2011 review – statistics

Posted on December 23, 2011 by Yoram Gat

Below are some statistics about the second year of Equality-by-Lot. Comparable numbers for last year can be found here.

2011 Page views Posts Comments
Jan 901 8 108
Feb 2,085 17 392
Mar 1,437 11 156
Apr 1,499 10 115
May 801 11 73
June 1,048 16 104
July 805 9 110
Aug 994 6 54
Sept 1,120 5 103
Oct 1,930 7 151
Nov 1,205 5 32
Dec (to 23rd) 1,759 13 239
Total 15,584 118 1,637

Note that page views do not include visits by logged-in contributors – the wordpress system does not count those visits.

The system reports that posts were made by 7 authors during 2011, with one of those authors making only one contribution. (There were, of course, many other authors quoted and linked to.)

There are currently 28 email and WordPress followers of this blog.

Searching for “distribution by lot” (with quotes) using Google returns Equality-by-Lot as the second result (out of “about 23,000 results”). Searching for “sortition” returns Equality-by-Lot as the 9th result (out of “about 82,900 results”). Searching for “kleroterion” returns Equality-by-Lot as the 10th result (out of “about 4,600 results”).

2010 Page views Posts Comments
Jan 288 8 30
Feb 242 12 29
Mar 417 7 28
Apr 252 5 16
May 344 6 18
Jun 259 6 15
Jul 324 9 20
Aug 372 7 93
Sep 550 10 38
Oct 704 6 97
Nov 1091 10 133
Dec (thru 23rd) 458 6 41
Total 5301 92 558

Filed under: meta | Leave a comment »

Call for 2011 review input

Posted on December 14, 2011 by Yoram Gat

As we did last year (1, 2), I would like to create a post or two summarizing the sortition- and distribution-by-lot-related developments of 2011 and the activity here on Equality-by-Lot.

Please use the comments to give your input on what you think are the most mention-worthy events or essays of the past year.

Filed under: Distribution by lot, meta, Sortition | 1 Comment »

List of goods & services from Common Lot Productions

Posted on September 28, 2011 by Common Lot Sortitionist

There is a new list of goods and services from Common Lot Productions:

Overview of Products and Services

Interest in the use of sortition continues to grow. We welcome contributors and collaborators.

Filed under: Books, meta, Sortition | Tagged: , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

2010 review – sortition-related events

Posted on December 31, 2010 by Yoram Gat

My call for proposals of mention-worthy lottery-related 2010 events garnered one response. Below are, therefore, Peter Stone’s proposal and mine. Happy New Year, and best wishes for 2011.

  • Peter Stone called attention to the 2010 book, Sortition: Theory and Practice, edited by Oliver Dowlen and Gil Delannoi. (Conveniently, Amazon UK, at the link above, allows to peruse some of the book’s contents online.)

    With my personal interest in statistics, I found Antoine Vergne’s sortition-related literature survey – in which he offers some quantitative data – particularly interesting. Vergne defined a corpus of 199 texts starting with 2 published in 1956 (one of which presumably is C. L. R. James’s ‘Every Cook Can Govern’) and ending with 9 texts published in 2008. The texts are about evenly split between ‘descriptive’, ‘exploratory’, and ‘advocative’ texts. Vergne claims that the historical trend “makes it clear that there has been a growing interest in sortition”.

  • To me, the most prominent sortition-related event of the year had been Joe Klein’s blog post suggesting to replace Obama’s budget commission with a Fishkin-style Deliberative Poll. This has been, I think, the most widely read mention this year of the idea of policy setting by a body selected by random sampling. It has generated a small amount of attention.

    It is a sad state of affairs that a poorly argued blog post by a person of such low intellectual and moral standing would easily attract more attention than all the high quality material about sortition that is available. It is a reflection of the elitist nature of mass media today, and highlights the need for fundamental reform of this institution.

Filed under: meta, Sortition | 24 Comments »

2010 review – statistics

Posted on December 24, 2010 by Yoram Gat

Some statistics about the first year of Equality-by-Lot:

2010 Page views Posts Comments
Jan 288 8 30
Feb 242 12 29
Mar 417 7 28
Apr 252 5 16
May 344 6 18
Jun 259 6 15
Jul 324 9 20
Aug 372 7 93
Sep 550 10 38
Oct 704 6 97
Nov 1091 10 133
Dec (thru 23rd) 458 6 41
Total 5301 92 558

Note that page views do not include visits by logged-in contributors – the wordpress system does not count those visits.

The system reports that posts were made by 6 authors during 2010, with two of those authors making only one contribution. (There were, of course, many other authors quoted and linked to.)

There are currently 14 email subscribers to this blog.

Searching for “distribution by lot” (with quotes) using Google returns Equality-by-Lot as the second result (out of “about 24,400 results”). Searching for “sortition” returns Equality-by-Lot as the 39th result (out of “about 30,000 results”). Searching for “kleroterion” returns Equality-by-Lot as the 18th result (out of “about 2,030 results”).

2010 Page views Posts Comments
Jan 288 8 30
Feb 242 12 29
Mar 417 7 28
Apr 252 5 16
May 344 6 18
Jun 259 6 15
Jul 324 9 20
Aug 372 7 93
Sep 550 10 38
Oct 704 6 97
Nov 1091 10 133
Dec (thru 23rd) 458 6 41
Total 5301 92 558

Filed under: meta | 4 Comments »

2010 review – upcoming

Posted on December 9, 2010 by Yoram Gat

As 2010, the first year of Equality-by-Lot, comes to an end, I thought it would be appropriate to have some sort of review. Any ideas about how to conduct this review are welcome, but here are my thoughts.

One element of the review can be a statistical summary of some sort: a count of posts, comments, contributors, etc. The WordPress system provides some data, and other data I can collect manually. Another part of the review could be a list of 2010 posts and comments on this blog that are worth mentioning again. In order to form this list, I invite anyone who posted an entry or a comment on this blog to select their one favorite post (that is, the post or comment that they wrote and that they hold most dear), and to either send me an email with a link or link to it in the comments here. You can also add a short paragraph explaining why the post or comment are of particular interest. I will collect all the entries and compile a list that will appear the review.

Finally, please also write in the comments or through email about any 2010 event, news item, website, or any other item related to sortition or distribution-by-lot that occurred or appeared over the last year. A list of those could be the third part of the review post (or posts).

The comments section of the review post could be used as a discussion forum about the past and future of the blog in particular and of the sortition and distribution-by-lot ideas in general.

Filed under: meta | 5 Comments »

Lotteries in Chicago

Posted on April 27, 2010 by peterstone

Just got back last night from Chicago, where I attended the latest meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association. Always an interesting conference, although they have expanded in recent years, which frankly means a lot more sub-par papers. It also means more flake-outs–I was supposed to present a paper on a panel with 2 other papers, but one of them was withdrawn in advance of the conference, and the authors of the other simply never showed up. (Needless to say, neither one was a Kleroterian…)

My paper was not directly on lotteries; rather, it dealt with non-reasoned decision-making more broadly. Some Kleroterians have probably seen an earlier version of it. There was also, however, a paper presented critiquing James Fishkin’s work, as well as the broader idea of “deliberative mini-publics” achieved through random selection. The author, Anna Drake, teaches at Queen’s University, in Canada. I spoke to her after the panel, and she might be interested in sharing her work with our group.

Filed under: meta, Sortition | 1 Comment »

Kleroterians at the WPSA

Posted on April 5, 2010 by peterstone

This weekend, the Western Political Science Association (WPSA) held its annual meeting at the Hyatt Regency in San Francisco. A panel held yesterday (Saturday, April 3) featured two Kleroterians, Joel Parker and myself. No pics got taken but trust us–it happened.

I plugged the blog at the meeting. If you’re reading this blog for the first time as a result, welcome. And don’t forget–we have a Facebook page as well :)

Filed under: meta | 3 Comments »

Logo

Posted on January 28, 2010 by peterstone

Do the Kleroterians need a logo of their own? If so, what the heck might it be? Please discuss.

Filed under: meta | 3 Comments »

Hello world!

Posted on December 14, 2009 by Yoram Gat

Equality by lot is the new blog of the Kleroterians. If you wish to become a contributor, please email Yoram Gat (see email address at the bottom of the post here). You will need a wordpress account. Setting up a wordpress account is free and simple – go to wordpress.com.

You can also subscribe to the blog using the RSS feeds or through email by simply clicking on the “sign me up!” button if you have a wordpress account, or by entering your email if you don’t.

Filed under: meta | 15 Comments »

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