[deleted]
Why the down votes?
Dear Web Developers: EFF Needs Your Help
21–30 of 59 posts
Re: Dear Web Developers: EFF Needs Your Help
#22"How technical do I need to be?" - not very. Sorry, what?
Not very. Watch the two videos and you should be able to complete the tasks without a problem. Only snag that you may run into the common error where the first form HTTP and the second form is HTTPS, but the workaround is listed in the instructions (complete each form individually, merge results manually).
Re: Dear Web Developers: EFF Needs Your Help
#23I'm really impressed with the project. It's a great idea - both the concept and the execution are brilliant.
The bookmarklet for generating the yaml file could be used for all sorts of things - I've never seen this idea before. Even better, it's being used to crowdsource the data for the tool.
I'm really impressed with this. Kudos to all involved.
Re: Dear Web Developers: EFF Needs Your Help
#24I was pretty surprised to see the EFF's naive take on the Tea Party [1] in "recent deeplinks" underneath the linked article, which seems not to recognize it as pretty much an astroturf instrument of the neo-bircher Kochs [2], [3].
Of course co-opting TP sympathizers around a common goal of opposing overweening government surveillance to unknown purpose is a Good Thing, but unless the EFF, an org I've respected for ages, is unaware of the spurious "grassroots" provenance of the Tea Party, which seems very unlikely, I'd expect a less nakedly revisionist approach from them.
[1] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/04/tea-party-taxes-and-wh...
[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/29/opinion/29rich.html?_r=0
Re: Dear Web Developers: EFF Needs Your Help
#25In the UK we have a decent website for contacting one's MP:
https://www.writetothem.com/about-us
And it works!
For petitions to Number 10 we also have:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/
...and it works, as in you can sign something that will be totally ignored (eyes roll)!
So in every country we are duplicating effort. Hence I think the EFF need to think beyond the shores of that renegade British colony known as the USA. Maybe it is time for some open source system that can be rolled out to everywhere from The Hill to Burkina Faso.
Let's also be honest about those people in congress - do the current batch of revolving door military/corporate oldies that sit there really deserve to be taken seriously? Does anyone believe they understand concepts such as reasoned argument, being fair, the common good, progress, listening instead of speaking, telling the truth instead of lying? Even if they do appear genuinely for the good it can be just an act, as per that person you Americans have for 'President'.
So, to invite participation from the rest of the world and get some enthusiastic input from those that think that the current batch of congressmen are deserved of being Guantanamo-ed, the EFF should think bigger. They should link up with groups that have made progress internationally and work towards a tool for democracy that can work everywhere.
Re: Dear Web Developers: EFF Needs Your Help
#26In the UK we have a decent website for contacting one's MP: https://www.writetothem.com/about-us And it works! For petitions to Number 10 we also have: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/ ...and it works, as in you can sign something that will be totally ignored (eyes roll)! So in every country we are duplicating effort. Hence I think the EFF need to think beyond the shores of that renegade British colony known as the U…
Write To Them is open source and is already being used in multiple countries:
Re: Dear Web Developers: EFF Needs Your Help
#27I know this is all in good spirit and you just want to show some appreciation for the help. But rewarding programmers by number of commits is a bit perverse. Nowadays everyone generally agrees that paying programmers per line of code is a bad idea. I think rewarding based on number of commits creates very similar unwanted incentives and should probably be avoided completely.
Re: Dear Web Developers: EFF Needs Your Help
#28I was pretty surprised to see the EFF's naive take on the Tea Party [1] in "recent deeplinks" underneath the linked article, which seems not to recognize it as pretty much an astroturf instrument of the neo-bircher Kochs [2], [3]. Of course co-opting TP sympathizers around a common goal of opposing overweening government surveillance to unknown purpose is a Good Thing, but unless the EFF, an org I've respected for ag…
How is this even vaguely relevant to this submission?
Argue with their attempts to appeal across the bases somewhere else. Write a blog post. Raise awareness if you're so incensed.
Don't attempt to hijack this thread.
Re: Dear Web Developers: EFF Needs Your Help
#29I know this is all in good spirit and you just want to show some appreciation for the help. But rewarding programmers by number of commits is a bit perverse. Nowadays everyone generally agrees that paying programmers per line of code is a bad idea. I think rewarding based on number of commits creates very similar unwanted incentives and should probably be avoided completely.
Agreed. I was trying to package some Python files yesterday, so I could easily install them via git / pip. That took a lot of commits before it actually worked.
Re: Dear Web Developers: EFF Needs Your Help
#30The US House of Reps is almost done with development for an API (that was spearheaded by outside organizations like CMF) for 'campaign' communications (communications where the majority of the messages are 'similar') from third party advocacy organizations. After this occurs, the hope is that only messages sent via web forms are completely unique messages sent from constituents without the assistance of a third party. The project has been slow (10 years in the making?) but its near completion. Achieving 100% adoption amongst the 440 member offices is a different question though, although 100% adoption has been mandated.