It’s not uncommon for requests to have dozens, hundreds, or even thousands of attachments. Now you can get the all pulled together for easy download with just a click.
For previous site improvements, check out all of MuckRock’s release notes, and if you’d like to get a list of site improvements every Tuesday - along with ways to help contribute to the site’s development yourself - subscribe to our developer newsletter at the top or bottom of this page.
Site updates
Improved request and data export
We’ve had the ability to export request communications and attachments for a while, but the export function had trouble if your request had hundreds of attachments. We’ve improved it so that it now processes your export request in the background, and the site emails you a link with a downloadable zip file when it’s ready.
We’ve also cleaned up some of the data exporting so Pro and Organizational users who want to export search results as a CSV will not only get more information in the download, but will get it more reliable.
Come hack on MuckRock
We have a growing group of volunteer hackers helping to make MuckRock better every day. We want to make it easier to contribute, so we’re launching a new project and weekly newsletter, “Release Notes.” Register to get a summary of site updates each week, a list of issues you can help with, and details about our Code for Boston meetups.
Check out some of our issues labeled “help wanted” for ideas on where’s good to start, or just pop into our Slack’s #Developers channel.
Subscribers to the weekly newsletter get exclusive data sets, FOIA-related scripts, and other transparency hacker tidbits exclusively for subscribers. You can subscribe to to the newsletter at the top or bottom of this page.
If you want to contribute better FOIA tools for thousands of requesters, there’s a number of ways to help. If you find a bug you can email us directly or open an issue on GitHub.
If you do the latter, please search open issues first to make sure it hasn’t already been reported. If it has been reported previously, please leave an additional comment letting us know it’s an issue for you, particularly if you can provide more details about when it crops up or what you think is causing the problem.
In addition to the new newsletter, we have a developer channel on the MuckRock Slack. You can also join us at Code for Boston’s weekly hack nights, which take place Tuesday evenings in Kendall Square. We might not make it to every one of them, so if you want to meet up there it’s a good idea to check in on Slack first or check the newsletter. We’re not sure yet if we’ll be at tomorrow’s meetup, so signing up for the release notes newsletter is your best bet at getting an update.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
