User:RobLa
From: Rob Lanphier (User:RobLa) Date: 06:24, 27 January 2005 Updated: 12:27, 3 March 2022 (UTC) Subject: One of 10,000 homepages for robla
This wiki page was created by Rob Lanphier back in 2005. You can see the history of this page to see it all.[1] I'm going to start writing about myself in the first person now....
I am Rob Lanphier (a.k.a. "RobLa"). I'm a co-founder of electowiki (in 2005), the founder of "Electorama!" (in 2003) and the founder of the election-methods mailing list (in 1996). I also have a thing or two to do with a couple of other wikis (e.g. see my user pages at other wikis like w:User:RobLa and meta:User:RobLa and RobLaWiki) If you're new to this wiki, please see User:RobLa/Welcome, which will hopefully give you some good advice about working with me. I keep a blog, of sorts at User:RobLa/Journal, but I also have a blog at https://robla.blog. As of 2020-05-30, I keep User:RobLa/Journal more up-to-date.
Journal
- main: User:RobLa/Journal
My journal about my editing of electowiki can be found at User:RobLa/Journal. Because this is a wiki, I reserve the right to edit any journal entry you see on that page. But I'll try not to muck with the page history.
A brief summary from the highlights of that journal:
2023
2022
2021
2020
- May 2020 - this is when I really started getting into the habit of journaling my electowiki-editing thoughts. It really picked up steam around May 19, when I started to figure out how I could make a sustainable habit out if it.
- April 2020 - April 22 was my only journal entry in April. That makes me sad.
Since 2020 isn't over yet (as I write on May 27), this isn't yet a good summary of 2020.
2019
I summarize that year pretty well in my journal. See User:RobLa/Journal#2019 to read more.
2018
I summarized 2018 in the User:RobLa/Journal as well.
Identity
- main page: User:RobLa/identity
As of this writing in May 2020, there's not a set of norms here on electowiki for associating one's online identity here on Miraheze with online identities elsewhere (e.g. on reddit, or on the C4ES Discord server, or on [[Wikipedia).
Also as of this writing in May 2020, I'm trying to lead by example. You can find more about my online identity by visiting User:RobLa/identity.
Norms
- see also: User:RobLa/norms
As of this writing (in May 2020), we have a few norms at electowiki. Some of them we inherited from electoramawiki (see User:RobLa/ElectoramaWiki), and others we've developed since our 2018 migration to Miraheze. I have many more thoughts on this subject that I hope to elaborate on at User:RobLa/norms
Welcome
- main page: User:RobLa/Welcome
If you're a new editor: welcome! Please read User:RobLa/Welcome! I wrote that letter to you!
Software
I've written some election-related software over the years:
- Current
- awt (ABIF Web Tool) ― A web-based election calculator supporting text-based ballot entry using Aggregated Ballot Information Format (ABIF). This produces beatpath diagrams, preference matrices, IRV/RCV results, and STAR Voting results.
- abiftool ― A Python-based command-line utility and library (abiflib) which provides more flexible options than awt. The provided "abiflib" library is what is used by awt.
- Old stuff
- Electowidget ― a PHP4 library and plugin for MediaWiki designed to make it possible to conduct Internet polls and elections using many different voting systems.
- robla.net "Pairwise Method Demonstration" ― I wrote an article for The Perl Journal about this in 1996 (see robla.net/1996/TPJ). There are many things that should be fixed about this. This was perhaps the original inspiration for ABIF and awt. (See also: the archive.org page of the script when it was hosted on eskimo.com)
About Electowiki
- main: Electowiki:About
I founded electorama.com in 2003, and started wiki.electorama.com with User:DanKeshet in 2005 (I paid the hosting bills; DanKeshet actually set it up, calling it "Electowiki"). Then DanKeshet left it in my hands late in 2005, and I did a lot of MediaWiki contracting work, culminating in a day job as Director of Open Source for Linden Lab. Part of my day job at Linden Lab was maintaining a MediaWiki-based wiki at wiki.secondlife.com, so maintaining wiki.electorama.com didn't seem too hard. Plus I had lots of volunteer help. Then I left my day job at Linden Lab in 2009, and did a lot of MediaWiki plugin development (and spent way too much time trying to fix Mediawiki bug 4421, which was migrated from Bugzilla to Phabricator by my team at Wikimedia Foundation, but is still open as Phab task T6421). Then I tried to keep wiki.electorama.com up and running while I worked at Wikimedia Foundation trying to keep Wikipedia up and running. Between 2006 and 2018, spambots made it almost impossible to have an open wiki, so I kept restricting access to Electowiki, and wasn't able to figure out how to make my clever web-of-trust plugins for MediaWiki work.
User:Psephomancy bugged me for a year, starting in 2017, which ultimately culminated in them snarfing the content off of wiki.electorama.com and hosting it at electowiki.miraheze.org. I saw the ported site, and said to myself "ooo...nice work!". I put the porting work of Electowiki on hold during my 2019 dayjob, but I've done a lot more work since then (especially in 2020). I've joined the Miraheze board, and I try to help out every so often. And I'm a frequent contributor to Electowiki.
More information about me can be found on my homepage (robla.net) or over on m:User:RobLa (the main user page for me on miraheze.org) .
Conclusion
In conclusion, you should edit electowiki! So please, go forth and edit.