Few words about Sejmometr.pl

Sejmometr

Well, Sejmometr.pl is something I did not have to be introduced to simply because I had the privilege to talk to the team this summer during my Technology for Transparency research (entire case study available in English here). It’s an on-line platform providing Polish citizens with insights into the work of their government in a very simple, easily digestible way as opposed to the traditional sources of information. Sejmometr.pl in its original form was running for about two years before it received our support to re-launch in its new, more developed form. Today the major functions allow the users to browse through parliament’s work based on the political party involved or the status of various acts. The next steps will contain adding profiles of MP’s and building Facebook-line functions into the system, but I am sure we will hear about those soon in more details from Daniel Macyszyn, the developper of the project.

Sejmometr.pl has employed another local Technology for Transparency researcher, Jakub Górnicki, to drive promotion and marketing activities. As part of the job, Jakub presented the current vision of Sejmometr.pl at TransparencyCamp in Warsaw quite recently. It’s a great pity that the recording is available only in Polish, but if you trust my translation I can share with you few insights resulting from questions Jakub has received. It has been suggested that the website could also act as a place for political discussions, however Jakub pointed out that this would defeat the main, rather educational goal of the platform and would become difficult to mange (could be a separate project though). One suggestion worth incorporating on the current website is the option of subscribing to Sejmometr.pl content based on the interests of users, who usually remain ignorant of overal legislative work, but who would be interested in acts and laws related to their work or passions.

It is also worth mentioning that while Jakub was promoting their ideas in Warsaw, Daniel presented Sejmometr.pl to attendees of Open Goverment Data Camp in London (you will find a lot of interesting content from that event here) collecting valuable feedback. He  is currently working on their new blog in English, but in the meantime you can find their updates on the Polish blog and Facebook fan page.