Help
We tried to design GovLuv to be intuitive, but you're certain to find some things that could be clearer. Let us know if you do at @govluv, but in the meantime here's some additional info to help with that.
The Interface
Top Bar
You can sign in and out and change your location up here.
If you haven't shared your address yet, we'll guess based on the IP address that you're logging in from, your location in your Twitter account, or even if you've tweeted a hashtag zipcode (#20012) to your representative previously.
By giving us your correct address, we are able to let your representatives know that you are an actual constituent, deserving of special attention and response. We do this by outlining your picture in GovLuv Pink so that you stand out. The tweetstream can also be filtered to just show Official and Constituent Tweets, making it easier for you to communicate directly to them and for everyone else to know who they are listening to.
Soon we'll implement a more formal constituency verification system instead of just self-reporting, but more on that later!
The Eagle
Isn't he cute? He'll take you home if you ever get lost.
Represent
That's what they do is represent you. This list is populated with your representatives, from local to federal, based on your address. You can also search by name to jump straight to who you're looking for.
If they have the
Tweets
This is what you came here for!
We start with a picture and information about your representative, mostly from their own Twitter account, but with a few extras thrown in to keep you interested. The constituent count is particularly interesting - it's the actual number of constituents on Twitter that we have indentified for your representative.
Next is Trending Tags! These are the 10 most frequently used hashtags in the tweetstream that you're about to delve into.
To the left of the Trending Tags you'll see filters. These enable you to narrow the tweetstream to only show official tweets or to only show official and constituent tweets.
Finally, the tweet stream itself. You've probably seen something like this before. The difference in this stream is that it is all based around your representative, so every tweet they have sent from a personal account, an official account, a campaign account, or a staff account will appear here. Also, any tweets that have been sent to these same accounts also appear here. You begin to be able to see the conversations that are occurring around your representative.
To enhance this, you'll see images, videos, and act.ly petitions called out so they're easy to spot. And as soon as Twitter figures out what they're doing with retweets, we'll get that integrated in also.
Present
This is about you and your fellow citizens.
At the top, there's a picture that you'll probably recognize along with your name.
Below that, you're already set up to send a respectful message to your representative.
