mySociety is aUK-basedregistered charity,[2] previously namedUK Citizens Online Democracy.[3] It began as a UK-focused organisation with the aim of making online democracy tools for UK citizens.[4] However, those tools wereopen source, so that the code could be (and soon was) redeployed in other countries.[5]
mySociety was founded byTom Steinberg in September 2003,[6] and started activity after receiving a £250,000 grant in September 2004.[7] Steinberg says that it was inspired by a collaboration with his then-flatmateJames Crabtree which spawned Crabtree's article "Civic hacking: a new agenda for e-democracy".[8][9]
mySociety went on to simplify and internationalise its code[10] and through the now dormantPoplus project, encouraged others to share open source code[11] that would minimise the amount of duplication incivic tech coding.
Like manynon-profits, mySociety sustains itself with a mixture of grant funding[8] and commercial work, providing software and development services to local government and other organisations.[12]
In March 2015, Steinberg announced his decision to stand down as executive director of mySociety.[13] In July of that year, Mark Cridge became the organisation's new CEO.[14]
FixMyStreet platform isfree and open source software which enables anyone to run a map based website andapp that helps people inform their local authority of problems needing their attention, such aspotholes, brokenstreetlamps, etc. The UK version isFixMyStreet.com. mySociety also provide FixMyStreet as a report making system for several local and transport authorities in the UK, includingTfL.[16]
WhatDoTheyKnow is a site designed to help people in theUnited Kingdom makeFreedom of Information requests. It publishes both the requests and the authorities’ responses online, with the aim of making information available to all, and of removing the need for multiple people to make the same requests.[17] By 2011, a significant proportion of requests, around 15%, to UK central government were being made through the site;[18] more recently, that's still the case, with a little over 15% of requests toaudited bodies and around 20% of those to ministerial departments being sent through the service.[19]
WriteToThem is a website which allows UK citizens to contact their elected representatives. Users do not need to know their representatives’ names: instead, using the mySociety softwareMapIt,[20] the site matches their postcode to its variousconstituency boundaries, before displaying elected representatives at all levels of UK government fromlocal councillors toMEPs. Users can send messages to them from the site;[21][22][15] responses are then sent directly to the user'semail address.
MapIt:[25] software for matching a geographical point with its legislative boundaries. MapIt underlies several mySociety websites such as FixMyStreet and WriteToThem, where it allows for a user to input apostcode and be matched to the correctlocal authority or representative.
Poplus[27] was an international federation of organisations who benefitted through the sharing of civic code and online technologies. It was set up in April 2014 by mySociety in collaboration with Chileane-democracy organisationFundación Ciudadano Inteligente[28][29] and encouraged the development of free, open source civic 'blocks' of software, which it termed 'Components', intended to make it easier for people to build civic tech tools.[30] In 2014Nominet awarded Poplus a place in the Nominet Trust 100.[31] Poplus ceased being maintained in 2016.[32]
Mapumental was free and open source software for displaying journeys in terms of how long they take,[33] rather than by distance, a technique also known asisochrone orgeospatial mapping.[34] It was withdrawn in 2020.[35]
Pombola was free open source software for running a parliamentary monitoring website inspired by TheyWorkForYou. While it is still available, it is no longer being actively maintained.
Downing Street e-Petitions: mySociety developed the original solution for publishingpetitions on the website of thePrime Minister's Office.[36][37][38] In 2011 the system was replaced withthe government's own development.
EveryPolitician:[39] a project that ran from 2015 to 2019, with the aim of storing and sharing data on every politician in the world, in structuredopen data
Pledgebank:[40] Allowed users to make pledges of the format: "I will do x if y number of people agree to do the same".[41][42] Now dormant, with archives still browsable.
HassleMe:[43] a website that sends reminders sporadically, now run independently of mySociety[44]
HearFromYourMP:[45] a site encouraging MPs to email their constituents, closed May 2015[46]
FixMyTransport:[47] a site in the model of FixMyStreet for contacting anytransport operator in Britain about problems withpublic transport. Correspondence was published online. The site ran from 2011 to 2015 and has now been frozen, though archives are still browsable.[48][49]
ScenicOrNot:[51] agamification-powered site which invites users to rate photographs according to their ‘scenicness’. The results fed intoMapumental. In 2015 ScenicOrNot was passed over to theWarwick Business School where it is being used to track the correlation betweenhealth and the beauty of one's surroundings.[52][53]
GroupsNearYou:[54] a map-based application that enabled users to find local community groups in their local area.
^abMargetts, Helen (4 May 2010)."The Internet in Political Science". In Hay, Colin (ed.).New Directions in Political Science — Responding to the Challenges of an Interdependent World. Palgrave Macmillan. p. 79.ISBN9780230228481. Retrieved6 August 2016.
