[Open-Legislation] parltrack 2013

Tue Jan 29 09:24:44 UTC 2013

Dear fellows,

earlier this year I was wondering, how to keep Open Data projects alive, as I
seem to be not very good at that. after lots of contemplating here's my newest
attempt at improving my handicap, a funding campaign on indigogo.

http://www.indiegogo.com/parltrack2013/

so if anyone wants to support parltrack for the next year or so, here's the
opportunity to donate, retweet, blog or support with a testimonial the
parltrack2013 campaign.

i will mostly update via tweets from - (also status updates and new features
in parltrack): 
http://twitter.com/parltrack

thanks for your kind support again, and now let's get this some attention and
funding. :)

s

----------- Budapest, 2013 January  29 -------------
original: http://www.ctrlc.hu/~stef/blog/posts/parltrack2013.html

About two years ago Parltrack started as another tool trying to get some
information that was necessary at that time. Since then the amount and quality
of data in Parltrack has come a long way. One year ago, I had to rewrite all
the scrapers as the European Parliament upgraded their website. A couple of
related tools have been developed, for example Herr Nilsson or - the most
widely-known - Political Memory or memopol as we call it. Also ACTA has been
defeated. I believe Parltrack contributed a small part to this success. Having
recent and good data on the ground was essential for campaigning in and around
the European Parliament.

I think Parltrack is a tool with lots of potential. I'd really like to find
some more time to just data-mine Parltrack, which was one of my initial
motivations when I started this project. As a good friend used to say: most of
our work in the commons is financed by pre-accumulated wealth from the
traditional system. The peculiar nature of this open data combined with free
software makes it somewhat difficult to keep this project sustainable. I've
tried Flattr, debated and rejected advertising, offered consulting/custom
development jobs, and turns out I'm too small to be eligible for EU funding
grants. Depleting resources resulted in a shift of my attention lately to other
jobs, however Parltrack seems to be used quite a lot. The lack of maintenance
already started showing, so to stop this degradation and to allow me to focus
more on Parltrack in the coming year I started an Indiegogo campaign.
[[http://indiegogo.com/parltrack2013][If you care about freedom, datalove,
kittens, puppies, or just me]], go here and support this campaign. It will
allow me to build more free infrastructure.

thanks for you support,
s

Thank you to all my friends who helped me setting up this campaign.

----------- Budapest, 2013 January 29 -------------

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