Congress Member Performance and Participation Tracker
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DashRiprock
Hello good people of eIreland, my name is Dash Riprock, and I am a alcoholic.
No, wait…wrong meeting. Sorry about that. Let me begin again.
Hello good people of eIreland, my name is Dash Riprock and aside from being a 3 term congress member from the Northeast, I have also been serving as the Ceann Comhairle, or in case you aren’t up on your Gaelic, the Speaker of the House.
As you may or may not know, I have been working on a list that charts the participation of our Congress members. This article will introduce that document and explain how I compiled the information, what it is intended for, and give specific comments to the data contained on the spreadsheet.
This document came about due to my growing disapproval with the rate at which congress members were quitting the Dail, and the rate at which, once elected, they showed up at all. It annoys me, and I hope it annoys you too, that many elected congress members simply disappear after being elected, casting few if any votes, and having no part in the discussions important to this country. That is 5 gold wasted. No, I correct myself, that is 5 gold stolen!
I think that being a member of the group that steers this eNation, writing its laws, determining its philosophies, is an honor that should be paid by service. Service for the entire 30 day term, regardless of if there is a fun battle one wants to fight in, regardless of the need to visit another country for business, regardless of anything outside of a Real Life emergency that clearly would take precedent over a silly game.
To all the current congress members, and to all those that have and will throw their hat into the ring, I, and the people of this nation deserve your commitment, for 30 days, from start to finish, and everything in between.
To that end, I submit this TD Performance and Participation Tracker. This document shows some specific ways to measure a congress member’s participation. Those ways are by the number of posts on the forums, where nearly 100% of a congress member’s work is done, to the number of times the congress member has voted on submitted proposals. Additionally, the spreadsheet also shows the number of votes the person received in the last election, giving the prospective voter a way to see if the congress member has lived up to their popularity, or even deserves more votes based on a good performance.
There are multiple pages of the spreadsheet, each showing the data sorted in a different way, allowing you to decide for yourself which column you want to concentrate on.
You will notice that I have placed notes at the top describing some of the colors you see used in the spreadsheet. These will provide you with extra information to be used when looking at the data. For example, names in red lettering are currently serving as ministers to the President. That may give you a clue to why that TD doesn’t have as many posts as others, considering they are doing double-duty. This allows you to better decide if a person is active or inactive.
You may notice that not all 40 TDs are represented here.
1. Two have been removed due to them notifying me and/or having RL issues which no longer allowed them to serve. Since I deem it unfair to report on partial performance, I have removed them from the list. The two that were removed are Bunnieman and Nogin the Nog (both were active before leaving)
2. Another person that was removed was Patton, though that was my fault, and does not reflect on Patton’s performance. I thought once he moved to President he was not really a congress member anymore, however, that opinion was met by a hail of hearty “Boooooooo’s”, so I had to retreat and rethink my position. The damage was done though, and I had already removed Patton from the list. I think we all know our President is active.
3. I also removed both Mannimarco and Brian Boru, for reasons I probably don’t have to explain.
4. GarrettDA was removed before I came up with idea of marking those that left early. I put him back in the list, but don’t have his original posting data.
Now let me also state my beliefs on how this should be used. The overall purpose of this is to find those that take the money and run. The ones that barely show up at all. You should be looking to the extremes of this data, not the middle ground trying to decide who is the best by comparing post and vote totals. Trying to decide who is best between two people where one has 60 posts and the other has 75 is meaningless and is not the purpose of this document. Same with the vote record. Just because someone didn’t vote every time one was proposed is no reason to stop voting for someone. In fact, some of the proposals that are written in the Dail are quite complicated, and if a new TD simply feels like they cant make an honest decision, then not voting may be the wiser course, instead of voting for something that they don’t understand. It takes time for a new congress member to digest all that there is to see in the Dail. What you are looking for is someone who has completely avoided, or nearly so, their entire responsibility.
Armed with this knowledge, the voting public should be able to avoid re-electing someone who clearly abdicated their responsibilities. Do not punish someone simply because they missed a couple votes or didn’t post a bajillion times a day.
I also want to address the Party Presidents. This is a tool for your use as well. Backing a congressional candidate who showed very, very poorly on this document is doing a disservice to your members and the nation. Pick your candidates wisely, when deciding to back someone with votes.
Please ask questions in this article and I will explain anything you don’t understand. This is meant to be a research tool for you on election day, not a place for a witch hunt. It will be readily apparent who didn’t show up for their term, but if you want some kind of revenge or justice, then the best way to do so is to simply not vote them into congress again. Calling them out in this article will not do any good and will simply clog up the works with recriminations and excuses.
Sorry for the long speech. Also, Im 8 hours behind Ireland and posting this in the evening, so there will be a delay for me to answer any questions. PLEASE vote this article so it reaches as many people in eIreland before the elections!
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AlFfCluVX2owdHNYSlluNi12eFJhdDFyRE1VbEJDV1E&hl=en
Now, back to my other meeting...
Comments
Thank you Dash. This your baby and you did a great job with it
Sadly, I just realized that the form is not sortable, which stinks. I guess only the editor can do that and since I cant open the document up to everyone, it will have to stay that way.
Ok here is what I did to make this better
I created a separate sheet for each sortable function.
So now there are multiple sheets to click on at the bottom of the spreadsheet, each showing the information sorted differently. Please be aware that the last sheet showing the number of votes that the TD participated in, is not sorting correctly. Google docs is ranking the number "3" after the number "12", which is stupid. So watch out for that.
On last thing, please vote this up. Not for me, but to get this to the top where it will be seen for the next two days leading up to the election.
Thank you.
love this, hope the voters take notice.
I'm still reading, but I'm already smiling. Thanks for the hard work dash. If I may quote you;
"I, and the people of this nation deserve your commitment, for 30 days, from start to finish, and everything in between."
Damn right.
Interesting stuff! Good work Dash.
Bout time we looked at this stuff more thoroughly.
*big stroke of your fluffy head*
I wont name any names to preserve your intent Dash, but I would bite my tongue off if I didn't say that some of those numbers are down right disgraceful. Will you continue to update and publish this? I hope so.
*shivers with excitement* Charts with color coding! I love charts and graphs. 🙂 Especially with colors.
I think this is fantastic, Dash. Truly. I certainly would like to know if a Congressperson is not performing. Shameful that they would do that. We need a Dash of accountability. 😉
@DT "Will you continue to update and publish this? I hope so."
Yes, although the job is made easier by me being the CC. I dont expect to be CC forever, but Ill still do it after that unless the new CC wants to do it.
Thanks for the kind words, if anyone has any suggestions, please feel free to offer them.
One additional note: Sagers 2.0 is kaput, banned for multi.
Thanks DT, I didnt know that. Too bad, I thought he was doing good for a 1st time congressman.
I'm a first time Congressman.
I think it's unfair to say Theus and pdiddy left without warning
Other then that excellent job
Nice work dash ..
You have done the Dáil and the country a great servise. You have preformed you roll as both TD and Speaker flawlessly.
I believe that those who have never votes in the dail (off-site) should be named and shamed.
On thing. It is had to stop someone running if you have less than 6 running. We have been advising people only to vote for offical canditates. I would say that this information will also influnce out endorcments for seats.
Thank you once more.
Pip: "I think it's unfair to say Theus and pdiddy left without warning "
Pip, in the sense that they left mid-term at the same time that they posted an article, that may be true. But the fact remains that they did leave early. I certainly am not saying that either of these two were inactive, quite the contrary, they were excellent members of congress. But in trying to stick with the facts I have to mark down what I see.
If I was a voter and either of these two returned to eIreland, I would vote for both in a heartbeat.
Tarazis: "I believe that those who have never votes in the dail (off-site) should be named and shamed. "
Tarazis, Im certainly not stopping anyone from doing exactly what you said. If you or anyone writes an article about what the spreadsheet shows, I certainly cant, and wouldnt try, to stop it. I just figured that if we did it here, the article would become bogged down and the spreadsheet itself would become a negative thing every time it was posted.
good and thorough work!
sorry for leaving 🙁
Pretty sure I gave warning of my resignation.
Good spreadsheet anyways. 😉
I must be some kind of prophet; I talked about the performance tracker in my manifesto before this article went up. I must use this power only for good.......
Anyway, this is great to see; though it is nothing short of disgraceful that so many TDs haven't even voted once this term.
Very Good
GREAT job Dash. I hope every eIrishman/woman reads this so they don't keep voting in congressmen that don't do their job
Admitting you have a problem is half the battle...
Sorry, I was referring to your first sentence. What was the rest of the article about?
Seriously though, I want to make this point. Why do people get the Gold and then leave? It's terrible. I have no problem with people enjoying the reward of 5 Gold. But they'd better damn well be committed to doing the job.
Thanks Dash. Very usefull article coming up to the elections
i would like to apologise for my poor showing i have some RL issues at the moment making it difficult to contribute as much as i would like to.
gg
As an indirect reply to Gordongekko above, let me say that this is the reason I said that voters should look to the extremes of the data. I certainly dont want people to feel guilty about having missed a few days.
For those of you looking at the spreadsheet, consider this fact, over the course of 2 days in the Dail, we had up to 6 law proposals in discussion or vote phases. So a TD, forced to miss just one or two days due to RL, could have missed out on 4-6 votes! It could easily make it seem that someone was not dedicated, when it was really just a case of bad timing.
Thank you for all of the work you have put into this Dash. It is something we've needed for a long time.
btw, I am looking for a sponsor, can you help? 😛
can we get a cliff notes version?
Yes, of course. Its:
"Show up or GTFO"
Hows that for you, Sheriff?