version of this page (before it was selected as a launch project) is available at OldFaxYourRepresentative