Talk:MySociety

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Richard Taylor (talk · contribs) This user has not edited the article. This user has declared a connection.
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The great merging[edit]

I've merged 6 of MySociety's websites into this article. It's kind of ugly at the moment, but the notability of the individual sites is pretty poor, and the articles were pretty short on content. Now the article has 118 references, but many (the vast majority?) are WP:SPS, and many of the remaining are dead links. Lots of work to do here to get tone and neutrality right. Forbes72 (talk) 03:31, 3 December 2014 (UTC)[reply]

Firstly to declare an connection - I'm someone who's worked with and volunteered for mySociety. It appears the merging was done without prior discussion; that's a pity because I think there is an argument to be made for at least some of the pages deleted in the merge to exist. FixMyStreet, TheyWorkForYou and Alaveteli/WhatDoTheyKnow are notable in their own right (as the perseverance of their individual articles over time confirmed), and have a significant degree of character, as websites and pieces of software, independent of mySociety. I would have thought the prospects of improvement and expansion of the coverage of the sites/software would have been greater on stand alone pages. One could envisage the Alaveteli page for example might have gained a section on some of the sites operating on that software; more of which may be, or may become, notable in their own right. I hope anyone editing the article in the future keeps in mind the option of splitting it again and spinning out articles on individual sites/software where appropriate. Richard Taylor (talk) 19:37, 13 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

Hi, I work for mySociety and I understand the importance of the guidelines stating that we cannot edit articles about ourselves. I do not have a strong opinion on the merging. However, I did want to offer links to independent resources and information which would be of use to anyone who would like to make this page more comprehensive, up-to-date, and accurate. For example, we can provide links to primary news sources on both our UK projects and the impact that international projects have had, an updated list of international sites using Alaveteli and our other platforms, councils using the FixMyStreet software, details of the Poplus organisation (one of our main focuses and a major milestone for us) and more. If this would be agreeable/useful, please drop a line to hello@mysociety.org. Myfanwy Nixon (talk) 09:42, 14 January 2015 (UTC)[reply]

I will undo the merging the next few days if nobody has reasonable arguments why one shouldn't and instead have this impractical uber-long mess of merged articles. Also from what I can see now all the merged articles seem to have sufficient notability. --Fixuture (talk) 07:59, 26 July 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Done --Fixuture (talk) 01:08, 7 August 2016 (UTC)[reply]

Removal of 'issues' tag[edit]

These issues related to the 2011 iteration and the page has been revised. Hopefully if there are still issues, these can be alluded to in a new tag (or better yet, the article can be edited to avoid them!)SaffyMiso (talk) 09:39, 16 October 2015 (UTC)[reply]

External links modified[edit]

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Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20141201002643/http://www.pledgebank.com/ to http://www.pledgebank.com/
Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070411085710/http://www.hearfromyourmp.com/ to http://www.hearfromyourmp.com/
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External links modified (February 2018)[edit]

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Dated content[edit]

Just to note that this page has dated, as mySociety has moved on from its "mission[...] to simplify and internationalise its code to make it easier for people all over the world to run citizen-empowering websites".

However, as a member of mySociety's staff I have to declare an interest and so am unable to make substantial edits to the page.

I appreciate that our internal point of view might not accord with how an external person would compose the page, but in case they are useful, here are some pointers:

The Poplus project was dissolved. The website poplus.org is now a spam site.
mySociety's current mission is to 'help people be active citizens'. Their international work continues in the form of open source codebases (Alaveteli and FixMyStreet) that enable others to set up and run their own websites, but there is equal focus on projects that support their three practices of Democracy, Transparency and Community in the UK.
mySociety has also built up its research practice. Papers examining the impact of mySociety's own services, those of the global civic tech field, and wider issues pertaining to democracy and transparency in governments can be found at https://research.mysociety.org/.
An annual conference, the Impacts of Civic Technology (TICTeC) has been running since 2015, attracting speakers from around the world including Martha Lane Fox, Hollie Russon Gilman, Nanjala Nyabola, Alessandra Orofino, etc.
New projects since this page was last updated include KeepItInTheCommunity, a website for mapping assets of community value;
mySociety made the website for the UK's 2020 Climate Assembly
The share of the organisation's income that arises from commercial projects has risen with increased focus on developing the FixMyStreet Pro service which can connect with authorities' backend systems such as Symology, Confirm or Exor. TfL use FixMyStreet for their Streetcare service as does Transport Focus' Sort My Sign (citation).
Another commercial service is the WhatDoTheyKnow Pro subscription model software, which enables 'professional users of FOI' to submit bulk FOI requests and embargo them until a story has gone to press, thus avoiding it being scooped. The development of this service has been paired with an increasing movement into working with journalists, especially investigative, citizens' and community newsrooms, both in the UK and internationally. SaffyMiso (talk) 10:07, 10 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Declarations of interest[edit]

I declared an interest on 14 January 2012‎. As of 15 July 2019, I no longer have an interest in mySociety and related articles, having retired from the trustee and company boards on that date. — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please {{ping}} me in replies) 08:04, 22 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

I declare an interest: I am working for mySociety. However, having watched this page for some years, I have come to the conclusion that it is unlikely that accuracy can be fully maintained without insider knowledge, especially as the organisation changes over time. Having weighed this up and doing my best to remain entirely factual/impartial, I have made some updates. SaffyMiso (talk)