Commenting on the enshittification of a public database

One of the things I do is maintain cvillepedia, a website created at Charlottesville Tomorrow when I worked there. Updating it was part of my job and there's a whole story there. That is not the point of this entry. 

It is Saturday morning at 9:36 a.m. as I write this. I am in Pennsylvania. My father's condition has worsened significantly. A long update is not the point of this entry.

Ten years ago, Angela Tucker died. She was one of the first people I knew in city government. I've not thought of her for a long time.

I have a task I need to do for work. For me, work refers to all of the things that I do to get information out to people. Sometimes I feel like this isn't a real job because there's a parental voice in my head filling me with doubt. 

I have not been paid to update cvillepedia for a long time but it has been a part of my life for a long while except for a brief moment. 

I also don't get paid directly for the task I need to do. Audio production is not the point of this entry but it is useful for the narrative. I don't really want to do the work at the moment so I chose to spend some time on cvillepedia first. 

Someone resigned from the Albemarle School Board yesterday. The third person to do so in three months. Part of my work now, paid for my a large number of people, is to cover that information. I did not have time last night to write an article about it but I did spend some time updating the article for Ellen Moore Osborne. 

I do not get paid to update cvillepedia. But I do have an interest in living in a community where there is access to information about the local government. I've noticed that cvillepedia did not a thorough record of elections in Virginia's 5th Congressional District. I'm rebuilding that based on the existing templates on cvillepedia. 

Many of these use the Virginia Department of Elections as a resource. At some point in the last year, they changed their database in a way that broke a lot of citations. I've not had any time to assess the full damage. 

The page for Osborne does not have any references to either of her elections in 2019 and 2023 so at 9:53 a.m. I turn myself over to that task. 

Take a look here

Clicking the Search button takes us to another page which automatically populates with the latest certified information. As of this date, that means the results of the August 4, 2026 primary election. 

I am looking for the Scottsville District on the Albemarle School Board. I immediately dislike that I cannot enter the year for the elections I want. I have to use a slider on the left hand side of the screen to pick the year 2019. This immediately populates the main portion of the window with races for that year and the amount of information is too  overwhelming. 

So I move to the "Search for Contests" and select School Board. I have to scroll through all of the localities but I can enter in the first letter to get to the Scottsville District. I find the information. 

By doing this on a Saturday I am able to calmly learn how to use a resource that I need to get comfortable with if I am to continue to use it. Complaining about it won't do anything. Life is best for me when I turn the impulse to complain into constructive action. 

The whole point of this entry was to celebrate the memory of Angela Tucker. To get my brain working I sometimes hit "random" on the sidebar and seeing her name connected me to the person I was when I began at Charlottesville Tomorrow and the person I am now hoping to keep information flowing into the future. 

It's a living. Or I live to do it.