HearFromYourCouncillor – Cheltenham Beta Test

“So, the voting is over. The politicians vanish to their town halls, and everything carries on as before, right?”

Wrong. Between elections the internet is really starting to challenge politics as usual. As part of this change, we'd like to put you in touch with your councillor. Not for a specific purpose, but in order to hear what they're working on, to debate their thoughts in a safe, friendly environment, and generally to build better, more useful relationships between constituents and their councillors. That's why we built HearFromYourCouncillor.

What is HearFromYourCouncillor?

HearFromYourCouncillor is a site which allows you, the constituent, to sign up to get emails from your local councillors about local issues. When your councillors write to you and other constituents, we give you the chance to discuss what has been said in a simple online forum.

Why should I sign up?

If you care about your local community, environment, businesses, roads, schools, parking arrangements, hedgehog tunnels, hop-scotch courts, or anything, HearFromYourCouncillor is for you. HearFromYourCouncillor is about building better, more constructive long term relationships between representatives and the people they represent. You can find out more about the important issues in your area, and give valuable democratic feedback to the most powerful politician in your area.

Okay, so how does it work?

If you enter your details, we'll add you to a queue of other people in your ward. When enough have signed up, your councillors will get sent an email. It'll say “5 of your constituents would like to hear what you're up to. Click here to let them know”. If they don't respond, nothing will happen, until they get a further email which says there are now 10, then 15, 20, 30 – until it is nonsensical not to reply and start talking.

When your councillors send you mail it won't be one-way spam, and it won't be an inbox-filling free-for-all. Instead, each email comes with a link at the bottom, which takes you straight to a web page containing a copy of the email your councillor wrote, along with any comments by other constituents. To leave your thoughts, you just enter your text and hit enter. There's no tiresome login – you can just start talking about what they've said. Safe, easy and democratic.

Sign up now – 4 councillors have already sent out messages.

Your name: Your email: UK postcode:  
(for example GL54 5ZW)

Will it fill my inbox with ranting rubbish from other constituents?

No — only the councillors can send messages to all list subscribers. If they choose to send rubbish, you can either unsubscribe, or have a full and frank discussion about why they shouldn't send faceless propaganda on the discussion thread that comes attached to each email.

How does this discussion forum work then? Where is it?

The forum does not exist until your councillor sends their first message. This message contains a link at the bottom which is unique to each user. When you click on it it logs you in to a new HearFromYourCouncillor discussion thread. The first post in the thread contains the councillor's email. You can then read what other people have been saying, or leave a comment yourself.

How are you going to stop the forums descending into ranting, partisan nonsense?

We have various approaches to this. First, we have a strict moderation policy — discussion must be constructive, non-partisan and friendly, or we'll have no compunction about removing posts. Secondly, users are limited to two forum posts per day, a method pioneered by Steve Clift at e-democracy.org, and proven to keep people behaving themselves.

What makes you think councillors will ever post?

Some councillors will post immediately and with enthusiasm. Many more will be uncertain, and so we will provide encouragement. As people sign up, each councillor will be mailed whenever their mailing lists get to 5, 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 etc. etc. They won't be harrassed — they'll never get more than one mail a week no matter how fast people sign up. Eventually we believe that the mailing lists will grow naturally to a size where it is nonsensical for councillors not to engage.

Does the mailing list belong to the councillor? What happens if my councillor changes?

There is one list per ward, not per councillor, and we will continue to accept subscribers regardless of whether your current councillor chooses to use the site or not. If your councillor changes for any reason, we will hand access to the list over to their successor. If your constituency boundaries change, we will use your postcode to calculate your new constituency, and move you to the right list. We will not disclose your email address to the councillors, unless you write to them.

How much of the UK does HearFromYourCouncillor cover?

Currently we cover Cheltenham Borough Council.

Can I link to you from my website?

Yes, and we provide special code to make it easy for you.

Who are you?

This site was built by mySociety. mySociety is a charitable organisation which has grown out of the community of volunteers who built sites like TheyWorkForYou.com. mySociety's primary mission is to build internet projects which give people simple, tangible benefits in the civic and community aspects of their lives. Our first project was WriteToThem, where you can write to any of your elected representatives, for free. Our more recent sites include PledgeBank and FixMyStreet.

Who pays for it?

HearFromYourCouncillor has been built by mySociety thanks to the effort of a combination of paid core developers and unpaid volunteers. The core developers were paid for by the ODPM's e-innovations fund in partnership with West Sussex County Council. Our servers are kindly hosted by Easynet.

Do you need any help with the project?

Yes, we can use help in all sorts of ways, technical or non-technical. Please contact us if you want to get in touch.

What are the terms and conditions of usage?

We've got a proper Ts&Cs page. The main rule is simple though — don't be an arse and you'll get by fine.

Are you going to send me evil spam?

No, you'll only ever get mail from your councillor, plus perhaps the rare email asking whether you want to make use of new services within HearFromYourCouncillor. It goes without saying that we'd never give or sell your email addresses to anyone else.

Is this open source?

Yep, all our code is open source under the GNU Affero GPL. You can find it here (in the 'ycml' directory). We use some licensed data to do postcode and constituency lookups though, I'm afraid. If you are interested in translating it to another country, we'll be glad to do what we can to help.

I want to contact someone in charge, or request a new/different feature — what should I do?

Write to us at team@hearfromyourmp.com, tell us what you want, or build it yourself as a volunteer. :)

You guys are so cool — how can we thank you?

Gin and chocolates, marked c/o Tom Steinberg, 18 Victoria Park Square, London E2 9PF. I'll make sure the rest of the gang get their share. Honest. (Or, if you are unaccountably out of alcohol and sweets, you can donate money to the charity that runs HearFromYourCouncillor.)

What's that background image on every page?

It's a patent illustration for a lever voting machine. As Douglas W. Jones's Illustrated Voting Machine History says:

"Two manufacturers split the market for lever voting machines, Shoup and AVM (Automatic Voting Machines); the latter company is the direct descendant of Jacob H. Myers original company, organized in 1895. Ransom F. Shoup made a number of improvements to lever voting machines between 1929 and 1975. [The image] shows an early Shoup machine; like most of its successors, this included a substantial voting booth, yet it could be collapsed into a package that was relatively easy to transport and store."