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super cool to see a similar project! I'll take a look. Yes I use a mix of Gemini and Claude for certain simple categorizing to full impact analysis.

This is what "stories" are which I agree will be the headline eventually but its still in development.

I think if you found me on LinkedIn you'd find this comment very ironic. I'm trying to perfect "stories" more before I make them the main feed since they're the core of bringing news, policy, and social posts together.

The idea is to have ordinary people read their news with the facts and the impacts. You don't need to engage with MSF or your food bank for them to make an impact. Bringing policy impact to news does require engagement - it requires interest. This tool isn't for policy researchers and that is exactly why it's not the exact thing you described. Every day people need to use it not people starving or in a war zone.

Right and the goal with Govbase is to show that disconnect in plain view. Hold representatives accountable to their actions against their words having them right next to each other.

So policy feeds are dynamic news headlines because no one really wants to click on or understands:

"Making further consolidated appropriations for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2026, and for other purposes."

This is similar to how most people don't want to read the raw source bill text which is why it's at the bottom. The reason policies aren't direct links to congress.gov is because I've spent more time than most on congress.gov and the federal register and on one wants to do that.

My first commit on this project was Feb 22, 2025 so I'm sure you're happy to find out there is plenty of "why" to my answers and that these are all my design decisions.

Yes! If you go to the engage tab you can look up some reps and the policies they're sponsoring but I plan on giving impact scores and where certain reps are focusing their time in the future.

Thanks! I'll look into these UX/UI ideas. As for the news, it's front and center because I want Govbase to be a site/app people regularly visit and policy does move slow. Even when a bill is introduced it can take weeks for the actual text content of the bill to show up on congress.gov. Plus on weekends/recess the government doesn't move.

I am planning to bring out more of the impact highlights from the policies to see what's "trending" or what certain reps are working on but just plans for now.

Checkout has been fixed for anyone who wanted to try Pro!

Yes I just noticed this bug today where there is some character limit impacting story headlines. I appreciate the feedback and will be looking into it today.

For context, this is a solo project I've been building over the past year while working full-time. I've been responding as "we" in the comments since I got used to doing it other places lol

Looking for feedback and advice. I'm an engineer, not a journalist or policy researcher, so a lot of this domain is still new to me despite working on it for a year.

Thanks for the feedback! We've tested it on a few different browsers. Can I just get what browser you're using and if on mobile? Thanks!

Thanks! This actually started as a mobile app. I hope you check that out too!