User:RobLa/Journal

From electowiki
From: Rob Lanphier (User:RobLa)
Date: 01:22, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
Updated: at least a couple times in June 2020


This is going to be where keep a journal of my Electowiki-related thoughts and ideas. Sort of like a blog, but I have a blog at https://robla.blog , and that's where I do my "blogging". This will be my journal writing about Electowiki-related stuff. Moreover, my editing of the section for the day will be pretty free form. See my "2020-05-18" entry for more of my thoughts (that I wrote on May 18th).

My journal contains my electoral reform thoughts generally, and might not be specific to Electowiki.

2020

2020-06-05

updated 03:28, 6 June 2020 (UTC)

1/ I'm going to use the bulleted list to break things up today:

I have more thoughts, and things to put on my User:RobLa/TODO, but first, I should go have dinner.

2/ I forgot to mention that the conversation over on the C4ES Discord server yesterday led to that person joining electowiki: User:Acadia. The writeup is here: Approval Scored Voting (ApSV). I haven't had the chance to read this deeply. It's almost certainly going to need to be renamed to conform to the standards here, and the article needs a lot of work, but it's good to have new contributors who are active in other forums.

2020-06-04

updated 22:02, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

1/ Much to talk about today. I added a "fauxheader" template to the top of my journal page. I think I like that format, so that it's really unambiguously clear that each page in my subpage namespace is from me (User:RobLa), so that I don't have to keep referring to myself in the third person. I also just added an "updated" field, so that I can use the "~~~~~" to insert today's date. It's going to add it in UTC, but ... well... we may all have to get used to UTC.

I also accidentally switched into VisualEditor for a second, which ended up changing a LOT of the whitespace in my document. I'm kinda surprised that that happened, but it was fairly easy for me to recover from.

Anyway, I'm adding this journal entry because I wanted to highlight a conversation I've been having over at the C4ES Discord server. One of the people there was promoting "Approval scored voting". It's interesting (to me) how Google Docs is starting to become competitive with wikis as a technology. I still prefer using MediaWiki though, and it seems that the person promoting "approval score voting" may be as well. So we might see them over here.... (?)

2/ I've created Template:fauxheader, and I've even updated this page to use {{fauxheader}}. And I've updated User:RobLa/fauxheader to use Template:fauxheader. Much updating!


2020-06-01

updated 00:33, 2 June 2020 (UTC)


1/ I had a delightful conversation with Robert Bristow-Johnson yesterday. Our email interview has resumed, which electowiki readers can find at User:RobLa/Burlington2009#Interview. I may set up a redirect in the main namespace to that interview.

Also, a couple comments over on reddit about "ranked-choice" vs "instant-runoff" (in EndFPTP) inspired me to reply:

I generally call it IRV/RCV, just to acknowledge the fact that FairVote has successfully co-opted the "ranked choice" name, but also to clarify that I'm specifically referring to the single-winner STV variant known as "Instant runoff-voting" on Wikipedia. I've attempted to document the change in name over on electowiki: https://electowiki.org/wiki/Instant-runoff_voting#Naming

...which I posted after I updated Instant-runoff_voting#Naming.

2020-05-30

updated 23:17, 30 May 2020 (UTC)

1/ This is my first update using VisualEditor. It looks like I need to add "templatedata" to Template:JournalUpdate, so that I can make the UI a little easier to use. That reminds me; I really want to work on porting Electowidget to Lua at some point. So much to do.

Anyway, I keep adding redlinks to this page faster than I'm removing them. For example, I still haven't started a journal over on English Wikipedia, but I plan to: wikipedia:User:RobLa/Journal.

I want to finish up the interview I started with Robert Bristow-Johnson about the Burlington 2009 election: User:RobLa/Burlington2009. I got distracted with some of the debates over here about pseudoanonymous editing (see User:RobLa/Pseudoanonymity). The interview format that I want to work out is one where I ask a question, and get an answer that's no more than a paragraph or two, and isn't too complicated, and isn't too hard just to cut-n-paste into this wiki (for people who aren't really into editing wiki pages). Hopefully, if we can work out a debate format, we can make it easier to have larger discussions, and maybe even have civilized written debates here on electowiki.

I think I want to host a debate or two about things like important election method criteria (User:RobLa/criteria) or many other debatable topics. I want to describe my thoughts on debates at User:RobLa/debates, but not right now.

2020-05-29

updated 21:50, 29 May 2020 (UTC)


1/ I missed yesterday's entry, but made an entry on my journal on a different wiki: meta:User:RobLa/Journal#2020-05-28. I received a reminder yesterday that there's a lot of stuff that I promised to do at the last Miraheze board meeting.

For those just joining us: as of January 2020, I had joined the Miraheze Board. In March 2020, I attended my first board meetings, for which the minutes had been published: (March 6 and March 12). I took on several action items, which I noted on my "TODO" list on the Miraheze "meta" wiki. I agreed to do that stuff before the shutdowns associated with the COVID-19 pandemic really started to kick in. But I've had some time lately, and I want to make a little more progress before the next board meeting. Which should be soon. I should look into when that is...


updated 22:27, 29 May 2020 (UTC)


2/ I found a useful query: All users that have edited electowikiwiki. Note that "electowikiwiki" is this wiki as it existed since 2018, as opposed to electoramawiki, for which there's a different list: All users that have edited electoramawiki


2020-05-27

updated 23:16, 27 May 2020 (UTC)


1/ I've started editing myndmesswiki a little bit more today, and wrote my first journal entry over there in a while (see https://myndmess.miraheze.org/wiki/User:RobLa/Journal#2020-05-27 for my latest journal entry there). Like I said over there, I should pay attention to Special:RecentChanges on this wiki. I should also pay attention to many other special pages (e.g. Special:ActiveUsers, Special:WantedPages, etc). I should create a list of special pages for me to pay closer attention to, and put it at User:RobLa/SpecialPages.

I also want to add some local namespaces over here. I'll describe more about what I want at User:RobLa/LocalNamespaces.

2020-05-26

updated 20:12, 26 May 2020 (UTC)


1/ There's a new category we should probably have: "events". I'm not going to create it yet, but I'm going to create a redlink for User:RobLa/Events, and then create a wiki page there that links to a draft page dedicated to the 2019 elecoral reform symposium. I'll keep it all in my User/RobLa space for now....


updated 22:43, 26 May 2020 (UTC)


2/ I started User:RobLa/Events, and started a section [[[User:RobLa/Events#2019 Electoral Reform Symposium]], which may become User:RobLa/2019 Electoral Reform Symposium and then 2019 Electoral Reform Symposium. We'll see. I also created User:RobLa/ActiveUsers as a means for me to track the folks that have been active in the past 30 days. I may also just make a static copy that I continually update for my own purposes. TBD....

2020-05-25

updated 06:14, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

1/ This will probably be my only update from today. I've made a lot of edits today. RobLa's contributions before end-of-day 2020-05-25. I'm not sure where to begin, but I'm really happy that we have a new contributor: Special:Contributions/Michael P Shannon. See User talk:Michael P Shannon#Welcome for my welcome message.

I'm still considering what I hope to see out of a conflict of interest policy, and have taken the liberty to write up some guidelines. But I also have a lot more thinking and writing to do about the topic, which I'll make findable from User:RobLa/COI -- RobLa (talk) 06:14, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

2020-05-24

updated 00:02, 25 May 2020 (UTC)


1/ I think I want to use Template:JournalUpdate not just here, but on all of the wikis that I edit (even English Wikipedia). It'll involve some copying stuff around. I suppose that my myndmess journal is likely to be my "home" journal, so I'll start there.

And there are some promising developments over on the C4ES Discord server regarding PLACE FAQ and other articles of that ilk. Come join us to see what we're talking about.


updated 01:25, 25 May 2020 (UTC)


2/ Well, I've fallen down the rabbithole of editing again. This time, I've fallen down the rabbithole of editing Template:TopNavCat, which I've copied over from myndmesswiki. There are going to be many redlinks in this journal entry, which seems to be my M.O.


updated 02:13, 25 May 2020 (UTC)


3/ Now I'm mucking with User:RobLa/sandbox and User:RobLa/Ambox. But it's time for me to get back to editing Template:TopNavCat


updated 03:57, 25 May 2020 (UTC)


4/ Yup, myndmesswiki:User:RobLa/Journal is almost certainly going to be my metajournal.


2020-05-23

updated 01:09, 24 May 2020 (UTC)


1/ I didn't get around to filling in yesterday's redlinks. I ended up creating a Discord server to chat with longtime friends (and no, you probably aren't invited :-P ). Creating Discord servers is pretty easy, which of course can lead to fragmentation and silos, but on the plus side, the user ids have an interesting design. I think I want to say more about this over at my myndmess journal myndmesswiki:User:RobLa/Journal when I get a chance.

There was a discussion on the C4ES Discord server about making it easier to find. And (quite awesomely), there is now an easy to remember URL to get to it: https://electionscience.org/discord . We should update the C4ES Discord server page to just link to the new URL.

I should post some of the history of EPOV that I'm writing up over in C4ES Discord over here on this wiki. There's a lot of things I should do, though....


updated 01:25, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

2/ I have some thoughts on "User:RobLa/proof by intimidation". I think I want to make this part of the "Bill of responsibilities" that I'm working on for code of conduct conversations. Hopefully more later....

2020-05-22

updated 23:58, 22 May 2020 (UTC)


1/ I just want to make sure I get this journal update here quickly.....


updated 00:29, 23 May 2020 (UTC)


2/ Whew, got my last edit in before the 23:59:59 (UTC) on 2020-05-22. I'm still going to use 2020-05-22 for today's journal entry, because it's still nice and sunny here in San Francisco on May 22, and I'm not sure that I care that it's 2020-05-23 for everyone in the "UTC+x:00" timezones. I suppose if we get an editor from Japan or Guam or Australia, then we can worry about it. But I suppose it's just one more reason why I should fill in the redlink for User:RobLa/timestamp. And perhaps I should create a redlink for User:RobLa/redlink.

I started doing some editing of the myndmess wiki earlier today, and updating "User:RobLa/Journal" on the myndmess wiki. Since that wiki is a fresh wiki, I can use what I've learned to start fresh and come up with some best current practices for some of the wikis I'm an admin on. I'd love to have y'all help me editing the Myndmess wiki too (I think), though given that we haven't worked out how the editorial board is going to work over here on Electowiki (and what "EPOV" is), I suppose I should pick which wiki I'm going to focus my energy on. TBD....

Anyway, I see that folks already responded to some of my talk page messages for today. I'm going to manually create a link for my contributions for today: RobLa's contributions before end-of-day 2020-05-22. <- That's a template just begging to be written in Lua.

2020-05-21

updated 22:04, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

1/ I've made a couple fixes today, but I've been getting off to a late start (and a late end) every day. I think I'd like to come up with a way of adding "{{contribs|RobLa|before=2020-05-21|tz=PDT}}" to my journal, and having that show up as RobLa's contributions before end-of-day 2020-05-20

Actually, what I'd really like to use is "{{contribs|RobLa|before=~~~~~|tz=PDT}}". The five tilde trick (e.g. ~~~~~ works really well for datestamping raw wikitext, though the timestamps are kind of a mess. Yet another thing for me to write about: User:RobLa/timestamp.

Speaking of things for me to write about, I should write about what someone should find when they visit "compromise" or "pushover" on this wiki. I should write about what I find at User:RobLa/compromise and pushover. I can see by hitting "preview" that (as of this writing) "compromise" is a redlink, but "pushover" isn't. Interesting....

The compromise vs pushover thing came up because I'm really impressed with Clay Shentrup's brief description of "compromise" and "pushover" (see "Strategy with STAR voting and IRV" written 2020-05-20 by Shentrup).

Speaking of Clay Shentrup, it seems that we should allow links in the main namespace for everyone who is notable in the electoral reform community. Not just folks who have published many papers and became academically famous (like Kenneth Arrow and Steven Brams) but folks like Clay Shentrup and Aaron Hamlin and Felix Sargent and everyone who is making a difference today, and is willing to put their name and face behind the cause. And it shouldn't just be white dudes; I realize that United States currency is almost exclusively white dudes, but the names on Electowiki shouldn't be that (even though I'm making that mistake here; d'oh!).

More thoughts here later (today, hopefully...)

2020-05-20

updated 23:06, 20 May 2020 (UTC)


1/ I was going to try using VisualEditor to edit this, but I think I'll still use plain old Wikitext. I'm in the process of convincing C4ES to use "C4ES" as their official abbreviation. Wish me luck!

I suspect how I'm going to use this journal is to create a lot of redlinks for myself, so that I don't have to distract myself by looking up the correct link. For example, the EPOV board (User:RobLa/EPOV board) needs to come up with a policy about user pages (User:RobLa/UserPages). We also need to come up with a policy on pseudoanonymous editing (User:RobLa/Pseudoanonymous) I think I want to get some consensus here for an interwiki link to "myndmess" (a wiki I started as a free Miraheze wiki, see User:RobLa/myndmess to learn more about what I'm talking about). Fortunately, I was able to finish this journal entry before midnight UTC. See User:RobLa/UTC for my thoughts on using UTC for everything....

updated 23:36, 20 May 2020 (UTC)


2/ Oh, that's right, I also wanted to write about what our conflict-of-interest policy is going to be. Since we might have editors closely associated with C4ES or FairVote or any other organization with a possible conflict of interest, that could be a big problem. I really appreciate the leadership shown by the equal.vote, since IIRC, we have two editors from that organization here that have already made significant contributions. I don't always agree with them, but that's not as important as having an honest relationship with the editor community. I'll (probably) say more about this at User:RobLa/COI.

updated 00:28, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

3/ Well, that was dumb. I misspelled a link in the recent change: https://electowiki.org/w/index.php?title=User:RobLa/Pseudoanonymity&oldid=11279 . Ooops! Too late. Well, I guess I can't fix broken links in my Twitter feed, either....


updated RobLa (talk) 00:59, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

4/ Much editing about identity, and User:RobLa/identity. There might be a good discussion about identity over at User_talk:RobLa/identity


updated 07:39, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

5/ I keep adding more redlinks, and not removing things. For example, we have Electowiki:MediaWiki and Help:VisualEditor, but we don't yet have Help:MediaWiki. I'll make that tomorrow, though. In the meantime, it's time to create a TODO item for myself over on User:RobLa/TODO ("fill in redlinks on User:RobLa/Journal")

2020-05-19

v4; updated at 01:22, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

(v1) - Here's a few things I'd like to do today

  • Build a boilerplate for welcoming new Electowiki editors (see User:RobLa/welcome_boilerplate for where I plan to put it)
  • Start a discussion about image policy that isn't on someone's talk page
  • Finish up the talk page discussions I was very recently involved in
  • Continue the User:RobLa/Burlington2009 interview where I dropped it
  • Probably some other things

Since "today" is still 2020-05-19 for me in PDT, I still have a few hours left. :-D That is, I observe Pacific Time, which means that it's only 5:11pm or so here, and it's not even dark yet.

(v2) - Also, I'd like to add a thing or two above to User:RobLa/TODO. And I'd like to create a template for generating the "updated at" thing just below the #2020-05-19 caption. I think I know how I want to do it; I'll probably put it at Template:JournalUpdate.

(v3) - It's been taking me longer than I hoped to create Template:JournalUpdate. MediaWiki templates are big brain teasers. And it looks like I still have another thing to fix. This is what's getting inserted right now when I put "{{JournalUpdate|~~~~~}}":

updated 00:58, 20 May 2020 (UTC)

So I should fix that. And fix "{{JournalUpdate}}" (with no default parameter 1) while I'm at it....

(v4) Template:JournalUpdate is good enough for now. I figured out that this syntax should work for the "v=" parameter to generate the little "v4; " bit at the beginning of the line:

{{JournalUpdate|~~~~~|v=v4; }}

...which is just silly. What I want to be able to write in my wikitext is this:

{{JournalUpdate|~~~~~|v=4}}

Actually, what I really want is to be able to write is this:

{{JournalUpdate}}

...and then have the full line that I'm manually creating get generated, but I'll have to futz with that some other day.


2020-05-18

One key difference between a wiki journal like this one and a blog is that the author can edit the content of the day at any point during the day. And that's what I reserve the right to do. "2020-05-18" doesn't end in this journal until 11:59pm Pacific time. And I may keep editing until 11:59pm Hawaii time (or later). Consider yourselves warned.

As can be seen from my contributions over the past few days, I've been pretty active on this wiki. But not as active as other folks here. It made me a bit worried that we weren't reviewing the content as quickly as we need to.

It's pretty clear that we need to better establish policy on this wiki, so that the Electowiki:Editorial board knows when to step in. And the editorial board is probably going to need to establish a place and a time for private meetings. That hasn't happened yet.

We do have a few unofficial places to chat about Electowiki. See Category:Forum for the list of forums. I should probably add one more, which is the "#electowiki" channel on the C4ES Discord server. Y'all can ping me there; I'm "robla" there, too.

2020-05-04

May the 4th be with you! I have some thoughts about how we should talk about Burlington 2009. I plan to capture them at User:RobLa/Burlington2009.

2020-04-22

In 2020, I've had a few things that I'd like to do with Electowiki. My main role so far has been:

  1. Primary liaison with Miraheze. The site doesn't host itself, and the Miraheze SRE team does an amazing job ensuring the site stays usable. See more about my Miraheze work over at meta:User:RobLa/TODO.
  2. Continuing my role as bureaucrat and administrator for Electowiki.

See User:RobLa/TODO if you're interested in my Electowiki TODO list.

2019

During most of 2019, I was focused on my role as Director of Core Infrastructure at Internet Archive (IA). When I left IA in November, I wrote my "End of a Chapter" blog post on November 5.

In November and December, my activity here on Electowiki really picked up. Additionally, I started speaking with the folks at Miraheze, and by the end of the year, it became clear that I was joining the Miraheze board. See my blog post about the history of Electowiki and my involvement with Miraheze (titled "Why donate to a non-profit with a hard-to-pronounce name?") for a detailed history of why I got into electoral reform and found myself working with Miraheze.

2018

2018 was the year that User:Psephomancy did 90% of the work migrating Electowiki over to Miraheze, and I puttered around for the next year or so doing the last 10%. When it was mostly moved over, I started using Miraheze as a place for drafting up my ideas for MAF and MATT.

MAF and MATT

A couple of new voting systems I worked on in late 2018 as possible alternatives to California's jungle primary:

...and a draft thing:

Retrieved from "https://electowiki.org/wiki/User:RobLa/Journal?oldid=11606"