
Is Sunlight Labs shutdown the death knell for open government? - nnnnnn
https://govpredict.com/blog/sunlight-foundation-gone-who-will-make-gov-data-transparent/
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nnnnnn
Posting this for two reasons --

First of all, these organizations don't pop up or maintain themselves
magically, it takes a leader to get this started and a smart team to keep it
going. They deserve to be recognized for truly great work.

Second, I think having open government data in a truly ACCESSIBLE format is
extremely important. If you've ever tried to look up data on the FEC site,
you'll know what I mean. Not to take away from the FEC data site -- it's an
incredible data resource, but tech companies certainly do a better job
productizing these large amounts of data from the government.

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mpenn
Could someone turn this into a business? Then it would hopefully survive on
its own.

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emilpitkin
Sharp thinking. Our business (GovPredict) is built around structuring
fragmented government data. We've profited a great deal by it, and have some
bandwidth and the inclination to now perform a public service and give the
public access to a good deal of formerly unnavigable data.

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emilpitkin
Hey there. I'm Emil, the CEO of GovPredict. If you use Sunlight's repos, send
me a note (emil@govpredict.com). I'd love to hear from you.

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salbertson
I used their openstates repo a while back and found it amazing how well they
could distill the data. I had tried writing scrapers before for the same
purposes, but it took forever just to get a fraction of what they had. Best of
luck to sunlight devs in the transition.

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maplematch
Fascinating. I wonder how the future firms will leverage FOIA requests to
continue building the database.

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emilpitkin
So do we. Until then, there is such an expanse of publicly available data that
hasn't been touched: local ordinances, lobbying at the state level, campaign
contributions at the state level, just to name a few.

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kumarski
Jesus, thanks for picking up the tab and maintaining it. surprised nobody is
making a ruckus aobut it.

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emilpitkin
Thank you. Maintaining the whole project would be a herculean task, but we're
happy to do our part.

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abhir
Government data is so incredibly messy - good on you guys!

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emilpitkin
Thank you! Always great to hear from someone with the same outlook.

