TacomaFIRST 311

The app is getting better with age. It allows you to snap a photo and identify on a map of problems in the city (e.g., lighting outage, trash, abandoned vehicles). It also allows the user to select from categories so the issue is routed to the proper city department/agency. If the City doesn't know about an issue, they can’t address it.

As far as I can tell, the primary purpose of this app is to make it nearly impossible for citizens to request city services. If you manage to negotiate the complex interface, which is far from intuitive, when you've entered all the information and try to submit your request, it will tell you that it can't submit it because you have to either sign in or create an account if you don't have one. It doesn't ask you to do it before you've filled out the request, and if you do it afterward, then you have to start the request process over, since everything you did before has apparently been deleted. At that point you're too angry and disgusted to do it all again, especially since you suspect that if you did, when you reached the end there'd be some new reason why you did it wrong and have to start over. So you give up, and Mission Accomplished: citizen's attempt to request service has been thwarted, meaning city staff has less to do. Don't bother trying to call by phone during business hours, either. The last time I did that I all I got was a recording telling me I have to use the app.

This company encourages transparency when creating requests, meaning they will default to opening requests with your name and email address displayed for the public to see. You have to tell it to open requests anonymously, and if you forget, your personal information gets blasted out to the world to remain public throughout the set retention period (years and years). You cannot edit your requests to anonymous, nor will any city customer support have the ability to update them because it’s “public” information. If you still want to dapple in this app, create your account under an alias and alternate email address to get around this massive flaw. Maybe one day SeeClickFix will realize the public records they collect along the way are filled with bad data because of this flaw and allow for complete anonymity, as they should have from the beginning. They know many use fake names because of this and state it on their website, resulting in inaccurate public information. Why they continue to operate this way is beyond logical.