What is basic your idea of your initiative and what are you trying to accomplish with it? When was the first thought born about the project?
We have started thinking about this project on the september 2007. The website www.nasipolitici.cz was set in March 2008. However in spring 2008 was "only" launched website Nasipolitici.cz. The real content in the form of "painstaking" work on obtaining and publishing information on hundreds of politicians had been delivering gradually over the next months and years. With a little exaggeration is possible to say that the information in the form of a "information skelet" of a complex politician's profile of all active members of the Government, Parliament, the European Parliament and Local Authorities leaders had been finished up after 2 years- in 2010.
People's reactions have been mostly positive from the outset. Probably the best feedback we give in this regard through a slow but long-term increase in the number of visitors.
Our greatest achievements were during the times before parliamentary elections 2010. For example last year, it attracted more than 400 000 people to visit the website NasiPolitici.cz and - more importantly - to use the tools to help them choose "their" party using solid facts.
Did and how the idea change since Day1? What are your users saying and how are you adapting to their needs?
I would rather say that our original idea gradually grew and expanded. Gradually, we discovered that it is possible and necessary to complement the original CV politicians about a range of new information - information about kauzách politicians outline their legislative activities. Over time, we also have established strategic cooperation with NGOs Kohovolit and Transparency International.Together with other cooperateing projects we aims to look beyond the appearances into the real deeds and acts of politicians and thus show their true faces, either in good or bad sense. We gather the information, we analyse it, and we make it public. In cooperation with Kohovolit.eu we have established Informal Coalition of Nonprofit Nongovernment Organizations Naši politici o.s. and Kohovolit.eu also. We
do common PR actions, we offer information from different points of view. In our cooperation (supported by The Stefan Batory Foundation) we uspořádali bar camp eDemocracy Day in Prague.
What are your plans for near and further future?
Our goal is to increase the utilization of the Nasipolitici.cz portal and the servers Budovanistatu.cz and Transparency.cz, and establish them among Czech citizens as reliable, well known and popular information sources. The above closely linked servers (Nasipolitici.cz andBudovanistatu.cz) are operated by the Our politicians civic association and will enable an effective and detailed data collection on the Czech politicians and public servants. The data collection will include financial monitoring and analysis of the public institutions that are controlled or led by the relevant politician or public servant.
we prepare a release of new developmental version of the portal Nasipolitici.cz that will enable us to intensify and empower existing analytic functions and interactive components of the server. All of its functionality will be developed with respect to the maximum link online projects that we are cooperateing with.
Particular attention will be paid to mapping and unveiling of the relations between politicians and business community or public expenditure being spent for private purposes by the management of government departments.
What is/was your main obstacle while developing and running your project?
More problems occurred. Most of Them were (are) associated with highly labor-intensive project. Creating and updating existing profiles of politicians, along with the creation of media monitoring and administration of discussions, requires about 120 hours a week. All of these work is ensured by two people and a few externists and volunteers. First, the usual difficulties in securing financial (sustainability) non-profit project, that has no gainful activity and has hardly any chance to ask for support from the state Institutions. Great support for us are mainly grants from The Stefan Batory Foundation, The Open Society Fund Prague and Google Inc.
Other difficulties are associated with sometimes difficult communication with politicians, who have relatively low "appetite" to communicate relevant information about yourselfs. On the one hand, we encounter some problem to the lack of information (mostly in connection with some new "faces" from local politics), on the other hand we face the problem with too much information sources associated with some political leaders (e.g., members of the government or parliament ). In some cases we have to go through thousands of information sources.
Do you plan to do antyhing to encourage politicians to be more open to you?
We would like to further develop personal communication with the centrals of political parties and concrete politicians also. The most important is the "aiming" on their voters - our visitors. I believe the higher number of visitors is, the better response of politicians will be. In this context we plan next development of interactivity of our server that is connected with the ongoing work on the setting of new version of the Nasipolitici.cz.
How many people works on it? Is it enough (especially when you have so much data)
Our team consists of 5 people – 2 persons are full time staff (almost); 3 are externists (they work for a few hours a week)
What do you when there is a new face and not enough data?
That sometimes happens... In this situation we are trying to get through of all possible informational sources. We also try to active communicate with this politician so that we get more information about his/her education, former bussines and political activities etc. In the vast majority of cases we finaly manage to create these profiles - even if people do not communicate with the media and have problematic backgrounds. The great support for our endeavour in information collecting are various public databases (like bussiness register e.g) and cooperation (informational outcomes) with our colleagues from Transparency International and Kohovolit.eu.
Our greatest achievements were during the times before parliamentary elections 2010. For example last year, it attracted more than 400 000 people to visit the website NasiPolitici.cz and - more importantly - to use the tools to help them choose "their" party using solid facts.
Did and how the idea change since Day1? What are your users saying and how are you adapting to their needs?
I would rather say that our original idea gradually grew and expanded. Gradually, we discovered that it is possible and necessary to complement the original CV politicians about a range of new information - information about kauzách politicians outline their legislative activities. Over time, we also have established strategic cooperation with NGOs Kohovolit and Transparency International.Together with other cooperateing projects we aims to look beyond the appearances into the real deeds and acts of politicians and thus show their true faces, either in good or bad sense. We gather the information, we analyse it, and we make it public. In cooperation with Kohovolit.eu we have established Informal Coalition of Nonprofit Nongovernment Organizations Naši politici o.s. and Kohovolit.eu also. We
do common PR actions, we offer information from different points of view. In our cooperation (supported by The Stefan Batory Foundation) we uspořádali bar camp eDemocracy Day in Prague.
What are your plans for near and further future?
Our goal is to increase the utilization of the Nasipolitici.cz portal and the servers Budovanistatu.cz and Transparency.cz, and establish them among Czech citizens as reliable, well known and popular information sources. The above closely linked servers (Nasipolitici.cz andBudovanistatu.cz) are operated by the Our politicians civic association and will enable an effective and detailed data collection on the Czech politicians and public servants. The data collection will include financial monitoring and analysis of the public institutions that are controlled or led by the relevant politician or public servant.
we prepare a release of new developmental version of the portal Nasipolitici.cz that will enable us to intensify and empower existing analytic functions and interactive components of the server. All of its functionality will be developed with respect to the maximum link online projects that we are cooperateing with.
Particular attention will be paid to mapping and unveiling of the relations between politicians and business community or public expenditure being spent for private purposes by the management of government departments.
What is/was your main obstacle while developing and running your project?
More problems occurred. Most of Them were (are) associated with highly labor-intensive project. Creating and updating existing profiles of politicians, along with the creation of media monitoring and administration of discussions, requires about 120 hours a week. All of these work is ensured by two people and a few externists and volunteers. First, the usual difficulties in securing financial (sustainability) non-profit project, that has no gainful activity and has hardly any chance to ask for support from the state Institutions. Great support for us are mainly grants from The Stefan Batory Foundation, The Open Society Fund Prague and Google Inc.
Other difficulties are associated with sometimes difficult communication with politicians, who have relatively low "appetite" to communicate relevant information about yourselfs. On the one hand, we encounter some problem to the lack of information (mostly in connection with some new "faces" from local politics), on the other hand we face the problem with too much information sources associated with some political leaders (e.g., members of the government or parliament ). In some cases we have to go through thousands of information sources.
Do you plan to do anything to encourage politicians to be more open to you?
We would like to further develop personal communication with the centrals of political parties and concrete politicians also. The most important is the "aiming" on their voters - our visitors. I believe the higher number of visitors is, the better response of politicians will be. In this context we plan next development of interactivity of our server that is connected with the ongoing work on the setting of new version of the Nasipolitici.cz.
How many people works on it? Is it enough (especially when you have so much data)
Our team consists of 5 people – 2 persons are full time staff (almost); 3 are externists (they work for a few hours a week)
What do you when there is a new face and not enough data?
That sometimes happens... In this situation we are trying to get through of all possible informational sources. We also try to active communicate with this politician so that we get more information about his/her education, former bussines and political activities etc. In the vast majority of cases we finaly manage to create these profiles - even if people do not communicate with the media and have problematic backgrounds. The great support for our endeavour in information collecting are various public databases (like bussiness register e.g) and cooperation (informational outcomes) with our colleagues from Transparency International and Kohovolit.eu.