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If you aren't quite ready to update tables with data

markometer10000 1202739563|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » If you aren't quite ready to update tables with data

Our priority right now is to get the voting and super data into the tables. But I know that not everyone is comfortable editing the tables. Here are some things you can do right now if you are looking for a way to participate without updating data on the tables.

1) Tag the state tables. On each state page there is an option at the bottom labeled 'tags' updating these tags will help people find this project when they use a search engine.

For each state we need to enter the following tags (with commas):

California, CA, super delegates, delegates, names, committed, transparency, votes, Clinton, Obama, Democcratic, Primary, 2008, PLEOs, at-large, democracy

Note that for each state, you will need to change the state name and state abbreviation (first two elements)

2) Add links to wikipedia.org entries for all Senators, Representatives and Governors

I guess this is technically editing the table but it should be somewhat simple. To see how to add a link to an outside page, open up edit mode on the Memeber Sites page (left hand panel). I'll repeat that the site is archived as we go so there is no way to permanently mess up a table.

Re: Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

markometer10000 1202699924|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

I'm gonna put Florida on hold and dive into Minnesota.

Re: Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

Lizbeth Marie 1202699243|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

"dibs Oregon when we get there ("shotgun!")"

Oh you just be that way! :p (hehe, fellow Oregonian here)

So I'll take the A's (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona & Arkansas) if nobody else wants 'em.

Re: Election Results broken down by district inquiries

markometer10000 1202686353|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Election Results broken down by district inquiries

Yes, I think this is a good idea. We can cycle back later if there are serious differences in the data. I am going to add that link to the resources page.

Thanks a bunch Lizbeth Marie and Jazz Shaw. Your efforts are really appreciated.

Re: Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

Thersites D Scott 1202684435|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

I'll take Washington, which just had its caucuses, and I dibs Oregon when we get there ("shotgun!")
Scott

Re: Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

BDuncan 1202683674|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

Couple of thoughts on these points: The recounts are suspended and may not be resumed because the candidates probably won't fund them and, where there are recount numbers, they aren't different anyway, so I would suggest just using the original numbers. Also, the votes are shown on a town by town basis on the sos site so in the few cases where a county is broken into two districts it's easy to put the town totals in the right district. Here's the make-up of the districts: http://www.sos.nh.gov/congress.htm

Re: Election Results broken down by district inquiries

Lizbeth Marie 1202675753|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Election Results broken down by district inquiries

I'm also having trouble finding results by CD. I got lucky with CA, but this is not the case with most states' Secretary of State websites. And, like Jazz mentioned, the results are still not even official for another 2-3 weeks in most cases.

My question would be this - Instead of waiting until we're able to get such specific results from each SOS, and then translating from 50+ different formats, is it possible to derive our data from a uniform, respected news source? The vote margin might not be exact, but the totals would at least be from a consistent, easy to follow source I found here:

http://content.usatoday.com/news/politics/election2008/results.aspx?sp=ca&oi=p&rti=e&loc=interstitialskip

…. Which, breaks them down by CD as well as being very close to the totals I got from CA's official SOS website when I did that section.

Considering the goal is to see SD leanings vs. CD vote totals, what do you guys think? (It would enable us to get the info out there quite a bit quicker)

LizBeth Marie

Lizbeth Marie 1202675020|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Introductions » LizBeth Marie

Hello all - I'm from the great state of Oregon and a big fan of politics; especially elections. Even more than that is my belief in transparency :)

I'm a newbie to the world of Wiki, but felt this was an important project to be helping with in whatever capacity I'm able.

Nice to meet you all!

Elizabeth

Re: Classifying the SDs

Jazz Shaw 1202655572|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Classifying the SDs

Current office holders would seem to be the ones most likely to have their feet held to the fire for reflecting the votes in their districts and states. Former office holders have weaker case, as they are no longer really "representing" anyone and are pretty much just legacy actors anyway, in my opinion. Presidents, VPs and the like are probably truly free agents and it's hard to gainsay them on their choices.

The real ones to track, IMHO, are the state party officials who may have never held office. They are the wildcards, but also might see the light in needing to reflect the overall vote of their state's party members who did the voting.

Classifying the SDs

markometer10000 1202598829|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Classifying the SDs

I think there are basically three types of Super Delegates that should be tracked (at the state-level anyways).

1) Those who have SD status because they currently hold office (House members, Governors and Senators)
2) Those who have SD status because of a public office that they previously held (Speaker of the House, etc.)
3) Party officials

I think we need to track the type of SD on the table.

So this would mean reservering the SEO indicator for SDs who currently hold office.

Somebody like Al Gore or Tom Foley should be indicated by something else, I think. Off the top of my head I am thinking LEG for (legacy), but let's talk about it.

Re: SDTP among most active wikis on wikidot

markometer10000 1202588669|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Open Forum » SDTP among most active wikis on wikidot

Thank you Scott.

Here are the answers to your questions.

1. I *think* I have adjusted the setting on the intro forum. Please try again and let me know if there is still a problem.

2. My inclination is to go slow on the supers. At least through the end of February. If you want to jump in and update supers, please feel free. But it is my understanding that some states won't even have their supers lists finalized until March 1. So my gut tells me we should be focusing on the vote totals right not.

That said, this is a collective effort and if you want to take ownership of a table and update the SD statuses, I wouldn't object.

3. The short answer to this is that the SDTP is a visibility project. We will collect and make this information available to journalists, activists and citizens—anyone who wants it.

That said, once we get some momentum I will be opening up a new forum where people can discuss an equitable solution to this looming problem.

That would be about as far as I will want to go with it because once you get into applying pressure on SDs, then personal preference of candidate will start to creep in and I would like to do what we can to keep the effort here non-partisan.

We would certainly be willing to link to other sites that are activating around this information, however.

4. There will are many tables where we will need to add and delete rows. The Lieberman row should be removed from the CT table—please feel free to remove it. The tables that I put up are basically cookie-cutter shells with district level info thrown in. They need work so if you see something that needs to be added or removed, the best course of action is to simply add/remove it on the spot.

The wiki is archived as we go so if there is a problem with your change we can easily recover.

Thanks for signing up and I look forward to working with you.

Re: SDTP among most active wikis on wikidot

Thersites D Scott 1202586061|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Open Forum » SDTP among most active wikis on wikidot

Hi, Mark and everyone else! I'm jazzed that you've gotten this project started — I've been blogging about it, but it's nice to see an organized approach. I've got a few questions/ideas (some of which may already be answered elsewhere on the site - if so, sorry!)

1. Mark: I tried to introduce myself on that forum page, but got an error message saying that only you can do so. Sounds like a setting needs to be tweaked.

2. Are we waiting until after each state's primary/caucus to determine where the supers stand, or do we want to indicate their status if known beforehand? Some of Oregon's supers have endorsed one candidate or the other, which presumably indicates their leaning…

3. In addition to transparency/data acquisition and reporting, are we going to try to impact the delegates? For instance, I spoke yesterday with the press secretary for a prominent Senator, who's a super and who's up for re-election this year, and suggested (during a discussion about other things) that he could gain a lot of grassroots support, and national prominence, if he came out and promised to vote in accordance with the popular vote; her answer was that he's not really focused on the election right now (and I know he's really busy right now), but it seems like we could try and start a movement along those lines waaaaay before the convention that would embarrass the supers into doing the right thing. Similarly, the convention could throw the nomination to Hillary and preserve its ability to pretend it's following the popular will simply by admitting Michigan and Florida's delegates; it would be nice if the supers also pledged NOT to allow that if it would change who won.

Put differently: applying sunshine to this process will do the most good if it's done early, so is that part of our mission?

4. On the table, CT still shows two senators, but Lieberman's been disqualified (yay! why the hell was an Independent a super anyway?), and the state party says he won't be replaced, so there's only one blank now. But I don't want to go deleting whole lines on my own initiative…

Thanks — and I'm very glad to be here! Hiya, Jen.

Thersites D. Scott aka Scott Bellows
Oregon

SDTP among most active wikis on wikidot

markometer10000 1202580086|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Open Forum » SDTP among most active wikis on wikidot

As far as I can tell, there are about 8000 wikis on the wikidot network. Within the last 24 hours the SDTP wiki has cracked the top ten for edits.

Keep up the good work.

Re: Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

markometer10000 1202579770|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

By the way, I will 'adopt' Florida which is where I am located. But this is a good fit in general because I am finding that doing maintenance on the site is pretty time consuming and whichever state I take I will be working on only as time permits. So given that the fate of the Florida delegates is still unknown I will probably be going at about the right pace.

Re: Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

markometer10000 1202578066|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

"Do you want me to just add up the votes rec'd by everyone other than Clinton/Obama and put that number into the column labeled "Other Vote"?"

Yes.

Re: Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

Lizbeth Marie 1202577346|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

Thanks :)

From what I've been reading on Bradblog.com, NH is still a bit of a mess. I'll have to get a human on the line over there to see what we can determine there. The website is very 20th century unfortunately.

Do you want me to just add up the votes rec'd by everyone other than Clinton/Obama and put that number into the column labeled "Other Vote"?

markometer10000

markometer10000 1202573207|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Introductions » markometer10000

Well, I guess I should mention that this whole thing was my idea. I have sort of an on/off relationship with democracy. Sometimes getting involved and sometimes getting a wretched feeling in my stomach when I watch the news.

In general, I am much more into policy than politics but I do believe in transparency.

I'm excited to see what comes of this project.

Re: Sandboxes - a place to practice.

markometer10000 1202566589|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Sandboxes - a place to practice.

Yes that is probably my one and only 'complaint' about editing the wiki. It is difficult to edit the table

Counting probably is the best way to find where one is in the table.

Re: Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

markometer10000 1202564253|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

My initial reaction is use the recount totals. Or is there some dispute about the recount totals?

And you have confirmed what I have suspected—that in some of these states, the CD-level data won't be readily available. In some of these cases we might need to get the vote a precinct-by-precinct basis and then 'build up' to the CD level.

Good job on California

Re: Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

Jazz Shaw 1202563812|%e %b %Y, %H:%M %Z|agohover
in discussion SDTP forums / Main Forum » Adopt-a-State ***PLEASE READ***

They mystery in the New York DNC SD's seems to be resolved. The initial list submitted to me included Representative Gregory Meeks twice, once as an elected Congressman and once as DNC, but the list omitted Vivian Cook (DNC). Substituting her for the missing DNC slot and removing Meeks fills out the list with the correct listed total of 45 SD's from New York. I have also filled in the stated endorsement for all of the SD's who have given such from Democratic Underground. (Virtually all of them go for Clinton, but there are a handful still uncommitted apparently.)

I will ask our contact at the NY Dem Committee on Monday to review the table and submit any errors he sees.

In the meantime, I can go no further with New York until the Board of Elections validates and posts the final election totals and delegate assignments by district. With that in mind, I can take another state to start on if you have any suggestions? I was thinking Pennsylvania is right next door…. ;-)