project to make ballot data available
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One of my hopes for this forum is to have a part of the site that contains ballot data, both from real and simulated elections, that is freely available to the world, in a convenient format.
I'm hoping others who have parsed ballot data will help out. ( @Andy-Dienes! )
Here are a couple examples, currently on my own domain but my hope is to put everything in a static directory on votingtheory.org:
Burlington 2009 ranked data:
https://www.karmatics.com/voting/burlington.txt
here it is in a javascript file, that is very easy to bring in without cross-domain issues:
https://www.karmatics.com/voting/burlington.jsCardinal ballot sample (simulated data):
https://www.karmatics.com/voting/cardinalsample.txt
https://www.karmatics.com/voting/cardinalsample.jsHere is a simple CodePen that brings in both of the above.
https://codepen.io/karmatics/pen/MWVddBYTo use the CodePen, simply click the "get ballot data" button after setting "which" to either 1 or 2. It just gets the urls from the text area, which currently just has the two lines referring to the above js files.
Note that I have parsing functions for ballots (in the formats shown), but they aren't in that CodePen.... I'm working on cleaning all that up and making it available as well. I also want to make CodePens for parsing data from all the weird ugly formats that they are published in..... I've done some, but again, haven't cleaned them up (and they are very sloppy due to being ad hoc).
Hopefully I don't have to explain why all of this can be really useful, use your freakin' imagination if you don't already know!
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@rob this is a noble goal and happy to help. also would point you towards preflib if you haven't seen it yet!
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@andy-dienes I hadn't seen preflib, thanks.
What I am proposing, of course, is intended to be much more approachable and easy for newcomers (including non-coders) to do useful things with. While you don't have to use CodePens, of course, they are really good for easily sharing your work. But mostly the project is about having standard formats (that are ones that we can use in forum posts as well because they are designed for human readability), making available libraries for parsing them into data structures, and so on.
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@rob said in project to make ballot data available:
non-coders
I believe the primary tool for non-coders is any Excel-compatible spreadsheet program, including Google Sheets, Gnumeric, and LibreOffice. Any of these likes to eat CSV, comma-separated variables.
Approval-ordered Llull (letter grades) [10], Score // Llull [9], Score, STAR, Approval, other rated Condorcet [8]; equal-ranked Condorcet [4]; strictly-ranked Condorcet [3]; everything else [0].
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@jack-waugh said in project to make ballot data available:
@rob said in project to make ballot data available:
non-coders
I believe the primary tool for non-coders is any Excel-compatible spreadsheet program, including Google Sheets, Gnumeric, and LibreOffice. Any of these likes to eat CSV, comma-separated variables.
Sorry but ugggh.
I mean, sure, you can use spreadsheets if that's the tool you know, but I'd argue codepens can be quite handy as well, since those who do know how to code can tailor them so non-coders can just paste ballots in (or have them pulled from elsewhere), and choose a method, visualization method. etc. I mean, sure, if you want to work out the logic deeper than that, and spreadsheets are your hammer, ok. But you are going to hit the limitations pretty quick.
Spreadsheets don't have the ability to build on the work of others the way I am envisioning. If I'm wrong, point me to a spreadsheet someone has shared on these forums that is generally useful and meaningful to a wider group, and that someone can take and tweak to do something else and then reshare.
And comma separated sucks, I like formats that are a bit more tailored for human eyes (such as in forums), not for computers. Functions for parsing ballots only has to be done once, and then everyone can just reuse them.
Depends what you are trying to do though.
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@rob said in project to make ballot data available:
those who do know how to code can tailor them so non-coders can just paste ballots in
OK. So that's basically collaboration where coders empower non-coders to participate in the research.
Spreadsheets don't have the ability to build on the work of others
Agreed. The don't compose at all. Every spreadsheet is an idiosyncratic work.
