User:Brooke.baker873/sandbox

Response to Peer Reviews

- Great amount of content and information, also a sufficient amount of credible sources were used. Few sentence structure and grammatical errors but they were minor. - For the most part throughout the article there is an encyclopedic tone but there are places that can be slightly misleading. "Resistbot is a "safe" way...", using the word safe in the context is swaying the user to agree that that the software is effective/they should use it. - I also recommend adding large titles for each section of the article by putting equal signs before and after the header, which creates large and bold sections which allows for a more organized article. Oliviadey (talk) 23:54, 22 October 2019 (UTC)

Thank you!-I will make sure to work on my grammar and check over my sentence structures

-I will ensure to check that my tone is always neutral and not trying to sway the reader

-Additionally I will put larger titles with the sections to make it easier to read

Your article is very informative and builds a solid foundation about the app and its history. I think that when you explain the app's functionality you could dive a little deeper into how it works; for example, the part that you said users can use resistbot through facebook messenger didn't really make sense to me but if you explained it further I think that could be a good piece to the article. I changed a word that didn't make sense in context but aside from that grammar and word choice seemed fine. I also really liked the way that you broke the article up, worked very fluidly. Peterorfanos (talk) 00:20, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for the input!

-I will do my best to add some more information about the way that resist bot works. As long as the information is available somewhere I will do my best to find it

-Additionally I will clean up the spelling and grammatical errors

Draft of Article

(Everything in italics was already in the article.)

Resistbot is a service that people in the United States can use to compose and send letters to elected officials from the messaging apps on their mobile phones, with the goal being that the task can be completed in "under two minutes". It identifies a user's state and federal elected officials, then provides an electronic service to deliver to those officials, as well as to local newspapers, and to publish online. As the platform has developed, Resistbot has added functionality such as confirming voter registrations, locating town halls, finding volunteer opportunities, and locating polling places. Resistbot has been funded by small-dollar donations, over 24,000 as of September 12, 2017, and was built and maintained by a core group of 6 along with dozens of volunteers.

History

Resistbot was created by Eric Ries and Jason Putorti in January 2017. Jason Putorti attended the University of Pittsburg where he graduated with a BS in computer science. Prior to launching Resistbot, he served as the designer at AngelList and previously co-founded Causes and Votizen. He expresses that one of his goals in creating Resistbot was to create a universal way to increase civic engagement and civic education. Additionally the program was founded to oppose the actions of the Trump administration, it functions as an un-biased channel, allowing users to compose their own messages. Unlike many other advocacy efforts, it provides no scripts to users. Donations from users pay for postage for letters and voter registration forms, faxes and calls to officials, and texts between the users and the service. When Resistbot began, letters were faxed to officials' offices. However, as the program received more heavy usage, and officials started to unplug their fax machines, it switched to electronic delivery as a primary channel, with faxes, postal letters, and hand deliveries as secondary methods. The first states that had access to Resistbot's feature of texting one's state legislature were Arizona, California, Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah, and Washington. Between June 21 and 22, 2018 alone, Resistbot volunteers delivered 12,781 letters to the U.S. Senate, largely about family separation. Those letters represented only a small sample of deliveries overall. Within the first 4 months of usage, 730,000 people had used Resistbot.

During the congressional recess in August of 2017, Resistbot helped to facilitate what they called flash-mobs. When members of congress were refusing to attend town hall meetings, Resistbot encouraged users to organize or protest in order to help gain support for their causes.

How resistbot works

Resistbot is a secure method to get in touch with your elected officials and will not use your email to send to any retailers, nor is there danger for having your information taken by hackers. Users text the word "resist" to 50409, and follow a series of prompts. If a user wants to write to one of their officials, Resistbot will ask for their address to find out who represents them, ask for the user to type out the letter they want to send, and delivers the message via electronic delivery, fax, or postal mail, depending on what method is available. Resistbot asks for a name and a zipcode to confirm to the representatives that these are real users. Users may also use Facebook Messenger, Twitter, or Telegram to use the service. Resistbot is free to use, and does not require an app download.

Usage and reception

The more times a user engages with Resistbot, they unlock more features. For example, the second time they use it they can unlock a representative. On a third and fourth users can begin unlocking town hall locations. The idea behind this was to both promote usage, and ensure users were not overwhelmed with their first few uses if there were to be too many options. The more advanced users become, the more specific they can choose to be in terms of which representatives their messages get sent to.

In April 2017 Resistbot added a feature called Letters to the Editor. This feature allows users to choose to send their message both to their elected official, and directly to a local newspaper or media source in their area. This allows the message they wrote to get seen by their communities and can help them gain support for their cause, potentially leading to more people texting Resistbot about this cause.

Resistbot has been featured on many news and magazine sites including Recode, Teen Vogue, Fast Company, Engadget, GOOD, The Guardian, The Miami Herald, and Huffington Post. In an interview with Recode, Putorti acknowledged that though the product's main purpose was to voice those in opposition to the Trump Presidency, the system delivers all messages without regard to political views. Resistbot's twitter feed features many responses by members of Congress to users who have sent messages through the software. It was called, "The Most Genius Thing Of 2017" by GOOD magazine.

In November 2017, Resistbot was used as a channel by Medium Magazine to push Net Neutrality letters to Congress. The article published seven letter templates for readers to send to their representatives in favor of net neutrality. Individuals couldn't send a message to the FCC or its commissioners, only the elected officials who attend to the address that the user enters into the prompts. In January 2018, The Peace Report published an article pushing its users to send letters to government officials through Resistbot in order to oppose the construction of two new military bases in Okinawa. The article contained a letter template for readers to copy and paste to Congress representatives. In February 2018, WUSA TV fact checked and verified that texting "NRA" to Resistbot would tell users how their officials had benefited, or been hurt by, NRA contributions. In September 2018, InStyle Magazine listed it as a way to "make your voice heard," regarding the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh.

Criticisms

Resistbot has received criticisms for not being effective enough. Micah L. Sifry argues on civichall.org that given how simple it is to send a message in using Resistbot, it makes it more likely that representatives will not read the letters they send in. Additionally, it is argued that there are too many platforms of this sort that are bombarding the legislators with information. The congressional offices can be small and short staffed, who are not paid very much. Therefore it is challenging for them to manage all this information and file it in a way that is useful. It is also argued that Resistbot gives users a false sense of efficacy, as there is a low likelihood that their message is being heard. Resistbot has also faced criticisms saying it is too casual a method to be able to contact officials. The fact that you can send a message from a bar or from your own couch is alarming to some, and they believe it means that these platforms do not take civic engagement seriously.

Final Article Choice

Resistbot

First I want to talk a bit about the founder since he doesn't have his own Wiki Page. I also plan on adding more to the history of Resistbot. This would mean both how the founder came up with the idea (not just the fact that he was anti-trump), and how and when the different stages of communications were put into place. I am also planning on adding more about how it works, potentially a step by step guide for users for each platform of communication. The section is not very clear about how the message actually gets delivered to congress, and how they verify which senator to send it to, so I would add that part in as well. I think overall I can just add more about how Resistbot works and some things that people use it for. Additionally I think photos could benefit the article to help readers understand more.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/resistbot-faxes-politicians_n_58d8a426e4b03692bea70829

https://www.teenvogue.com/story/resistbot-faxes-texts-to-senators

https://www.fastcompany.com/3069103/resistbot-turns-your-angry-trump-texts-into-faxes-to-congress

https://www.engadget.com/2017/03/09/resistbot/

https://www.businessinsider.com/resistbot-overloaded-users-fax-congress-about-gop-healthcare-2017-9

https://www.bustle.com/p/resistbot-makes-contacting-your-representatives-easier-than-ever-before-47570

https://civichall.org/civicist/how-to-resist-the-resistbot/

https://www.wusa9.com/article/news/local/dc/bot-helps-you-send-letters-to-congress/65-570708030

https://www.jweekly.com/2017/10/16/meet-startup-expert-wrote-resistbot-spare-time/

https://www.pitchwerks.com/podcast/jason-putorti-and-resistbot-offer-a-slick-new-interface-for-government-pitchwerks-35

(I believe some of these have been used, but there is more information in them that I can add)

Choose Possible Topics

Resistbot

Improvements:

-It should give a more in depth overview of the founders' mission for the app, and how the app came to be (donors, developers etc.)

-The app does not use any photos of the app or tutorials of how it works, which could highly benefit the reader

-There could be a more detailed section of how the user interacts with the app, the different options the user has within the app, and any complications the app has faced int he past.

-The article only briefly touched upon what types of things people are resisting, and it seems that there could be an entire section on the types of letters they receive and what the elected officials do with the letters once they receive them.

-https://resistbot.news/the-robot-of-the-resistance-2b40d2703794

-https://resistbot.news/5-things-to-know-about-resistbots-hand-deliveries-971577edec7b

Vote.org

Improvements:

-I think there is a lot of information that could be supplemented in this article, like a much longer section about how they assist voters, aka all the tools they use and how they use them in order to make voting more representative

-There are no photos or images showing how the program works, which I think would be beneficial

-I think there should be a more detailed section about founders and how the company began

-https://web.archive.org/web/20180511182528/https://www.teenvogue.com/story/long-distance-voter-goes-the-d

https://www.bustle.com/p/debra-cleaver-founder-of-voteorg-is-making-womens-history-now-42771

Talk:Code for America