Long Term Requirements

draft requirements for an open source, secure, scale-able, non-profit, user controlled, self-organizing, multi-lingual says-us web portal and mobile application

(We understand that these requirements are a tiny beginning.  We await more participation for further development

Start with original jobvent.com functionality which can be gleaned from jobitorial.com  and glassdoor.com (see example on Next Steps)

  • Home page has most recent posts scrolling – post, endorsements, disagreements
  • Button offers “post your issue”
  • Existing posts can be “endorsed” or “not endorsed”, sorted by organization, date, ratings
    • Users can comment on their own and other’s ratings
  • Identify other posts that relate to your issue – and pick fields for how they relate like
    • Same thing is happening to me
    • Same place, company, issue
  •  Allow for “requested change or solution”

The Do Something button leads to many choices of action:

  • Write an anonymous email (provide forms, collect email of addressees)
    • To the CEO
    • To the Board of Directors
    • To a local blog or newspaper
  • Find others to write a group email
  • Record a sound clip or video for an online site, like Workers Independent News
  • Write a petition – links to petition sites
  • Organize a flash mob
  • Talk with a lawyer – links volunteer lawyers registered with the site
  • Talk with a professional organization – links
  • Contact your elected officials – links
  • Find a union to talk with – links to registered unions
  • Run and support candidates
  • (See From Dictatorship to Democracy for its list of tactics)

The power of social media is that it allows people to organize themselves.  The site will embody the principle  of self-organization.

Consider the functionality of being able to find or name a company and location, post a comment, state your role, and give a rating, —to be baseline functionality.

Allow for other kinds of organizations in addition to companies and other employers.  Like, school, city, hospital, landlord, product, unemployed, health provider, etc.

Allow for a richer rating system.  Consider organization specific measures, like client and customer service, efficacy of product, quality of management, relevance of union or professional organization.  Allow user specified fields.

Security and protection of user identity is crucial – jobs and even lives can depend upon it.  Consider site id and pw, not linked to email or ip address – for user loyalty and constancy.

Protect against bot attacks.  Protect user identity.  Give user complete control over what is identified.  Allow categories like “co-worker” and “stranger” and allow privacy levels (similar to facebook) – maybe an “invitation” to share.

Allow communication at certain levels and consider other relevant privileges.

Offer links to petition sites, legislative offices, unions, other relevant resources.  Allow choice for inclusion in radio broadcast.  Allow links to photos and youtube video.

Have clear rules, like no use of other’s names, no abuse, no violence, etc.

Full search by most data elements and text.

Consider a rating of writing, like reddit – for veracity and import.  This might build user loyalty and reuse – and reduce trash and spam.  Think about Southbay example – clinicians considered some reviews to have been written by managers.

There are other sites that have some of says-us functionality.  fixmyjob.com is a good union organizing site from the AFL-CIO.  For people who decide they want to engage in a process of unionization.

A difference is that fixmyjob relies on expert advice and guidance rather than on people finding each other and organizing themselves through a host of possible resources.

Questions:

How do we allow users to “design” the site? They can enter links?  User defined fields?

How do we keep the same organization from being added multiple times – perhaps with slightly different spellings?  Can we enable users to deal with that problem?

How do we achieve multi-lingual?

Next Steps

“what ever happened to jobvent?” from Yahoo Answers

An example of Northbay content that was on the jobvent site and was removed

Draft requirements for says-us web site and mobile application

Says Us homepage