Jim Andrews
Since the beginning
Works in Victoria Canada

ARTBASE (2)
BIO
Jim Andrews does http://vispo.com . He is a poet-programmer and audio guy. His work explores the new media possibilities of poetry, and seeks to synthesize the poetical with other arts and media.
Discussions (847) Opportunities (2) Events (14) Jobs (0)
DISCUSSION

Re: Re: Re: Re: proposal order


> If I recall correctly, an explanation on how the proposals are
> presented by the system was provided and states that projects that
> haven't received many votes will automatically move to the front so
> that later voters will see them first. I think randomizing it would
> have been fairer but at least there is something there to ensure that
> all projects are presented to people.
>
> Pall

Sorry, I missed that.

I agree that randomizing it would be better. Randomizing it in the sense
that the order in which the proposals are viewed by any particular voter is
fixed but random. In other words, when a voter logs in, a random permutation
of the numbers 1 to 195 (or however many proposals there are) is associated
with that voter, and that's the order that voter will see the proposals in
for that session.

That way, there should be no statistically significant relation between the
number of votes a proposal receives and the order in which the proposals are
viewed--overall (over all voters).

on generateRandomPerm n
--n is the number of proposals.
--This handler returns a random permutation
--of the integers from 1 to n.
a=[]
repeat with i=1 to n
a.append(i)
end repeat
--a is a list from 1 to n
b=[]
--List b will be our random permutation
--of the integers from 1 to n.
repeat with i=n down to 1
x=random(i)
--x is a random integer
--from 1 to i
b.append(a[x])
a.deleteAt(x)
end repeat
return b
end

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: Re: proposal order


> That's a good point Jim... i kind of assumed it was random, but if it's
> not, that could be very prejudicial.
> ryan

I just assumed it would be fixed, because that's the easiest way to program
it. Which is not a knock on Patrick or Francis, just the way it goes,
usually, in the first few iterations of such programs.

It wouldn't be a problem if there were 30 proposals, but with 195, yes, it
probably is.

Which is another reason why it's probably good to have a regular jury
looking at things after the voting.

I think eventually the voting software will be pretty cool, but I doubt it
deals with things like this, at the mo. Could be wrong though.

ja

DISCUSSION

proposal order


A question for Patrick May. Is the order in which voters view the proposals
fixed? In other words, does everyone view proposal X0 first, then proposal
X1 etc? I've heard a couple of people so far say they only got through 30 or
so of the proposals.

Perhaps 'ideally', the order in which the proposals are viewed would be
random for each viewer/reader. I guess that'd be a 'next year' thing though.
You probably wouldn't want to muck with it at this point.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: Commissions


I think you need to look closely at the supporting material. Projects worth
funding will already have considerable work done on them, often, because
worthwhile projects often take years to complete.

What can be said impressively in a simply written proposal is that the
project will create world peace. Or save the whales. Or that it will serve a
particular community. And you're in the community. Written proposals
basically convey the politics of a project, not its experience or its art.
Or at least the written proposal convey the politics the writer would like
to associate with the project. Written proposals cannot even convey the
concept of a project because the concept cannot often be separated from the
experience and the art itself.

There is a fundamental disjunction between a written proposal for a work of
art and a work of art.

Look for the real art. The supporting material. Not for the talk about the
art.

ja
http://vispo.com

DISCUSSION

Re: Hey you kids - get off my lawn.


> > Programming is to digital art what English is to international
> > communications.
>
> That doesn't sound so "radically programmable" Jim...
> i was thinking Spanglish/creole/etc would be a more interesting
> location of innovation...

> but then again, i'm monolingual for the most part, and not much of a
> programmer. So i guess i'm not very innovative in either case.
> ryan

You mean "radically flexible", Ryan?

International communication can of course happen other than in English--and,
as you point out, other languages may be more suitable for innovation--just
as digital art can um sort of happen without programming, at least by the
artist, but it is hard to imagine a public life of broad international
communications without learning some English.

ja
http://vispo.com