Merge pull request #108 from kaerumy/gh-pages

Fix typos, grammar, links. Add prefix/suffix issue to lessons learned.

_posts/2014-12-17-popit-central-to-malaysian-transparency-efforts.md

@@ -13,7 +13,7 @@ politicians holding positions in multiple goverment linked companies
 (GLC). With only one government coalition in power since independence,
 many politicians elected and unelected continue to hold important
 positions which affect institutions and the way democracies
-function.[1] A single well designed public database with open API is 
+function. [1] A single well designed public database with open API is 
 needed for Malaysia to build better transparency and governance
 applications.
 
@@ -29,25 +29,27 @@ instance and building applications around it.
 Basic CV information of most parliamentary representatives are not
 easily available. An effort to do surveys in 2013 as part of MyMP
 project and crowdsourcing information lead to only partial information
-of 60 out of 222 MPs.[2] As a result of this, we have learned that to
+of 60 out of 222 MPs. [2] As a result of this, we have learned that to
 build up CVs of past employment and posts held by our representatives to
 know them better, we have to piece together this information from
 various sources.  This reinforces the need to work on a single
 comprehensive database.
 
+[Popit Entry: Datuk Ahmad Husni Hadzlah](https://sinar-malaysia.popit.mysociety.org/persons/545e44b75222837c2c058d60)
+
 Building career history from multiple sources. The history of the
 following representative comes from general elections candidate
 database, website of government statutory body and news archive.
 
-[Popit Entry: Datuk Ahmad Husni Hadzlah](https://sinar-malaysia.popit.mysociety.org/persons/545e44b75222837c2c058d60)
+
 
 ![represenative career](http://sinarproject.org/projects/Datuk%20Ahmad%20Husni%20Hanadzlah.png/image_large)
 
 We have been able to kick start this excercise thanks to generous
-data donation of database of political candidates of past 3 elections
+donation of the database of political candidates of past 3 elections
 including political parties by
 [Malaysiakini.com](http://malaysiakini.com) an online news portal.
-The technical process and code for that will be covered in follow up
+The technical process and code for this will be covered in follow up
 post. 
 
 A fun fact from the import process is that, the Election Commission
@@ -59,20 +61,24 @@ call to track down and merge people.
 
 Some lessons learned during this excercise:
 
+- In countries like Malaysia where democracratic institutions are
+  weak, populating information on representatives often involves
+  putting together bits and pieces of information from lots of
+  different sources.
 - A user friendly, multi-user UI is needed for crowdsourcing
-  https://github.com/mysociety/popit/issues/425 (implemented by
+  [https://github.com/mysociety/popit/issues/425] (implemented by
   MySociety)
 - Updates for each field need to be attributed properly for
-  information integreity.
-  https://github.com/mysociety/popit/issues/26 A workaround
+  information integrity.
+  [https://github.com/mysociety/popit/issues/26] A workaround
   currently being used is general source field. Source per field
   is still needed when other applictions use the database and only
   reference parts of the information. More on this later.
-- Posts are needed in UI https://github.com/mysociety/popit/issues/685
-- In countries like Malaysia where democracratic institutions are
-  weak, populating information on representatives often involves
-  putting together bits and pieces of information from lots of
-  different sources.
+- Posts are needed in web UI
+  [https://github.com/mysociety/popit/issues/685](https://github.com/mysociety/popit/issues/685)
+- Honorary titles for names are used officially a lot in Malaysia, and this would
+  need to be implemented in Popit UI.
+  [https://github.com/mysociety/popit/issues/480](https://github.com/mysociety/popit/issues/480)
 
 ### Accountability and Beneficial Ownership
 
@@ -81,49 +87,55 @@ issue. Public projects and results of policies often take up to several
 years before mismanagement or corruption issues are raised and
 highlighted. It then becomes difficult to trace back who was
 responsible, especially if positions have been shuffled around or the
-companies and departments have been closed down. The Auditor General
-audit reports and press reports rarely note down who was the head of the
-responsible departments or companies.
-
-Public accessible and reliable information on posts held by people,
-especially start and end dates backed by sources in Malaysia's popit
-database is key to building applications and visulizations around them.
-
-Recent news on 3 deputy ministers on board of a government public
-corporate accepting honorariums along with current and past 11 other
-directors stresses this point. We will soon have ability to match this
-information and learn more about the political history and which
-constituency these ministers are from. [4]
-
-This is a long term effort and resources, and Sinar Project is working with
-coalition of several local NGOs consisting of Transparency International
-Malaysia, Institute for Democracy and Economic Affairs, Citizens Network
-for Better Malaysia and Centre to Combat Corruption and Cronyism to
-share research information and support their work with our popit
-database and supporting applications.
+companies and departments have been closed down. [The Auditor General
+audit
+reports](https://www.audit.gov.my/index.php?option=com_content&view=category&id=81&Itemid=299&lang=en)
+and press reports rarely note down who was the head of the responsible
+departments or companies.
+
+Publicly accessible and reliable information on posts held by people,
+especially start and end dates backed by verified sources in Malaysia's
+popit database is key to building applications and visulizations around
+them.
+
+In a recent case, 3 deputy ministers on the board of a government public
+corporation
+[FELCRA](https://sinar-malaysia.popit.mysociety.org/organizations/5493bf893f1cf3f644158dc8)
+accepted honorariums along with current and past 11 other directors.
+We will have the ability to match this information to learn more about
+the political history and which constituency these ministers are from, as
+we build our database and hold them accountable. [4]
+
+This is a long term effort and requires resources, and Sinar Project is
+now working with coalition of several local NGOs consisting of
+[Transparency International Malaysia](http://transparency.org.my), [Institute for Democracy and
+Economic Affairs](http://ideas.org.my), [Citizens Network for Better
+Malaysia](http://citizensnetworkmy.wix.com/home) and [Centre to
+Combat Corruption and Cronyism](http://www.c4center.org) to share research information and support
+their work with our Popit database and supporting applications.
 
 ![GIAT Coalition](https://farm8.staticflickr.com/7560/15427502903_a06ac8d8b3_z.jpg)
 
 ### Political Financing and Clean Elections
 
-Posts for representatives also has an  Area field, which is important
-for analysis to track down political funding. If the Area field [5] is
-mapped to another Poplus component MapIT or Represent Boundaries it will
-provide basic lookup funcationality for finding represenatives, but it
-will allow other NGOs and researchers to see how public funds were spent
-in the constiuencies of various represenatives.
+Posts for representatives also has an Area field, which is important for
+analysis to track down political funding. If the Area field [5] is
+mapped to another Poplus component such as MapIT or Represent Boundaries
+it will not only provide basic lookup functionality for finding
+representatives, but it will allow other NGOs and researchers to see how
+public funds were spent in the constituencies of various represenatives.
 
 ### Continuing work
 
 Thanks to Poplus mini-grant, we have been able to work on this initial import
 excercise, as well as develop initial supporting applications. As a
 result wof this work, we have been funded to continue development and
 build supporting applications for other NGOs to use Popit in Malaysia
-full time for the next 6 months thanks to Southeast Asia Technology and
+with a small full time team for the next 6 months thanks to the  Southeast Asia Technology and
 Transparency Initiative (SEATTI) [6].
 
 Look forward for our next post, where we will cover technical issues,
-import code using Popit-Python and new generic represenatives and issue
+import code using Popit-Python and new generic representatives and issue
 tracking sites using our newly populated Popit database.
 
 [1]: http://transparency.org.my/media-and-publications/reforming-political-financing-publication "Reforming Political Financing, Transparency International Malaysia"