2018 Programming Puzzles & Code Golf Moderator Election Chat

PhiNotPi

11:58

Election starts today!

I have like two important exams in the next 20-something hours, so I'm not gonna be around for most of the action.

Anonymous

12:58

@PhiNotPi I have my first day at my new job, so I won't be around until T+3 hours or so

Pavel

16:10

@GraceNote Our election page is giving a 404, would you know why that is?

Nominations should still be open for a few hours.

PhiNotPi

nb4 it turns out the election was a mistake

That is kinda weird though, probably needs to get fixed ASAP.

DJMcMayhem

@Pavel not that anyone else was going to run :P

PhiNotPi

Also the page for our first election is down.

Dennis

It's not just us. crypto.stackexchange.com/election

Pavel

Panic!

DJMcMayhem

16:22

@Dennis I don't know if that makes me feel better or worse

PhiNotPi

I say that all three of us win by default.

DJMcMayhem

I'd be OK with that

@PhiNotPi I was already planning on voting for all 3 of us soo... :P

I really like the way SE does STV. It makes votes a lot more honest

Although I guess with 3 candidates and 3 ordered votes, it doesn't really matter. It's just whoever isn't dropped will win

Unless one of us gets a majority right off the bat, but I think it'll be a lot closer than that

PhiNotPi

cough Still not a Condorcet method cough

DJMcMayhem

Huh. TIL

@PhiNotPi What about the Condorcet paradox?

PhiNotPi

That's where the several condorcet methods disagree: what to do when there's no clear winner.

But as a disclaimer, Condorcet methods are for picking the single best winner from a group, not the best group of winners from a group.

So STV might be better for that, but I don't know.

DJMcMayhem

16:34

I don't actually remember the way that SE does STV. Specifically how they calculate the threshold. Is the first one 50%?

And then what are the following thresholds?

PhiNotPi

it's called "Meek STV"

DJMcMayhem

It's described on wikipedia, but I still can't figure out what the threshold is

If the first one is 50%, I highly doubt any of us will get it, so then someone will get dropped

PhiNotPi

Basically, whoever has the fewest 1st place votes loses.

Therefore, when voting, nobody's second or third choices matter.

DJMcMayhem

Well, they will matter if one of use has a landslide and passes the threshold before anyone can be eliminated

Erik the Outgolfer

@PhiNotPi the second choice will matter, the third won't if OpaVote is working well

think of an election like this:

PhiNotPi

16:49

I actually think the threshold is adjusted based on number of seats to fill.

Erik the Outgolfer

+----------+
|POSITION 1|
+----------+
| RESULTS  |
| FROM THE |
| ELECTION |
| FOR THE  |
|  OTHERS  |
+----------+

like, if E is an election with N candidates, then E_0 is first place and the results are E_0+e, where e is an election with all of E's candidates except E_0

if N = 1, then the results are just E_0

PhiNotPi

Also, once we're done with this, we can take the rankings and calculate the exact "political spectrum" of PPCG.

DJMcMayhem

What do you mean?

Erik the Outgolfer

uh

PhiNotPi

If we assume that voter preferences follow some kind of gaussian distribution, then we can place the candidates on that map based on the assumption that each voter votes based on distance from themselves to each candidate.

Erik the Outgolfer

17:01

hm, that error has been going on for too long, raising on mother meta

DJMcMayhem

@PhiNotPi I feel like that would be really hard to do because it would imply we all fall somewhere on a policy spectrum. As in something like Mego would be more strict, Phi in the middle, and DJ more laissez faire (for example) or something like that

(as a purely hypothetical example)

Dennis

@EriktheOutgolfer The devs have already been pinged.

DJMcMayhem

I can't think of any examples of policy spectrums we all clearly fall on

Erik the Outgolfer

@Dennis oh the /error page already notifies the devs? :/

Dennis

No, I talked to a CM.

DJMcMayhem

17:04

Or the mods did

ninja'd

Erik the Outgolfer

@Dennis ...and I wanted the opportunity to raise something on mother meta

guess I won't now :P

quartata

How to speak "programmer" lesson 212: Bugs! "I'm building out a fix for that now!" .... secretly means .... "I wonder what my other foot tastes like!"

Tweeted by tinkertim on February 12, 2018 at 4:59 PM

this is apparently @TimPost speak for working on it

Erik the Outgolfer

what? it seems far from that

quartata

well it was posted 8 minutes ago

Erik the Outgolfer

so the devs are actually tasting their other foot right now instead of fixing the error? >_<

Erik the Outgolfer

17:20

hey, elections are back!

Dennis

On PPCG, at least.

Erik the Outgolfer

oh no they are still broken over Cryptography

Dennis

@EriktheOutgolfer Putting your foot in your mouth is a figure of speech.

Erik the Outgolfer

eh, looks like the point didn't get completely across then :P

Pavel

17:39

Does voting start immediatly after nominations close?

Or do we wait for Grace Note to put words on our meta or something.

DJMcMayhem

@Pavel Yes.

And everyone gets a notification reminding them to vote, in case they weren't paying attention

Pavel

18:07

> Nominations close in 1 hour.

Hype!

PhiNotPi

We should come up with a consolation prize for 3rd.

Erik the Outgolfer

we already have one, and it's called respect for the choice to nominate oneself

Pavel

18:23

Also virtual hugs.

PhiNotPi

"...little did they know that the real treasure was friendship all along."

Anonymous

18:39

@DJMcMayhem Droop quota

DJMcMayhem

OK. So votes/3 + 1, or > 33%?

Actually, in that case, unless votes are split perfectly, one of us will get the first spot before anyone is dropped

Anonymous

floor(votes/(seats + 1)) + 1

Anonymous

So yeah, votes/3 + 1

DJMcMayhem

Yeah, so >33% in this case

PhiNotPi

19:08

I wonder how quickly (after the election starts) that the election is "decided."

Maybe this is similar to finding the largest subset of votes such that an election based only on those votes doesn't come to the same results.

Dennis

20:00

And the bug is back.

Pavel

NOOOOO

PhiNotPi

this is gonna tank participation in this election

Patrick Roberts

This happened before?

Pavel

Earlier today

Mr. Xcoder

> Please cast your vote!!! – Ooops, Error 500!

Pavel

20:01

**panic intensifies**

Mr. Xcoder

ಠ_ಠ

4

PhiNotPi

Also plz see if they can re-ping people to participate.

Patrick Roberts

Just make absolute sure it works before you re-ping or I'm gonna flip a table

Pavel

(ノ°Д°）ノ︵ ┻━┻

Mr. Xcoder

Addressed.

Patrick Roberts

20:07

Man, I just saw the edit history for that deleted candidate, was he trolling?

Dennis

That's a rhetorical question, right?

Patrick Roberts

No, maybe he actually thought those were appropriate answers? It's not unlike the answers world politicians these days might give.

Dennis

Their nomination was a lot more obvious than their questionnaire answers.

Included a link to a Patreon that offered adoption as a reward.

SEJPM

So the election page errors out for all of you as well?

This seems to be a network-wide problem

Patrick Roberts

I don't see the link you were talking about @Dennis

SEJPM

20:19

(also applies to Crypto.SE)

Patrick Roberts

@SEJPM codegolf.meta.stackexchange.com/q/14808/42091

tl;dr it's not network-wide, PPCG and crypto are just that special

Dennis

@PatrickRoberts The nomination has since been deleted.

SEJPM

@PatrickRoberts I think it's about an on-going election?

Patrick Roberts

I can see the deleted post but I don't see an external link in the edit history

SEJPM

so space and webmasters have no elections on-going, unlike ppcg and crypto

mbomb007

20:22

Yeah, I can't get there, either.

Dennis

@PatrickRoberts The deleted questionnaire answers or the deleted nomination?

Patrick Roberts

@Dennis Ohh.. I didn't realize there were two separate answers. All I see are the questionnaire answers

DJMcMayhem

@PatrickRoberts The patreon link was in the deleted nomination

@Dennis Speaking of the troll nomination, I received a rude email from him after he was suspended. Do you think I should report it?

Patrick Roberts

@DJMcMayhem based on my experience you would receive sympathy but little to no actual help if you reported it.

Dennis

@PatrickRoberts The nominations are on the (currently broken) codegolf.stackexchange.com/election page.

SEJPM

20:27

BTW, am I reading your questionnaire right that you actually only had 3 self-nominations as well?

Dennis

@DJMcMayhem I'll add an annotation to their profile.

DJMcMayhem

@SEJPM Mod nominations are only self-nominations.

So yes, there were 3 self-nominations this year

Dennis

We had more, but the others had to be removed.

SEJPM

So they were outright trolls?

Dennis

No, just the one.

SEJPM

20:30

So presumably every nominee is gonna get a vote then and it comes down to order :)

Oh well, time to read the questionnaire, to make an informed vote when the election page is back up

Pavel

@SEJPM hint hint vote Mego

SEJPM

@Pavel pls, I have three votes, what should I do with the other two :P

Also I'll vote for Mego in any case, dunno yet with which of my three votes though :p

El'endia Starman

@SEJPM Technically, you don't actually have to vote for any candidate.

SEJPM

@El'endiaStarman well sure, but then I wouldn't get no fancy badge :(

PhiNotPi

@Pavel better hint: vote Phi

El'endia Starman

20:43

I thought the badges were simply for visiting the election page?

Pavel

@SEJPM I believe you only need to visit the page and have enough rep for the badge.

Patrick Roberts

I mean this genuinely, I think all the candidates still running are respectable and qualified, and I look forward to seeing them make PPCG great again! ™

SEJPM

> Vote for a candidate in the final phase of an election

also
_"Visit an election during any phase of an active election and have enough reputation to cast a vote"_

El'endia Starman

Ah, I stand corrected. My point still stands, actually: you don't need to use all three votes.

DJMcMayhem

I think technically you could use just your third vote for example

SEJPM

20:45

@DJMcMayhem I think you have to give them in order

Mr. Xcoder

No I don't think so.

But I may be wrong

How come the election pages be down right when the elections start...

SEJPM

@Mr.Xcoder I blame PPCG

Mr. Xcoder

I blame SE.

SEJPM

crypto's final election phase has been on-going for 7 days w/o issues before :P

and just when PPCG entered the final phase, things broke

@Mr.Xcoder Blaming SE is of course always the right reaction.

The bug has been posted on Meta.SE as well:

6

Q: Active election pages are broken network-wide

It appears that all the election pages where an active election is supposed to be underway are broken network-wide Programming Code Golf (PCG Meta) Crypto Sites without an election are working fine Webmasters Space Cooking (In Nominations)

Pavel

21:06

Dennis

21:19

The election page is back!

El'endia Starman

Woohoo! Voted.

Mr. Xcoder

I’ve done my voting. Good luck to all candidates and may the best ~~janitor~~ moderator win!

DJMcMayhem

21:42

@Mr.Xcoder Hopefully the best two ~~janitors~~ moderators win :P

El'endia Starman

Having had an actual janitorial job, I can attest that modship is better.

mbomb007

22:03

When @Mego and @DJMcMayhem said in their nominations that they participate in the Charcoal project, I was thinking of Charcoal

Squash some spam with that

micsthepick

22:24

DJ and Mego have such similar candidate scores and they're both in charcoal, I don't know which one to chose above the other...

@mbomb007 rewrites entire charcoal project in charcoal

Pavel

@micsthepick Mego has, in my experience, been much more effective at moderating TNB as an RO.

Not that Dj does a bad job, I think Mego is just even better.

Patrick Roberts

22:44

I voted for all the candidates (but I'm not saying which order). I took my duty seriously though, did my research, yada yada.

Just adding my two cents, I think it's beneficial to vote for someone who has a solid track record of coming online consistently for a long time.

micsthepick

I agree

and I did vote for all three

micsthepick

23:25

Hey @PhiNotPi

PhiNotPi

23:40

Hello

micsthepick

how often do you visit PPCG?

PhiNotPi

I am king of lurkers.

I mean, I don't have numbers. I did earn the 100-day consecutive badge at one point, although several people surpass that.

@micsthepick Ooh, I do have numbers: visited a total of 1683 days.

micsthepick

That is quite impressive

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2018 Programming Puzzles & Code Golf …