Comments on: Liberal Democrat eCanvass – Web 0.2

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:18:06 +0000

Thanks for getting back about this so promptly, Lynne. My own technical experience is very patchy and doesn’t fit well into the categories on that survey, but I’ll try to fill it out in as accurate a way as I can when I have the time…

By: lynne featherstone

lynne featherstone — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 16:08:19 +0000

Ranting welcome – but even better would be if you would fill out the survey from which I can start to gather information about the army of brilliant e-people out there and harnass said talent. Survey at http://www.libertyresearch.org.uk/take/505. Also – apologies to Dave for non-response – very unusual but not impossible.

By: Andy Hinton

Andy Hinton — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 13:53:43 +0000

Having just become Data Officer for my local party, I can report that Wine will run both EARS and the eCanvass program without (so far) any hiccups, so there is some hope for Linux users.

By: Top Stories and Blog Review Sunday 25th January – Politics Unlimited | UK politics news

Sun, 25 Jan 2009 11:55:37 +0000

[...] Andrew Hickey is unimpressed by the Lib Dem’s eCanvass tools. [...]

By: Andrew Hickey

Andrew Hickey — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 10:58:46 +0000

The sad thing is, Jennie, that this *isn’t* something done by volunteers – this is a company who are charging rather a lot for their services (the eCanvass software is free-as-in-beer, but the other software they provide, HandS and Casework Manager, costs a lot of money).
I would never attack the efforts of a well-meaning volunteer in this way, but if something is being done by a for-profit company, then they deserve criticism if they fail.

I was actually considering volunteering to do better (though considering this is being run by a commercial company I suspect they put the job out to tender and so on rather than trusting to volunteers) but it looks like Dave’s already onto it, so I’ll have a word with him to see if I can help in his efforts rather than duplicating them…

By: Jennie

Jennie — Sun, 25 Jan 2009 01:47:06 +0000

I second contacting Lynne. She;s pretty switched on. The problem we (as a party) have is fuck all money, which means everything is done by volunteers, which means that things rarely look professional, because they;re not.

If you could do better in ten minutes, why not volunteer your services?

By: Dave Page

Dave Page — Sat, 24 Jan 2009 19:51:50 +0000

Yes, EARS and related stuff being Windows-only is a real problem. Part of the reason I'm teaching myself Mono-stuff is to write a cross-platform C#/Qt replacement for it. Shame actually - I have a disabled girlfriend who is happy to phone canvas for the party and is at home all day, but she doesn't have Microsoft Windows so won't be able to contribute in this way. I suppose one person to rant at would be Lynne Featherstone, though she never got back to me about the party's illiberal and vote-harming European policy on software patents.