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Tell congress to stop SOPA with a physical letter

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Re: Tell congress to stop SOPA with a physical letter

#31

Post by OstiaAntica »

danielsoneg wrote: post #10

I was briefly skeptical, but on reflection, I like this for three reasons: First, email just doesn't work for contacting Congress. They get entirely too much, and it's entirely too easy to get lost in the pile. It's the preferred means of communication for most of us on HN, but it's just not effective outside our industry. Phone is better, but there's nothing quite like flooding someone's office with paper to convey…

Email works better, actually. All of Congress uses web forms that categorize and route the messages directly to their CRM systems. So it is easy for them to tally and respond. Mail, on the other hand, has to get irradiated for bioterror and takes 4-6 weeks to arrive. The letters are made brittle and staff dislike handling them, and they have to be typed or scanned into the office CRM.

Re: Tell congress to stop SOPA with a physical letter

#32

Post by lwat »

OstiaAntica wrote: post #31
danielsoneg wrote: post #10

I was briefly skeptical, but on reflection, I like this for three reasons: First, email just doesn't work for contacting Congress. They get entirely too much, and it's entirely too easy to get lost in the pile. It's the preferred means of communication for most of us on HN, but it's just not effective outside our industry. Phone is better, but there's nothing quite like flooding someone's office with paper to convey…

Email works better, actually. All of Congress uses web forms that categorize and route the messages directly to their CRM systems. So it is easy for them to tally and respond. Mail, on the other hand, has to get irradiated for bioterror and takes 4-6 weeks to arrive. The letters are made brittle and staff dislike handling them, and they have to be typed or scanned into the office CRM.

Actually from your description it sounds like letters are the way to go.

Re: Tell congress to stop SOPA with a physical letter

#33

Post by 101000101 »

If you are really serious about taking a stand on this bill, then the most impact will achieved by going to the source of it, not Congress... unless you have more to offer Congress' incumbents and the nation's economy than the industry source does.

They are a very important constituent.

If a large number of consumers stopped purchasing a certain entertainment company's products for one day, would it have a noticeable impact on their revenues? How about a week? A month?

The industry claims it's losing business to pirates. While it's probably true to some extent, it is speculative and nearly impossible to measure accurately. How many of the consumers of pirated content were never consumers of paid content to begin with?

The products this industry sells are not life necessities.

In summary, a branded entertainment "hunger strike" by actual existing, paid customers. This would cause real loss. And, if it's a noticeable loss, it would send a very strong message.

Good luck.

Re: Tell congress to stop SOPA with a physical letter

#34

Post by chimeracoder »

OstiaAntica wrote: post #31
danielsoneg wrote: post #10

I was briefly skeptical, but on reflection, I like this for three reasons: First, email just doesn't work for contacting Congress. They get entirely too much, and it's entirely too easy to get lost in the pile. It's the preferred means of communication for most of us on HN, but it's just not effective outside our industry. Phone is better, but there's nothing quite like flooding someone's office with paper to convey…

Email works better, actually. All of Congress uses web forms that categorize and route the messages directly to their CRM systems. So it is easy for them to tally and respond. Mail, on the other hand, has to get irradiated for bioterror and takes 4-6 weeks to arrive. The letters are made brittle and staff dislike handling them, and they have to be typed or scanned into the office CRM.

Congress uses multipliers to figure out how predictive each piece of communication is (ie, how likely it is that a certain piece of communication will result in a change in voting behavior).

I don't remember the exact numbers, but the hierarchy goes (in descending order): in-person visit to DC office, in-person visit to local office, physical handwritten letter, physical typed letter, phone call, email. The multiplier attached to email is close to zero.

(The exact method varies by congressman/senator, but the relative rankings are the same throughout).

Re: Tell congress to stop SOPA with a physical letter

#35

Post by KleinmanB »

danielsoneg wrote: post #10

I was briefly skeptical, but on reflection, I like this for three reasons: First, email just doesn't work for contacting Congress. They get entirely too much, and it's entirely too easy to get lost in the pile. It's the preferred means of communication for most of us on HN, but it's just not effective outside our industry. Phone is better, but there's nothing quite like flooding someone's office with paper to convey…

If Google understands what's at stake hear, they need to stage a "government backed hijacking of their search engine" for a couple hours during peak business with a written statement explaining the evil of the bill.

Re: Tell congress to stop SOPA with a physical letter

#36

Post by chimeracoder »

colevscode wrote: post #6
danielsoneg wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sunlight Labs has an API that'll do it by zip code: http://services.sunlightlabs.com/docs/Sunlight_Congress_API/ They've got libraries for Ruby, Python, and even PHP, and the interface is drop-dead simple. Definitely worth a look - I'm baking them into one of my projects right now.

This could have saved us a lot of time. Thanks!

This is amazing. Some years ago, I wanted to build a site that did essentially the same thing (but for a different issue), and this API either didn't exist or wasn't complete/accurate enough. It's remarkable how much power the web has to effect political change - seems like we're only seeing the beginning of it.

...that is, unless SOPA passes, in which case this may be as good as it gets....

Re: Tell congress to stop SOPA with a physical letter

#38

Post by prawn »

Have always wondered if an online service for political mailings like this couldn't introduce some randomness to the opening, key statements and closing (Sincerely, Regards, etc) and varying the layout and style so they don't look too much like they were cranked out with the push of a button.

Re: Tell congress to stop SOPA with a physical letter

#40

Post by dylangs1030 »

This is a great idea. I'm sending in mail through this. Not everyone has the luxury of literally stopping by in person, but this is a fantastic alternative.

I love this, though I've held back on commenting on SOPA until now. One of the frequent comments on SOPA I see is that the original founders behind the internet believed it should be free and unregulated. While I agree, once you introduce capitalism to the internet, as most companies have, you cannot let it be entirely unregulated. What is happening in the internet now is the same process that occurred directly after the industrial revolution - first there were completely unregulated, grievous abuses in the industry. The entertainment industry is attempting to regulate the flow of information and "capital" in the same way the government had to go "trust buster" on the industrial sectors in the last two centuries.

However, while this is all good and well, as the side video explains, they already have protocols for doing this. They don't need any more methods of stopping piracy and the like. They should shift their attention to different ways of raising capital and earning revenue. The system they have isn't working, but erring on the side of regulation instead of erring on the side of libertarianism is still erring. There needs to be a comfortable balance, and SOPA does not make such a balance - it tips the scales in favor of the entertainment industry, and that is the last sector of the United States the internet should be supervised and moderated by.

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