Government

United States: Removed "Official Language" and Liberty Dollar as form of Currency

2008-07-03T16:55:01.0005Z

Removed "Official Language" as per Wikipedia entry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_States

Removed "Liberty Dollar" as it is not a currency in itself, but rather a unit of currency.

Larry Craig: Removed "homosexual" from sexual orientation

2008-06-27T23:34:53.0012Z

Also removed "alleged cocaine use", which is not a drug. Also, information should be more than alleged to be included.

Larry Craig: Removed "homosexual" from sexual orientation

2008-06-27T23:33:02.0005Z

This is not his self-proclaimed sexual orientation, so it should not be included.

Political party: Leadership Property

2008-06-27T22:49:24.0012Z

Good suggestion. We probably need a leadership CVT, to hold person, party, title, and dates of office. Alternately, we could add the type "Employer" as an included type, and use that instead, but I'm not sure how accurate that is -- I imagine a lot of political parties don't pay their leadership.

United States: Liberty Dollar

2008-06-27T16:52:19.0005Z

I don't know that this can be rightfully linked as a form of currency inside the US as it is not recognized by the Federal government.

By the same token, the United States has no official language, although English is the predominant language.

Political party: Leadership Property

2008-06-27T14:17:56.0012Z

Can you add a property for leadership which would point to a person?

Government Agency: Funding?

2008-06-25T20:09:46.0000Z

I think what Jeff is suggesting is right on the money, no pun intended.

Government Agency: Funding?

2008-06-24T21:21:11.0012Z

I think that a relatively simple CVT as Jeff proposes would suffice to say things like, “The FY 2007 budget of the Department of Homeland Security was G$44.9.” Sources and breakdowns could be added to that CVT later if there is real demand.

Federal Bureau of Investigation: Additional types

2008-06-24T21:19:05.0005Z

That’s not a bad idea. I see you’ve also posted it on the Government Agency type; I’ll join the discussion there.

Government Agency: Funding?

2008-06-24T19:17:55.0000Z

Not to be difficult here, but most agencies (and organizations) receive "funding" from multiple sources. I would suggest "operating budget" or something else more inclusive sounding to describe how much money was available for use during a certain time period. Either that or add a "Funding source" property to the CVT if you want to be specific about funding.

Government Agency: Funding?

2008-06-24T18:18:21.0012Z

They do seem reasonable. For funding, would a simple CVT that had properties for currency, amount, and year be sufficient?

Government Agency: Funding?

2008-06-23T21:21:50.0005Z

I added a comment to the FBI page, but perhaps it is better suited here. Could a "funding" property be added to the agency? Also, how about a "number of employees" property? These both seem reasonable and necessary.

Federal Bureau of Investigation: Additional types

2008-06-23T21:15:50.0000Z

I meant property, not type. My apologies.

Federal Bureau of Investigation: Additional types

2008-06-23T21:15:28.0012Z

Could government agencies be given the type "Funding"? It seems the amount of money given to them each year is probably worthy of note.

New York: Merge

2008-06-19T21:49:26.0000Z

This is New York state and the other is New York City.

Government Agency: Suggestions for additional properties for Government Agency Type

2008-06-09T17:04:21.0000Z

Yeah, level of government is complicated. Not all countries are the same, nor are all cities. Some have metro bodies that encompass more than one locality.

I think I've always done 3 levels, and they can mean whatever it means for that country: Federal, Regional, Local:

Federal=country level only
Regional=provinces, states, cantons, administrative divisions (like Spain), or even cross-provincial entities
Local=below state regional (i.e., cities, metro agencies)

I'm not saying that is the best way to go or anything, but just an example.

Government Agency: Government "Agency" vs. "Body"

2008-06-09T16:57:04.0000Z

I disagree. I think at the federal level it would be the country's congress or equiv. It is not an agency (yes it may have employees but I still think it is a "body"), and I think it is a valid distinction. Yes, it is limited in use, but still a distinction. (most govt entities will be an agency)

Government Agency: Government "Agency" vs. "Body"

2008-06-08T17:43:27.0005Z

I am a little anxious about saying anything as a big old newbie, but I don't think the disctinction between "governmental body" and "government agency" is valid, either legally or practically except in limited circumstances. The distinction seems to swing on whether the "body" has employees, in which case it becomes an "agency."

Many government agencies that have employees also have boatloads of politicians who are elected or appointed to leadership or managerial roles in that agency: the FCC, for example.

Second, there are virtually no "government bodies" that are composed of politicians only. Courts, many city councils, legislatures all have employees, even though the people calling the shots in those entities were elected or appointed through the political process. They all have employees / flunkies to carry out the directives of the decision-makers.

The division between government "body" and government "agency" does not take into account the realities of modern government, wherein various "bodies" have employees and "agencies" have politicians on board.

Just my thoughts, but I believe the distinction is artificial. I think that categories based upon the legal status of the entity, such as belonging to the executive, legislative or judicial branches would be a better starting point. The three branches of government are not just a taxonomy, but tell something about the nature and powers of the entities that belong to them.

Thanks for your help! Dennis

Election campaign: Should this link to Political District

2008-05-06T03:09:49.0007Z

Ed, take a look at any of the California legislature or Congressional seats to see how this is modeled with the Primary Election type, for example, this year’s race for the 8th California Congressional District seat, currently held by Nancy Pelosi. There are three primary elections, as well as one write-in candidate who (assuming she collects enough signatures) goes directly to the main ballot.

The presidential model is much messier, since strictly only the Electoral College elects the president, and in some states, the primary is binding on the delegates, while in other states it is advisory or supplemental. No one has taken on the task of modeling this hugely complicated structure yet. Consider also that in November, different sets of candidates will be on the ballot in different states; one would really need to model each state’s presidential election as a separate thing, which is just fantastically messy.

Got a compelling use case? (-:

Election campaign: Should this link to Political District

2008-05-06T02:23:55.0000Z

How about making this type nested, where sub-campaigns are linked to larger ones? For example, we are about to have our NC primaries. Some of the people are running for national seats. There is currently no way to link these state-wide election campaigns to the national ones.

Mexico City: Merge?

2008-05-05T19:39:40.0005Z

According to WP, Mexico City and Distrito Federal are the same, and they have redirected Distrito Federal to Mexico City. We should merge.

United Kingdom: Don't merge!

2008-04-22T16:25:12.0012Z

Don't merge! The UK is a country; Great Britain is an island. There is some overlap, but I believe we have (eg.) Australia in here as both a continent and a country, as the political entity is different from the physical geography; this should work similarly.

San Francisco: Merge

2008-04-18T21:01:04.0005Z

This topic has links associated with it, so it should be merged with the "official" San Francisco topic.

Abraham Lincoln: Truly a great President

2008-04-01T01:53:08.0005Z

Truly a great President

San Francisco: Uhm, just one San Francisco is enough

2008-03-20T01:17:14.0000Z

Definitely a duplicate, Faye. My last edit was a gardening operation that ran with my username. I've marked this for merge.

San Francisco: Uhm, just one San Francisco is enough

2008-03-19T23:29:38.0005Z

Bryan, isn't this a duplicate? I only hestiate to request a merge/delete because the history shows that you last edited this topic.

New York: Merge

2008-03-14T19:19:17.0000Z

This still needs to be merged to other

Election: Canadian Elections

2008-01-31T19:20:39.0007Z

Types can only be modified by a domain administrator. So what I would recommend is that you create an "election campaign" type in your private domain to link the campaign contribution type to; it shouldn't have any properties other than those needed for the contribution model. This type would be added as an additional type to the Kevin Falcon (or any other) campaign topic. Note that this would only be a temporary measure, but will allow you to experiment with the contribution types in your private domain, without needing to rely on an administrator. If we ultimately end up moving the types to the governement domain, we would then hook the contribution type(s) directly to the main election type, rather than moving your election type over.

Election: Canadian Elections

2008-01-31T00:37:49.0000Z

I'm getting it - slowly, thank you all for your patience and answers.

So I've laid out the campaign for Kevin Falcon so that it makes sense. Now I'm trying to set up the campaign contribution type so its a part of each Election campaign type. Am I able to add that or does the person who created it need to. Perhaps you can lead me through this again so I can learn the terminology.

The end result should be that when I look at Falcon's campaign entry there should be a Campaign Contribution entry on the right hand part of the page.

Cheers from the snowyn Pacific Northwest

Ray

Election: Canadian Elections

2008-01-30T19:32:37.0007Z

I would hate to have to go this way -- it would be insanely complex. (We actually tried this briefly with the government positions schemata, and had to scrap it because it was too unwieldy.) The election shemata are intended work for just about any election; if they don't, we should try to modify them.

Election: A note about elections in Canada

2008-01-30T19:30:22.0007Z

Thanks for the information. We designed the election schema to be as broadly applicable as possible, and I think it should work well with the Canadian system. Each riding should have an election topic for every election (separate elections for provincial and federal); there would be no election topics for premiers or prime ministers. Does this help?

Election: Canadian Elections

2008-01-30T02:55:29.0005Z

Would it make more sense to add domains like Canadian Elections, German Elections etc. and create sub systems that support each of their different systems? Instinctively this doesn't feel right, but perhaps it will be easier in the long run.

Ray

Election: A note about elections in Canada

2008-01-30T02:18:06.0012Z

I thought it might be helpful to explain one of the differences between our systems. It may be why I'm struggling to sort some of these things in my mind.

In our provinces the government reps (MLAs) are all elected in their own individual ridings. The leader (Premier) is not elected separately - he runs in his own riding and is selected as leader by his own party. If the party wins the most seats - they form the next government. Local municipal elections are all run in separate elections - never at the same time. Its much more streamlined (simpler) - not necessarily better, but easier to understand.

Federally is very similar - we don't vote for our leader (Prime Minister). We vote for a local rep (MP) and the party who wins the most seats (ridings) forms the government and gets to choose the leader.

Where I live I have one Provincial rep and one Federal rep - that's it. We don't ever have an occasion to hold a Provincial election at the same time as a Federal election.

Does this help? Forgive me if you already understand this.

Ray

Election campaign: Should this link to Political District

2008-01-30T01:36:14.0000Z

Okay - I suspect that the 3 entries under the campaign has come in through the campaign contributions and my incorrect setup. I'll make the corrections as you suggest and see how it looks.

I'm not finding it as intuitive as I'd like - thinking that others may struggle as well. To me an election is broader - such as BC General Election. A campaign would be the battles for individual seats or ridings that make up the general election boundary. In terms of your system the General Election is this fall, but campaigns would be waged for seats all across the country.

I'll keep at it though.

Ray

Election campaign: Should this link to Political District

2008-01-30T00:29:59.0000Z

The Election campaign links to an Election, which is linked to a district. I notice you have Kevin Falcon running for British Columbia general election 2005 (in three separate campaigns, no less!); instead, he should run for a particular seat. Surrey Cloverdale Riding 2005 should be an Election, not an Election campaign; Kevin Falcon for BC Parliament 2005 should be an Election campaign contesting that election. Does that make more sense?

Political District: How is this different than Government Jurisdiction?

2008-01-30T00:16:36.0007Z

It should translate; a parliamentary riding would be a kind of Political District. But they aren’t always electoral; for example, in the United States, federal courts are given districts that hear appeals from certain states, but the judges are not elected to those positions.

Governmental Jurisdiction: Why not use Location for this

2008-01-30T00:15:08.0000Z

Sure; San Francisco is indeed a different Location from the Sunset District. But San Francisco is also a Governmental Jurisdiction, and so has a “Government Positions” property and a “Government Bodies” property. The Sunset District is not a Governmental Jurisdiction, and so does not have those properties, which would not be meaningful there.

By analogy, Arnold Schwarzenegger is a Film Actor and a Politician, as well as a Person. It would not make sense to have “Film Performances” or “Government Positions Held” properties on Person, as they would go unused for most people. So we make special types, which include Person. Similarly,”Government Bodies” does not make sense as a property for Coney Island, the Atlantic Ocean, or my house. The property does make sense for cities, states, provinces, nations, etc., so we have a type for modeling those entities.

Does that help?

Election campaign: Should this link to Political District

2008-01-29T21:09:24.0005Z

Can a property be added to this type that links to its Political District? What is the best process to ask for this type of thing?

Ray

Governmental Jurisdiction: Why not use Location for this

2008-01-29T16:18:32.0007Z

Got it - but in theory couldn't you create a location for each instance of these that are different. The name of the location would describe what it was. Or to use my other term Electoral District could have a property called Jurisdiction, which would point to a location that describes the area covered.

I know this may be too much of an effort to "normalize" the structure instead of just free flowing with types and sub types. I'll get the hang of this yet.....

Political District: How is this different than Government Jurisdiction?

2008-01-29T15:02:29.0000Z

Okay I think that will translate to the Canadian system. Is Electoral District a better term to consider than Political District? It seems a bit more descriptive.

Are you tired of my questions yet? :)

Election campaign: Campaign contirbutors

2008-01-29T05:50:27.0000Z

What if you made a campaign contributor type without any included types and add this as an expected type of a contributor property of a campaign contribution type. Reciprocate the contribution type back to the contributor type through its new suggested property. This way, any person, corporation or other could be tagged as a campaign contributor and queried by type or contribution amount through the contributor and contribution types as well as by the co-types of the various contributors. This approach might be a little simpler for data entry and more flexible for queries.

Political District: How is this different than Government Jurisdiction?

2008-01-29T05:19:08.0007Z

A Political District is only part of a Governmental Jurisdiction. For example, the U.S. Congress has jurisdiction over the United States; Nancy Pelosi is the representative from the 8th district of California, but rather than having jurisdiction over that district, she votes (as part of a legislative body) on laws that govern the entire United States.

Governmental Jurisdiction: Why not use Location for this

2008-01-29T05:13:30.0000Z

The answer lies in reciprocal properties. A Governmental Jurisdiction has a government body (or bodies) and government offices associated with it. San Francisco has a city & county government, a mayor, a sheriff, and a board of supervisors; the Sunset district of SF has none of those things, nor does 631 Howard St. in San Francisco, so a Governmental Jurisidiction allows us to be more precise about what properties a place has that may not be applicable to every Location.

Election campaign: Campaign contirbutors

2008-01-29T05:10:46.0000Z

This sounds reasonable, Ray. Note that a campaign right now has a “Total amount raised” property; it could also have one or more properties for contributions, as you point out. I would encourage you to create a test contribution type in your own domain and play with it for a bit. Some interesting questions that come to mind are how to distinguish—or whether it’s important to distinguish—direct cash contributions, in-kind contributions, indirect contributions, and aggregators as well as personal vs. corporate contributions. And what about estimated contributions for politicians in countries without strict reporting requirements, or substantiated allegations of unreported contributions?

Political District: How is this different than Government Jurisdiction?

2008-01-29T02:54:53.0012Z

Isn't this a type of jurisction. An Electoral District should define the area in question for an election. Wouldn't each of them be an instance of the type "Location". Perhaps a location could have ZIP or Postal Code as a property which would allow them to be included in Electoral Districts.

If this makes any sense my suggestion would be to remove Government Jurisdiction and Political District. Make those records instances of Location.

Ray

Governmental Jurisdiction: Why not use Location for this

2008-01-29T01:36:02.0012Z

Why can't location be used to represent an area of jurisdiction?

Ray

Election campaign: Campaign contirbutors

2008-01-29T01:22:12.0005Z

I'd like to find a way of linking campaign contributors to election campaigns. I think that a new type under Government would be the way to do it. The type would include a property linked to election campaign.

I think it would take 3 types - Campaign contributor - personal, Campaign contributor - corporate and Campaign contributor - Other. That way direct links to person and corporation could be included as properties.

Am I on the right path.

Ray

New York: Merge

2008-01-09T21:31:52.0012Z

Merge with New York, New York (id = /guid/9202a8c04000641f80000000002f8906)

Government Agency: Suggestions for additional properties for Government Agency Type

2007-11-13T00:25:27.0007Z

Sounds like we're in agreement about the predecessor/successor model. Level of government is an interesting problem. Part of the problem is nomenclature -- "national" and "local" are fairly straightforward, although there can be several levels of government that are arguably "local" (in the US, city/town/village and township are pretty clearly local, and I would guess county is as well). But for the in-between level(s), I'm not sure -- at what point does an administrative division stop being local and start being "state"-level? Are Italian provinces "local" or "regional" (they sit below "region" but above "comune" in terms of hierarchy)? I also wonder if this could just be inferred from the jurisdiction itself? (I.e., this agency has a jurisdiction of something that is a city, therefore it is local?)

Government Agency: Suggestions for additional properties for Government Agency Type

2007-11-10T22:27:06.0007Z

Scratch my comment about a single government agency splitting in two, as I realized after I posted this that that defines a predecessor/successor relationship! I guess Jeff's suggestion is the best, that a split would involve two or more agencies being separated and that merger would involve two or more agencies being brought together.

On the issue Jeff raised of a "an agency spawning off a section of itself into a new agency, but without dissolving the parent agency," I think you're still looking there at a predecessor relationship. The new agency's predecessor is the parent agency that remains behind.