Last week, we fixed some API bugs that a user reported. We also set the groundwork to get hacking on our Sunshine Week site; you can help us with that tomorrow on the FOIA Slack or at Code for Boston.
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 here.
Site updates
API Fixes
Ben Welsh flagged a trio of troubling API bugs that Mitch then fixed up.
We’re looking on refining and expanding our API over the coming months, and feedback like this (plus what else you’d like to do with the API) is super helpful. You can see our API documentation here, or browse the endpoints live here.
Come help with a special Sunshine Week project
This Tuesday we’ll be meeting at 7 p.m. with Code for Boston to plot out the various pieces of a Sunshine Week project we’re ramping up. We’re building a site that showcases the best FOIA suggestions and public records request ideas we’ve seen over the years, and you can help build it.
We’re looking for three key areas of assistance:
- Designers, to help come up with a simple but effective way to showcase one FOIA suggestion at a time and put that idea into action.
- Python developers that can tap our Assignments API to populate the above design with FOIA suggestions.
- Researchers to help populate the database with interesting FOIA ideas and tips.
All are welcome to join — just check out Code for Boston for meetup details. If you can’t join us in person, we’ll also be hosting a FOIA Slack Chat at 1pm Eastern to discuss what we’re working on and share ways you can contribute. Sign up for the Slack here.
Come hack on MuckRock
Speaking of contributing, we have a growing group of volunteer hackers helping to make MuckRock’s suite of tools better every day. We have a project and a weekly newsletter, “Release Notes,” that highlights everything we’re working on. Register to get a summary of site updates each week and details on open issues you can help with.
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.
Image via Wikimedia Commons
