Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records

#1

Post by saucow » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 9:24 PM UTC

Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records
congressbuddies.com

Re: Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records

#2

Post by daveidol » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 9:55 PM UTC

You guys finished it! Come a long way since the FB hackathon.

P.S. Love the title

Re: Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records

#3

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 10:03 PM UTC

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records

#4

Post by nealb » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 10:06 PM UTC

daveidol wrote: post #2

You guys finished it! Come a long way since the FB hackathon. P.S. Love the title

thanks! Yea it's gotten a lot better looking (and hopefully more stable) since then.

Re: Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records

#5

Post by bcoates » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 10:11 PM UTC

It's not symmetric! None of Henry Waxman's friends are friending him back, but they're mostly in a clique with each other.

Lonely little CA-33, nobody understands you...

Re: Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records

#6

Post by protomyth » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 10:41 PM UTC

bcoates wrote: post #5

It's not symmetric! None of Henry Waxman's friends are friending him back, but they're mostly in a clique with each other. Lonely little CA-33, nobody understands you...

I'm not sure I get how it couldn't be symmetric? Is there an explanation or I guess I don't get the definition of like.

Re: Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records

#7

Post by james3 » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 11:08 PM UTC

my feeble mind does not understand "See who votes like who in congress". there is no explanation of the site other than those few words.

Re: Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records

#8

Post by Retric » Fri, Oct 18, 2013, 11:19 PM UTC

protomyth wrote: post #6

bcoates wrote: post #5

It's not symmetric! None of Henry Waxman's friends are friending him back, but they're mostly in a clique with each other. Lonely little CA-33, nobody understands you...

I'm not sure I get how it couldn't be symmetric? Is there an explanation or I guess I don't get the definition of like.

It's based on how similar someone is to someone else and some people have closer matches than others. Fictitious Example where your listing top 5:

  Adam and Bob are a 80% match.
  Bob and Ted are a 90% match.
  Adam has 1 match better than 75%, but Bob has 5 matches better than 85%.

Thus Adam links to Bob as his #1, but Bob does not link to Adam in his top 5.

Re: Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records

#9

Post by ghayes » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 12:20 AM UTC

I'm additionally interested in who never vote together. Do some Congressmen just never agree? Are there aggregate patterns here that change over time [e.g. partisanship]? I believe there's a ton of interesting data in this area, and this is a good starting point.

Re: Show HN: Find members of Congress with similar voting records

#10

Post by epa » Sat, Oct 19, 2013, 12:22 AM UTC

Cool idea, it would be nice if you could provide a little bit more information about why the results are the way they are, or the percentage that they match, maybe recent bills that they agreed on. As someone from Canada I have no idea who these people are or why the relationship would be expected/unusual.