Fwd: [alaveteli-community] News from the Alaveteli team

[Gorm Eriksen]

Ser at de bla kommer med en ombudsmann feature som bør være nyttig for oss.

Ellers syntes jeg det er supert at det har vært litt aktivitet nå, også med litt pressedekning :) 

Hilsen Gorm 

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Gemma Humphrys <gemma at mysociety.org>
Date: Mar 17, 2016 1:59 PM
Subject: [alaveteli-community] News from the Alaveteli team
To: Alaveteli Community <alaveteli-users at googlegroups.com>
Cc: 

> Hello all,
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> I hope you’re all well. In my new role as Alaveteli Partnership Manager, I’d like to experiment with sending out a regular mailing to let you all know what we’ve been up to. So, here goes…
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> A new release!
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> We’ve just released version 0.24 of Alaveteli. Gareth gives a rundown of the highlights in his recent blog post. Don’t forget that we have a great community of experienced technical people on the Alaveteli Developers mailing list. Post a message there if you need any help with upgrading your Alaveteli site.
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> What makes an Alaveteli site grow?
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> Since the beginning of the year, we’ve been working on finding out what really makes an Alaveteli site successful, and what brings traffic and requesters to the site.
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> To do this, we’re carrying out a whole host of experiments. These will allow us to learn more about existing Alaveteli sites, test our growth theories and eventually share findings of what really helps to increase traffic and transactions with all of you. The result? Lots more impactful Alaveteli sites...hopefully! :)
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> Here are some of questions we’re asking in these experiments at the moment:
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> Can you increase traffic to sites by setting up an automated social media bot that tweets out every request as it’s made??
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> Where else on the web can we find potential Alaveteli users?
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> Will implementing Google Adwords on an Alaveteli site increase traffic?
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> After users make their first request, can we interact with them in a way that will encourage them to make a second request?
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> Does including request suggestions on authority pages encourage people to make requests?
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> We’ll share our findings with you as results come in.
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> We’ve also been collecting ideas of how to increase traffic over on GitHub. Please feel free to add any ideas that have worked for you or that you’d love to test out!
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> Development highlights
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> Here’s a selection of features that we’ve been working on recently. If you have any feedback on any of these, please add your comments to the relevant Github issue page.
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> Github is the place where we store and edit the code that runs Alaveteli sites. It is also our issue-tracker: if there’s something that needs improving, or a bug in the code, you can open an issue to report it to developers. You can also comment on existing issues to add your opinion, approval or thoughts by signing up for an account.
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> 1. The ability to send automated appeals to ombudsman
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> Github issue page: https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/2819
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> What this means in practice: Once finished, this will allow users to send appeals to their ombudsman through the Alaveteli site, so that any correspondence with them will be public.
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> 2. Making dealing with spam easier
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> Github issue page: https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/2769
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> What this means in practice: Administrators of Alaveteli sites that run version 0.24 can now delete incoming messages in bulk on a request page. This makes deleting the pesky spam emails in the holding pen much quicker and easier.
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> 3. Showing when requests have been delivered
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> Github issue page: https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/issues/624
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> What this means in practice: Once finished, this will allow users of the site to see if their request has been successfully delivered to the authority, plus the date and time of delivery. This is useful as sometimes authorities claim not to have received FOI requests.
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> 4. New Censor Rules for making redacting information easier
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> Github issue page: https://github.com/mysociety/alaveteli/pull/3021
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> What this means in practice: Censor Rules are rules to redact information from incoming and outgoing messages. With this new feature in version 0.24 administrators of sites can now apply these rules to public bodies and globally across the site, not just on individual requests and requests made by a particular user.
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> Google Adwords for Alaveteli sites: A Guide
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> Our fabulous Communications Manager, Myf, has put together a guide on how to make best use of Google Adwords to attract more visitors to Alaveteli sites. Using Adwords was one of the key drivers of traffic to WhatDoTheyKnow.com in the early days, so we’re hoping this guide will allow other Alaveteli sites to see similar results. Let us know if you find it helpful!  
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> Experiment result: It’s all about Facebook
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> One of the questions we recently asked ourselves was ‘What are the top social media sites in countries where Alaveteli platforms exist?’. Well, it comes as no surprise that Facebook came out on top in every place we looked at. That means we should definitely try and make more use of Facebook to share requests from Alaveteli sites. One of the latest features in our new release means that you can add an Open Graph logo so that content shared on Facebook will have the logo displayed alongside it.
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> In the pipeline: Alaveteli installs in Turkey and Colombia
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> We’re working with Turkish independent journalism organisation Punto24 and Article 19 to build an alternative FOI platform to the government’s portal (which doesn’t publish requests and responses). This is part of their Guardian Foundation-funded project to strengthen the right to information in Turkey. They have also been carrying out publicity campaigns, training of government institutions to raise awareness of obligations under the law, and training for journalists on how to submit requests for information and appeal refusals, including through the courts.
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> In Colombia, we’re working with an enthusiastic group of journalists to set up an install there. The Colombian government approved a Transparency Law in December 2014, and the site will empower and teach people to use it. As well as giving Colombian citizens the power to ask for whatever information they need, the group hopes the site will be widely used to unearth information about Colombia’s peace treaty with Farc guerillas, which is due to be signed by 23rd March, and which hasn’t been widely shared publicly.
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> We’re delighted to be working with such dedicated organisations.
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> If you, or anyone you know, is thinking about setting up an Alaveteli site, you can apply for our support to develop it. You can find out more here. The deadline for applications in this round is 30 April.
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> Let us know your bugbears!
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> Are you having issues with the way Alaveteli works? Is there something that’s creating a barrier to your site’s success? If so, let us know by posting on the Alaveteli Developers Google Group. It may be that we’re already working on a feature that will help solve the problem, and if not, there’s a great community of Alaveteli users who’ll have similar experiences or advice. Plus, your experiences will help us prioritise our future development work.
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> Thanks for reading! Don’t forget to use these mailing lists to connect with your fellow Alaveteli users and FOI enthusiasts :)
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> All the best,
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> Gemma, Louise, Gareth and Liz (the Alaveteli team). 
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