2017 So Far

 Posted on July 21, 2017  |  James Turk

With the bulk of 2017 sessions now adjourned we wanted to give an update for what we’ve been working on besides keeping the scrapers running & what’s coming next. scraper commits for 2017; https://github.com/openstates/openstates/graphs/commit-activity Diving into Open Civic Data In May, with the help of dozens of new contributors, we finished converting all of our scrapers to the Open Civic Data ecosystem. This was our big push for the first half of the year and it is fair to say that this is the biggest improvement to the Open States project since 2012, when we released openstates. [Read More]

Progress on the OCD Data Quality Tools

 Posted on July 4, 2017  |  Hitesh Garg

Hello everyone! It seems like just yesterday that I was selected for Google Summer of Code, but I’ve now completed my first of three months with the Open States project. Continuing from my last blog post, here’s a quick overview of what’s been accomplished so far: I helped to complete the organization’s switch to scraping into the Open Civic Data format. I wrote a Django command to detect data quality issues in scraped OCD records, and store these issues in the database. [Read More]

Google Summer of Code — Improved Data Tools

 Posted on May 28, 2017  |  Hitesh Garg

Hello, Universe! I am Hitesh Garg, one of the two Google Summer of Code (GSoC) students working with Open States this summer. I’ll be helping to transition the project to Open Civic Data (OCD), by implementing admin interfaces to this new data structure. My journey to Google Summer of Code I’ve always been fascinated by the open-source software community, and wanted to contribute my skills to society and do something impactful. [Read More]

Google Summer of Code — Crowdsourcing & Scraper Fixing

 Posted on May 14, 2017  |  Bikram Bharti

Hello everyone! My name is Bikram Bharti, I am working with Open States this summer aspart of the Google Summer of Code program. About Me I am a junior year student with major in Electronics Engineering at IIT (Varanasi) BHU. I started my journey with open source contributions in 2016, with contributions in few of the web-development related projects of fossasia. I started contributing to Open States last spring, helped convert many states from billy to pupa, wrote documentation for event conversion and fixed a few scrapers. [Read More]

Open States API Keys

 Posted on April 21, 2017  |  James Turk

TL;DR- We’re requiring API keys for API access again, register for a key and start using it by May 12th of this year. This applies even if you have a Sunlight-issued key. When we took over Open States from Sunlight last year we temporarily removed the API key requirement. While it hasn’t been a priority, we’ve recently seen some excess usage and decided it was about time to turn keys back on. [Read More]

Open States Virtual Code Sprint: Sunday, April 23!

 Posted on April 4, 2017  |  Miles Watkins

We’re excited to announce our second code sprint of 2017. And this time, we’re running it virtually, so that community members outside of DC can join in! So, hop on the Open States Slack, set aside Sunday, April 23 on your calendars, and get ready. James, myself, and other core developers will be online from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM Eastern Time (14:00 to 22:00 UTC). During that time, we’ll be ready to enable any and all contributions to the project, including: [Read More]

March 19, 2017 Sprint Retrospective

 Posted on March 23, 2017  |  Miles Watkins

This past Sunday’s code sprint was a huge success! We had 15 developers spend a whole day at work on Billy-to-Pupa conversion. With 13 new PRs from that group alone, we’re well on our way to the next step in our 2017 roadmap. A huge thank-you from James and myself to everyone who dedicated their day off to the project: @jmcarp, @hmoco, @erinspace, @lmm54321, @rshorey, @lindsayyoung, @showerst, @mroswell, @lmdragun, @gregjd, @jschiarizzi, @jalbertbowden, and @amitnagis. [Read More]

Wrapping up my Open States contract

 Posted on March 21, 2017  |  Miles Watkins

This is my last week of my three-month stint working full-time on Open States. So far in 2018, I’ve made over 100 scraper code commits, dozens of manual data corrections, built up our community of contributors (including 70 prospective Google Summer of Code students), and developed most of the main views for our new website. Returning to working in my off-hours, I’m hoping that Olivia and I can have the new website up and public in the coming months. [Read More]

Open States & Google Summer of Code 2017

 Posted on February 27, 2017  |  James Turk

Google Summer of Code 2017 We’re excited to announce that Open States has been accepted as a participating organization in Google Summer of Code 2017! It’s been a few years since we last participated (while at Sunlight), but Google Summer of Code has been a fantastic experience for Open States in the past and we’re glad to be participating again. If you aren’t familiar with GSoC, it is a program in which Google pays stipends to college students that are willing to spend their summer working on select Open Source projects. [Read More]

Save the Date: Open States Code Sprint — March 19, 2017

 Posted on February 16, 2017  |  Miles Watkins

We’re excited to announce that Open States will be holding a code sprint in DC on Sunday, March 19! When and where? We’ll kick off in the morning at 9:00 AM, close up around 6:00 PM, and’ll plan to serve both breakfast and lunch. And don’t worry if you can attend for only part o that; we’ll be available to onboard contributors throughout the day. Development Seed has generously offered to host the event in their office space. [Read More]