Hey everyone ... As you all know, RM95 and I work in the internet world. For the past several years, we have strictly been in the entertainment field, but we're trying something new this summer and fall. We're currently in the process of developing a new site called PoliticalPages.com, not surprisingly at: http://www.politicalpages.com The site is still "in the works" but the idea is to provide information on all the 2002 Congressional and State Governor elections. We decided to go "all out" and are trying to contact all ~1000 or so candidates to get their views in their own words on a number of different issues. Whether we'll be successful or go up in flames is still up in the air. Anyway, the basic site description and all is already there. For a sample of the "core content" of the site, you can go to Ohio District #10 (one of the few responses we've acquired so far). Ideally, we'll have all the candidates side-by-side by the time we're really all set up. The reason for this post is to get advice, comments, ideas, etc. Specifics where you can help: (1) Is the site easy to use / navigate? Is it easy to create an account? Is the design appealing / revolting / etc? (2) Would this type of information be of interest to you? What other info could be helpful? (3) What kinds of extra features would you find interesting? (4) A smaller thing, but I've gotten a mental block after typing in views of each party on 9 or 10 different issues. I really have no idea what to write for Health Care. Anyone know what each party believes? (short & sweet) (5) On the various Issue Pages, there's a small section called "PoliticalPages Commentary" which describes the views of each party. I tried to make both parties' views sound reasonable -- if you notice any areas of bias, please let me know. (6) How the hell can we get candidates to respond? Initially, the hope was to get some responses, then promo the site, which might help us get more responses. Our current plan is mailing out information packets that describe the site and its benefits; after 10-14 days, we'll send follow-up emails to the people that we have email contacts for. So far, the response has been less than overwhelming. I'm going to post the email addresses on the sites after about 21 days or so and encourage users to email their candidates as a possible way to encourage them. Our last resort will be calling them all as well. Any other ideas are appreciated. We've only identified about 200 of the 1000 candidates so far -- that's the big project for this month. Unfortunately, many states don't have their primaries until August or September, which makes things even more tricky. On #3, some things that we're going to do are add polls on the issue pages (things like are you Pro-Choice / Pro-Life) just to get users more involved. If we develop a large enough user base, we're going to offer candidates the ability to email voters in their district through us (with voter permission, of course). Any comments, criticism, suggestions etc are appreciated. The goal of the site is to be totally unbiased and purely an information site. Honestly, I don't know the views of my rep and certainly not his opponent, and I'm assuming most other people don't either. Revenues are to be generated through banner ads and the "text links" on the side which aren't necessarily un-biased. Thanks in advance!
Oh, I forgot to say -- much of the text on their is basically just first-draft stuff. I just write and whatever comes out, comes out. My problem is that I don't always ever re-write the first-drafts. If you have any suggestions on the text -- something sounds wacky or awkward (or totally wrong), feel free to post that as well.
Major Congratulations on a truly ambitious project. I wish y'all the best. I like the site layout. It seems easy and intuitive enough to use. I will check back often as I am truly interested to see how much input y'all get. I would not be surpirsed to see the better known candidates balk at submitting information simply because their views are out there for everyone to see (which should be a good thing). They can't claim they were 'misquoted' . I would be more than happy to provide feedback on specifics as your project continues.
I will check back often as I am truly interested to see how much input y'all get. I would not be surpirsed to see the better known candidates balk at submitting information simply because their views are out there for everyone to see (which should be a good thing). They can't claim they were 'misquoted' . Yeah -- that's what I'm thinking as well. I don't think most incumbents will respond initially, because they have nothing to gain. A lack of information tends to benefit an incumbent. I'm hoping to get the opponents to respond (they have nothing to lose) and then place the "opponent views" side by side with "incumbent refused to respond" (maybe not "refused", but you get the picture) as a way to encourage them to respond a bit.
Major - I'm trying not to be rude or condescending here, but "both parties"? There's only two parties? Well crap, guess I better withdraw my membership from the now-presumably-defunct Libertarian Party. Seriously, I understand that the two major parties control the US govt and therefore they would get the most attention. But, and again no offense is intended, I would personally never spend any time on a site that reinforces the beliefs that there are only two parties that need covering/attention. Just my $0.02...
Major - I'm trying not to be rude or condescending here, but "both parties"? There's only two parties? Well crap, guess I better withdraw my membership from the now-presumably-defunct Libertarian Party. Seriously, I understand that the two major parties control the US govt and therefore they would get the most attention. But, and again no offense is intended, I would personally never spend any time on a site that reinforces the beliefs that there are only two parties that need covering/attention. Totally understand. I actually debated this initially. Unfortunately, the reality is that those 3rd party candidates are not likely to get close to being elected -- it would be far too costly to go out and track those candidates down. The system does support the Libertarian, Green, and Reform parties, along with independents. In races where a 3rd party candidate is likely to be competitive (for example, John McCain as an independent), they'll definitely be listed. If a 3rd party candidate contacts us and wants to be listed, we'll definitely get them in into the system. We just can't go out and find them all. For the commentary section, we currently only list the general Republican/Democratic position on those issues as well, since that's what 99% of the candidates we list mention. However, something we could add in addition to the Issue Pages (which primarily will be just links to other sites) are Party Pages that describe each party and their basic philosophies in more detail. That would at least help out in covering the 3rd parties in general, even if we can't get all the individual candidates.
1) gubernatorial instead of governor? 2) Do you have any contact (working relationship) with the Democratic and Republican parties? 3) The listing of states across by abbreviation seems awkward (homepage). In the top area, the option list is there. 4) Your listing of a candidate's positions on issues has no provision for short cuts (links within a page) to the key issues that a voter is interested in. That design has both good and bad points. 5) The homepage has a traditional CMS/Portal/Newspaper layout with a heading and 2 columns across in the body. Any reason for a 2 across rather than the 3 across that I see more often? 6) In the heading area, there is an option to read about issues. <b>Example:</b><i> Gun Ownership</i> Is that going to be expanded/changed based on some future information to be gathered as candidate's responses roll in or to remain as is? 7) Would you want a short summary of the position of each national party on a certain issue next to the candidate's position so the voter can see the similarities and differences? Different color text or some other way to make it distinctive. 8) In the upper heading area, there is a change from dark blue to black on the line with the state and issues option lists. The colors run together a bit. 9) I am used to finding login/registration info and links on the left side of a page, while you placed them on the right. Just creature of habit thinking from me. Mango
Mango -- thanks for the comments! 1) gubernatorial instead of governor? This is a tricky one. Gubernatorial is the proper wording and sounds better than "Governor Elections". However, I'm not sure the average Joe would know what we're referring to if we used that. 2) Do you have any contact (working relationship) with the Democratic and Republican parties? Unfortunately, not at this time. 3) The listing of states across by abbreviation seems awkward (homepage). In the top area, the option list is there. Yeah -- this is one of the stranger looking parts of the site. We may turn that into an image-map graphic. The links are at the top, but I wanted to make sure a new visitor very clearly sees the states and make it as easy as possible to access any given state. 4) Your listing of a candidate's positions on issues has no provision for short cuts (links within a page) to the key issues that a voter is interested in. That design has both good and bad points. If you click the word "Abortion", it actually takes you to that Abortion Issues page. However, that certainly isn't clear from the site (you'd only know if you happened to scroll over the word). I do need to fix that. 5) The homepage has a traditional CMS/Portal/Newspaper layout with a heading and 2 columns across in the body. Any reason for a 2 across rather than the 3 across that I see more often? We're trying to make the site as backward-compatible as possible for lower resolution screens. With 3 columns, the text looked like it would get to be very, very long with few words on any given line. The layout does need some work, though. 6) In the heading area, there is an option to read about issues. Example: Gun Ownership Is that going to be expanded/changed based on some future information to be gathered as candidate's responses roll in or to remain as is? Good question. The Issue Pages are kind of up in the air right now. We'll definitely be adding some user polls and such to make it a little more interactive. Instead of adding more information on our own site, we may add direct links to other sites that provide more in-depth coverage on the issues. Outside of that, I don't really know what other content to add. That's an area of concern given that there's really no content on there as-is. It was originally designed as a potential revenue-generating page as it would appeal to PACs and other potential issue-based advertisers. To make that work, of course, we need to make it useful to the users as well. 7) Would you want a short summary of the position of each national party on a certain issue next to the candidate's position so the voter can see the similarities and differences? Different color text or some other way to make it distinctive. Interesting idea. I hadn't considered that, but it is something to look at. 8) In the upper heading area, there is a change from dark blue to black on the line with the state and issues option lists. The colors run together a bit. Yeah, I need to view the site on other monitors. It looks fine on mine, but I've heard that complaint several times. 9) I am used to finding login/registration info and links on the left side of a page, while you placed them on the right. Just creature of habit thinking from me. Yeah -- we did this based on the idea that the user registration is secondary to the content. We wanted the first thing people see/read to be a description of the site to get them interested, so we moved the login stuff to the other side of the homepage. To be consistent, we put that login stuff in the same place on the State and Issue pages also. Thanks for the comments -- I'm being a bit brief on the responses only because I was working on the site right now. Jeff -- RM95 forwarded your email and I appreciate the thoughts and ideas. I'll send you some of our thoughts later on today or tomorrow. Thanks, guys!
Major, Use your sig on the CC BBS to publicize the site since the homepage listed in your profile is for swirve or reverse them. Do you want more comments if I think of something? Mango
I had been thinking of trying a similar project to this a number of years back but didn't have the means or motivation to take it anywhere. I'm glad someone is doing it. So far, I think: 1) It is a big, big mistake to only cover competitive candidates and I doubt I'll visit while you stick to that policy. If it is just a workload thing and you plan to include everyone if/when the site gets popular, I can understand that. But, please don't exclude them simply because they're small 2) I would keep your own writing to a minimum. For example, in describing the Democratic party line on abortion, ask the Party to write a blurb on it. Or find an official treatment of it on their website. You don't want to be accused of misrepresenting anyone's political position. 3) Reserve the right to reject and/or edit the submissions of politicians. As is often the case in TV debates, you don't want them talking about their position on terrrorism when you asked them about the environment. In my own vision, I had wanted to strip any and all rhetoric from every politician's response. That may be a bit severe, but you would run the risk of having the page so choked with sweet nothings that it isn't informative for anyone. 4) Have a BBS. 5) You need to be able to cover what you cover thoroughly enough to be helpful. You may need to start with a more constrained geographic or political area to build the mass and name necessary to make politicians think it worth their while to participate. In short, it may be too ambitious to start where you are starting. You may want to start something local and build outward. This could be done simultaneous to the current project so as not to give up on the current project but still try to start with a base of local familiarity and support.
Great concept. Sharp layout. The only big question I have is: How will you get a large volume of people to visit the site? Advertising could get really expensive, especially closer to election time. But you may be able to advertise on sites like austincitysearch.com or something of the like.
Juan, we're definitely not excluding them because they're small...it's simply a workload thing at this point. Drew, I'll let Major tackle the advertising question, but I'm assuming that word of mouth and Swirve will be the two main things. We're also going to send out hundreds of media kits to various issue organizations to get our name out. Thanks guys.
Mango, Major, Use your sig on the CC BBS to publicize the site since the homepage listed in your profile is for swirve or reverse them. Yeah, I'll probably do that The site's still sort of in-development and needs some graphic work and stuff like that as well. My goal is to have it ready by mid-to-late June and then start promoing it more. Do you want more comments if I think of something? Absolutely, all feedback is welcome and appreciated. JV, 2) I would keep your own writing to a minimum. For example, in describing the Democratic party line on abortion, ask the Party to write a blurb on it. Or find an official treatment of it on their website. You don't want to be accused of misrepresenting anyone's political position. Absolutely. I looked around the DNC and RNC websites for short, concise policy positions, but had limited luck. Anything with our opinions will be marked with that "PP Commentary" tag in there. If I get better content on those issue pages (the only place with our comments), I'll get rid of what I wrote. 3) Reserve the right to reject and/or edit the submissions of politicians. As is often the case in TV debates, you don't want them talking about their position on terrrorism when you asked them about the environment. In my own vision, I had wanted to strip any and all rhetoric from every politician's response. That may be a bit severe, but you would run the risk of having the page so choked with sweet nothings that it isn't informative for anyone. Absolutely -- In the packets we send out, we lay out some ground rules. The biggest is that the candidates should only post their views and not even compare them to those of their opponent. That way, there's no room for distortion or mudslinging. The user can read the various candidates' views and make their own decisions. There's also a "Local Issues" section which is actually a free for all for the candidate to discuss local issues and/or anything that's important to her/him personally. 4) Have a BBS. Great idea -- I'll have to set that up. In short, it may be too ambitious to start where you are starting. Yeah, that's my concern right now. My thinking, though, is that we might as well contact everyone and see where we get. If we don't have a lot of success, we can always draw back a bit. The other way (starting small) would put us in catch-up mode if things did go well. We have a circular issue that candidates won't respond unless there are viewers; viewers won't come unless there are candidate responses. On the media side, the media won't cover it unless there are candidate responses; candidates won't get interested without some media push. Fun stuff. The only big question I have is: How will you get a large volume of people to visit the site? Advertising could get really expensive, especially closer to election time. But you may be able to advertise on sites like austincitysearch.com or something of the like. This is where we're going to rely on the reach of Swirve. We have our Swirve mailing list to start with. We're going convert massive amounts of our current paid banner ads on Swirve into free exchange-banners and start displaying PoliticalPages banners all over the internet for free. I'm hoping to do something like 100 million banners per month starting in July. That will be a start, and then if we can get the responses and all that, we might be able to get some media attention and run with it there. Once/if we establish a brand identity, we'll also try to contact other political sites and try to cross-promote the site with them. The effectiveness of all this is still up in the air.
Couple of things: 1. I think the first page looks pretty smart, thematically. The logo on the black background is great! I also like the economy of lines and the simplicity of the color scheme. I do wonder if that yellow might begin to get old, but I realise that that's probably just me. 2. In my experience, the best websites make it clear from the start where you should look by drawing the lines towards the 'beginning'. When I first saw your page I sort of looked around for where to begin. The font sizes for the banners seem out of whack relative to each other. I'd cut down the first page (at least the first vertical pagedown worth) so that the root of your content tree is evident. I think those first two pulldown menus for 'select an issue' and 'select a state' are great, but I'd make the text twice as big, as well as probably some sort of additional measures to make them stand out. 3. There are some really cool little Java apps that allow you to link to the most recent news stories that fit specific criteria. One of those might be cool if you were to filter for political things. 4. When I saw your 'issue' pages it imediately reminded me of my favorite topic oriented web portal for science, http://www.hypography.com. You might check it out for inspiration. 5. I think that the little blurbs for each state are a little too glib, and perhaps not really usefull. I thought right away how much better they'd be if they included the type of info you find in the CIA World Factbook on a state by state basis. Basically, census type information about population, income, exports, etc. BTW, I'm not trying to tear your site apart, or be disrespectful, just provide honest advice. The site is already better than anything I've ever done, and the scope of your ambition is admirable, as well as the usefulness of the information. Good luck! Oh, um, I'd also be very careful about any type of analysis at all. Given the nature of politics, any expressed opinion, no matter how small, will lead someone to think you're biased. The way that I can see this page being most successful is for people to know that they can come to you and get access to objective information that fairly presents every side of whatever it is that they want to find out about.
Major, Are you creating everything from scratch or using a bit of code from a place like <A HREF="http://www.hotscripts.com">Hotscripts</A>? Any reason why CGI was chosen over php? Is there some special reason that email registration/login is used in place of throwing the user a <i>cookie</i>? When using the option boxes (in the heading area) to navigate the site, a purple/maroon screen appears for a moment before the destination page is created on the screen. Maybe a 1/4 second on a dialup connection. In the places that you fail to get a repsonse, would the respective state parties provide (and politcalpages use) a standard biographic packet? Age, education, jobs, prior political offices held, etc? Mango
