Aaron Swartz's newest project: watchdog.net | Hacker News Reader

Aaron Swartz's newest project: watchdog.net

aaronsw.com

36 pointsrob16 comments

I've thought about doing something kind of like this in the past (tying together tons of data on corporations and individuals -- campaign finance, tax and financial info, etc) but concluded that to make it meaningful (rather than looking like a big data dump) would require a collaborative effort approaching that of Wikipedia and abandoned it.

The question is, you know X donated money to Y at a certain date, and Y is on the board of Z Corp, and ... so what? I never could figure out an answer.

Yeah, this was the bit that held me up on the data site for a long time. It didn't seem like succeeding could do anything but depress people. But talking to others in this sphere, there are some legitimate things you can do with the data: for example, Dennis Hastert (R-IL) recently had to resign in part because of some earmark data that someone uncovered; he was replaced by a pro-reform Dem particle physicist a month ago. So I think connecting it up to the media and building voter scorecards and stuff out of it could be effective.

Indeed, if making such information easily available results in "actual changes", as opposed to merely "availability of information", then this would be totally awesome.

Of course, a website like this can only make the information available, but hopefully it will be used productively. Best wishes!

Currently it only provides availability of data. There's no reason that it couldn't then provided next actions for that data--it's pretty easy to toggle a form that emails your congress person, or submits to local news, or any of a variety of actions.

Indeed, I think that's a direction it's heading, and the combination of information + action could be potent. How many people avoid taking action b/c it's just a pain to get out of their desk chair?

I wonder which of his other ones are still going strong. Jobbook seems abandoned even though it was a great idea (or at least, addresses a real need).

There are a lot of organizations doing really good watchdog work -- the problem is getting people to pay attention.

Sometimes it's impossible to resist the appealing thought that there are purely technological solutions to social problems.

Technology is the only thing that has ever solved social problems. You just have to find the right technological solution. :)

Open Library, the other main thing I've been working on, is set to go 1.0 this week. So I guess that could be a qualified success. I did a more detailed review of projects on my blog: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/projects2007

Jobbook was a project I was doing with Seth Roberts; it got abandoned largely because Seth's publisher demanded that he stop working on it and focus on finishing his real book. If someone else wants to pick it that would be cool; I agree it addresses a real need.

A lot of interesting projects listed there.

Do you form some sort of business entity (like an LLC) to own such projects, or do you simply put them up on the web yourself?

What if one or more of them start making money?

I typically just put them on the Web myself; if they make money I discuss with my partners what to do with it. If any of them were to make a lot of money, I'd probably start an S-corp or something to reduce the tax liability, but it's never gotten to that point yet.

UK has had this for ages: http://www.theyworkforyou.com/ http://www.writetothem.com/

It seems like Aaron would benefit from writing down both his goals and assumptions.

How are his other projects doing? If I were going to get involved, I'd want to look at his track record of commitment, or lack thereof.

So what is his plan to avoid the site being biased?

It's been done, in several different forms. It depends on your political leaning how you manage to do it. His politics is evident from other writings. Using the name "watchdog" gives it an air of legitimacy it may not, or ever, deserve.

Just because it's been done doesn't mean it can't be done again, better. And as long as relevant data is pulled for all candidates irrespective of affiliation, his political leaning should not matter.

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