Electowiki talk:The caucus/Archive 2013

This is an archive of community discussions from the main Caucus page

Contents

1 Design

2 Announcements

3 Our "Village Pump"?

4 Problems with software

5 Logo and theme

6 Content contradictions

7 Categories

8 Goals

9 Site stuff

Design

The design is a work-in-progress. I have added the logo and background images from the main Electorama page. I will continue to update the look-and-feel of the site's default skin to match Electorama, but I'm not a CSS or design wizard. DanKeshet 14:36, 26 Jan 2005 (PST)

Announcements

Once this has been announced on the election-methods mailing list and Electorama, I think we should give a chance for the Electorama community to shape it before opening it for wider discussion. We can open it for wider discussion by posting to the appropriate Wikimedia places (Sites that use Wikipedia content; sites that use MediaWiki, etc.), as well as the appropriate voting places. DanKeshet 14:36, 26 Jan 2005 (PST)

Our "Village Pump"?

We should probably have some sort of "Village Pump" type page here. Naming this is always traditionally different on a per Wiki basis, based on the flavor of the Wiki. My proposal would be for "Project:Smoke-filled room" or perhaps "Project:The caucus", but regardless, this page should probably be reserved for discussion of the Main Page. -- RobLa 16:02, 6 Feb 2005 (PST)

I've been bold and done it. DanKeshet 16:50, 9 Feb 2005 (PST)

Problems with software

I've run into two problems:

Math isn't working. This is pretty big. The math software requires ocaml v.3.0.6; our provider offers 3.0.4. We can either bug our provider or compile the new version ourselves. As it would be much easier to bug the provider, and take up considerably less space, I prefer that.

~~Search isn't working. I'm going to look into this.~~ Search wasn't working because of a tiny bug in the rewrite rules. Fixed and it now seems to work. DanKeshet 17:20, 9 Feb 2005 (PST)

Logo and theme

FWIW & IMHO - (orginal comment concerning the logo and name deleted. Glad to see it's fluid and fun-loving!) See post in Project:logo Wegerje 11:12, 31 Jan 2005 (PST) and Wegerje 06:10, 17 Mar 2005 (PST)

Great to see you here, Jeff! The logo was copied from electorama.com. I don't really care much about logos one way or another, but if you can do better, why don't you upload it and post it at Project:logo and if people like it, I can upload it onto the server directly. DanKeshet 11:30, 31 Jan 2005 (PST)

Regarding the name: that's precisely the reason I use these "Project" namespace links. So that we can change the name of that namespace without too much trouble. With Rob's permission, we could change the title to simply: Electorama. -- (unsigned comment by Wegerje 2005)

Feel free to call this the Electorama Wiki or any other name. I'd caution against getting too wrapped up in gravitas, though. We're going to be at this a very long time, so we might as well have some fun along the way. For what it's worth this isn't the first group with grave concerns about the gravitas of their logo.

The goal behind naming the main Electorama site was to avoid going down the same rathole that most electoral reform pages go down. They either use the old red, white, and blue cliche, or some other textbook metaphor for serious stuff. The problem is that these sites often pronounce how boring and ponderous they will be before someone ever gets a good read. I specifically wanted Electorama to be accessible, and chose the theme accordingly.

So, this Wiki doesn't necessarily have to use the same theme as the main Electorama site. What's more, if there's a better theme for the main Electorama site, I'm happy to adopt it there, too. -- RobLa 22:28, 1 Feb 2005 (PST)

Content contradictions

Research thrives in lots of content - the kitchen sink theory - whereas activist "propaganda" thrives in less content - the less is more theory. It will behoove us to craft short, concise, clear activist pages that may point to the dense research pages as needed, but only point and never get bogged down with. Wegerje 11:41, 31 Jan 2005 (PST)

I'm not very worried about this until or unless it becomes a problem, but a custom namespace could always distinguish fact from editorial. DanKeshet 14:57, 31 Jan 2005 (PST)

Categories

The first order of business I've been working on is eliminating all the excessive internal links that make sense in the Wikipedia context, but not here. After that, I'd like to make some more and better categories. Ideas: Category:Ballot type, Category:Single-winner voting systems, Category:Multi-winner voting systems, Category:Condorcet method. DanKeshet 14:55, 13 Feb 2005 (PST)

I have done some of this. What I now hope to do is copy over the remainder of the articles from Wikipedia that I didn't get in the first batch. Also, I'd like to present some new examples that involve important Condorcet cycles, and use them in the articles on Condorcet methods. All Condorcet methods work the same on the Tennesee example, so using it is boring. DanKeshet 15:04, 14 Feb 2005 (PST)

I agree that the Tennesee example is boring! Ideally, examples on each method page should be specifically designed to show particular features of that method. James Green-Armytage 00:11, 19 May 2005 (PDT)

Goals

In the spirit of beginning with the end in mind, it behooves us to have measureable goals.
Suggested by Wegerje 06:10, 17 Mar 2005 (PST)

Become the first page to appear in various Google searches.

Become the source for links in the blogosphere (Often replacing Election Methods.org, no offense Russ)

Providing from page one a clear and inviting path for those seeking:
First time information about electoral methods and why and when some may be better than others

Experts looking for well crafted information and in depth information on electoral knowledge

-- (unsigned comment from Wegerje 06:10, 17 Mar 2005 (PST))

Site stuff

Hi everyone, I'm the sysadmin for this site. I recently have done some upgrading and spam fighting, which unfortunately didn't play out the way I was hoping. Mea culpa. Simple thinko in my configuration changes this weekend, combined with a lack of testing. Before that, it was a "routine" upgrade gone wrong. Next time, I'll post something here, so that you can at least see what's happening.
I'm still reworking the configuration to make things more sustainable, with most of the heavy work this weekend. More later. -- RobLa (talk) 20:26, 11 June 2013 (PDT)

More futzing today. I doing some things to make performance better, and I might reenable QuestyCaptcha (had it before the upgrade). -- RobLa (talk) 13:23, 16 June 2013 (PDT)