mySociety

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mySociety is an e-democracy project of the UK-based registered charity named UK Citizens Online Democracy, that aims to build "socially focussed tools with off line impacts". It was founded by Tom Steinberg in September 2003, and started activity after receiving a £250,000 grant in September 2004. Steinberg says that mySociety was inspired by an article by James Crabtree on openDemocracy, "Civic hacking: a new agenda for e-democracy".

[edit] Projects

mySociety projects include:

PledgeBank — runs pledges on all topics, of the form: "I will do x if y people agree to do the same."
notapathetic.com — a site about people who planned not to vote in the United Kingdom general election, 2005.
YourHistoryHere.com — a site where people can annotate a map with their knowledge of the history of that place.
Placeopedia — an online gazetteer that is a mashup of Google Maps and the English Wikipedia.
TheyWorkForYou — tracks speeches and activities of Members of Parliament, including presenting an accessible version of Hansard
WriteToThem.com — facilitates contacting elected representatives at all levels of UK government (formerly FaxYourMP)
HearFromYourMP.com — a site encouraging MPs to email their constituents.
hassleme.co.uk — "Because your mother can't remind you of everything."
DowningStreetSays.com — searchable text of the Prime Minister's Official Spokesman's briefings.
Downing Street e-Petitions — a petitions website for 10 Downing Street.
FixMyStreet — a map based application facilitating citizens informing their local authority of problems needing their attention, such as broken streetlamps etc.
GroupsNearYou — a map-based application to find local community groups in your area
Gaze — a gazetteer web service
Travel-time maps — maps showing how long it takes to transit from one part of Britain to another, expanded in 2007
WhatDoTheyKnow — a site designed to help people find out (through Freedom of Information requests) what the British government (at all levels) is doing.