Government agencies aren't used to building a website that is overwhelmed with traffic. Usually, the hits and pageviews can be counted on one hand, but when you provide a comprehensive database of all of Ohio's public employees' salaries, that's like thrusting the cutest picture of the cutest little kitten or a video of a Miss America contestant failing to string together one coherent sentence upon the world: it will draw eyeballs.
And so it was yesterday when the "Treasurer's Transparency Project," Josh Mandel's site which allows you to search how many or how few dollars your favorite public employees make, went live. With the curious and jealous eyes of the public eager for a glimpse, and a healthy media blitz to boot, traffic crashed the server.
How much does the guy who made the site make? That's probably a good question.
It wasn't the only problem, however. Inauspicious beginnings also included errors in the data, problems with the search function, and omissions of some officials.
Mandel's office says the situation is now remedied, so if you want to see how much the mayor of Chillicothe makes, you can now spend your day finding out.
