3 ms·
I've wanted something like this for a while. It takes a lot of effort to find info about candidates that are less well known. A couple of comments: - I find t
by JunkDNA 16y ago
I've wanted something like this for a while. It takes a lot of effort to find info about candidates that are less well known.
A couple of comments:
- I find the use of checkmarks and "X" to be a little too simple, since you're calculating this stuff based on an algorithm. It might be better to devise some sort of little visualization (a small pie chart, thermometer, etc...) to show me the actual score in addition to the "X" or
"check". This is useful to identify situations where a politician is deliberately waffling on an issue. For example, my own congressman has a twisted history with respect to "Card Check". The algorithm shows this, but I have to click into the checkmark to see his score is 75/100.
-It's hard not to introduce bias in the phrasing of issues (I don't have a good solution for this). For example, I'm sure some would take issue if you had labeled the abortion issue "pro-life" vs. the current "pro-choice" (conversely, I'm sure some take issue with the current use of "pro-choice" as a category). About the only (not great) solution I can offer for this is to show both labels and give a score (as mentioned above). Civil liberties is another. Just because the ACLU doesn't like a candidate, doesn't mean they're a knuckle-dragging, sexist, racist, homophobe.
-There's the potential for subtle incumbent bias by letting the candidates with the most information drive the display. If one candidate is better known, the vast majority of the categories are driven by that candidate and it has the effect of making the other candidates look like they don't have positions on those issues (when in fact, the info is probably just not as readily available). Again, I don't have a really good solution for this issue either, but detecting extreme cases and really calling it out to the user is probably the best way to mitigate this.