6.2 KiB
- [X] t1.1: scrape one forum (1)
- [ ] t1.2: initial 4o sentiment
- [ ] t1.2.1: 4o with batch processing
- [ ] X: complete proposal information
[X] t1.1: scrape one forum (1)
Use https://www.townhall.virginia.gov/L/comments.cfm?GDocForumID=452 as the first forum. Scraper should be run manually at this step. ViewComments (townhall.virginia.gov/L/ViewComments.cfm?CommentID=#) appears to be raw list of all comments on forum - could be useful later for whole-scrape Append forum id to viewall per forum (townhall.virginia.gov/L/ViewComments.cfm?GdocForumID=452) Comments are hydrated in backend via js-cued button (AJAX?).
acceptance criteria
-
run manual scraper
- store proposal title and description
- store comment title, commenter, date
- store relevant metadata
- friendly/polite scraping
- store forum as distinct item with title, desc
- add forum ID in comment filename, eg forum452_comments_<datetime>.jsonl
- remove reg_title and reg_desc from each comment; these belong in forum item
- parse datetimes into object for later use (plotting)
notes
- scraper/spiders/forum.py — ForumSpider using ViewComments.cfm?GdocForumID=N with POST pagination. First request fetches page 1 (vPerPage=500), discovers the last page number from the form's link, generates all remaining page requests upfront. Parses each div.Cbox for all required fields.
- scraper/items.py — CommentItem with forum_id, reg_title, reg_desc, comment_id, author, date, title, text
- tests/test_forum_spider.py — 7 tests, all passing
- Settings: DEFAULT_RESPONSE_ENCODING=utf-8 (fixes Windows-1251 meta-tag mismatch), HTTPCACHE_ENABLED=True, feed output to output/
- ViewComments.cfm instead of comments.cfm: POST to Comments.cfm returned a 500 error (wrong endpoint). ViewComments.cfm?GdocForumID=N is the correct listing URL, returns full comment text on the page itself — no per-comment follow requests needed.
- Span-wrapped text: .divComment p::text missed 3.6% of comments where text is in <p><span>text</span></p>. Fixed to .divComment *::text, .divComment::text. Worth knowing for when the spider is extended to other forums.
- start() vs start_requests(): Scrapy 2.13+ deprecates start_requests() in favor of async def start()
- ForumItem vs CommentItem: ForumItem (forum_id, reg_title, reg_desc) yielded once on first page; CommentItem no longer carries reg_title/reg_desc. Both land in the same JSONL feed.
- Dynamic output filename: set via from_crawler() overriding FEEDS at 'spider' priority — format is output/forum{id}_comments_%(time)s.jsonl. FEEDS removed from settings.py; spider owns it.
- Date parsing: _parse_date() normalizes whitespace, upper-cases, parses "%m/%d/%y %I:%M %p" → ISO 8601; falls back to raw string on failure.
[ ] t1.2: initial 4o sentiment
Write a simple manual pipeline for gpt-4o that reads one scraped forum jsonl file and roduces a separate analyzed jsonl file. this step must not mutate scraper output. analysis should classify each comment for regulatory stance, generic tone/sentiment, confidence, and enough rationale/evidence to support later dashboard drilldown. Should be run manually, separate from scraper. You may use scrapy, but are not required to.
- Sentiment is derived, not scraped - keep separate from raw comments.
- keep jsonl as interchange/audit format
acceptance criteria
-
input scraped jsonl doc by filename/path, e.g. "./output/forum452_comments_<datetime>.jsonl"
- handle mixed itemtypes, e.g., forum + comment items
-
output new analysis file, e.g., "analysis/forum452_<datetime>_<model>_<datetime>.jsonl"
- one analysis record per comment
- include run_id, forum_id, comment_id, analyzed_at, model, prompt_version
-
capture stance toward proposed reg/guidance:
- `stance`: support, oppose, neutral, unknown
- `confidence`: 0-1
- short rationale, if provided by model
- capture generic sentiment/tone separately from stance: `tone`=positive, negative, neutral, mixed, unclear
- capture issue/topic tags for later grouping, may be empty
- use .env for api key management
- document the exact prompt version used; prompt text may live in code or docs, but must have a version string/hash in output records
- for this run, an option to run the first N comments (5, 10, 20, 50) - will add batch processing later
notes
- analysis/gpt4o/analysis.py: standalone script; core functions importable for tests.
- Prompt version = SHA-256[:7] of SYSTEM_PROMPT+USER_TEMPLATE; auto-updates on prompt change.
- Output: analysis/gpt4o/forum{id}scrape_tsmodelrun_ts.jsonl, one record per comment.
- –limit {5,10,20,50} for test runs; omit for full corpus. Batch processing planned for later.
- Incremental flush after each record: safe to interrupt and inspect partial output.
- temperature=0.0 for deterministic, reproducible classifications across runs.
- Retry: 3 attempts (delays 1s, 2s) on RateLimitError; all other exceptions → error record + continue.
- openai==2.34.0 installed; python-dotenv already present; key loaded from .env via OPENAI_API_KEY.
- MAX_COMMENT_CHARS=6000: covers >99% without truncation; outliers (e.g. 18k-char law firm brief) flagged with truncated=True.
evidence
- commit:
d834d18 - tests: 20 passing (pytest tests/test_gpt4o_analysis.py), 28 total across suite python ./analysis/gpt4o/analysis.py –limit 5 ./output/f452.jsonl
- date: [2026-05-05 Tue 15:00]
[ ] t1.2.1: 4o with batch processing
acceptance criteria
- input scraped jsonl doc by filename/path, and process the whole thing via batch processing
notes
evidence
- commit:
- tests:
- date:
[ ] X: complete proposal information
Ensure we capture as much useful information as possible about the actual proposal - contact information, etc. what the state actually says about what was posted.
acceptance criteria
-
Item: `Forum` stores id, url, proposal title, description, open/close date, number of comments, agency, board, guidance document id
- add details for guidanceDoc, publication date, comments, guidance docs - eg: https://www.townhall.virginia.gov/L/GDocForum.cfm?GDocForumID=452
- Item: `Comment` stores forum_id, comment_id, author, title, text, date, url