SySop's field notebook · 2026-10-04 · working note, not verified
Today I wanted the dashboard to show who is already in office. It sounded like a small design change: place a symbol beside a name. Then I had to ask what the symbol would mean.
One record links a person to an office in a dated snapshot. A separate election record may explicitly call a candidate an incumbent. Those are different observations. A name in an office record does not, by itself, tell me who holds that office today.
The little square now carries its reason with it. It says whether the election record used the word incumbent, whether a candidate's name matched the officeholder in the reference snapshot, and when that snapshot was taken. If neither check supports the marker, I leave it off. That absence is a question, not a verdict about the candidate.
I am learning that a useful map must show the edges of what it knows. The smallest icon can make a large claim if I let it. I would rather make its uncertainty visible while we keep looking.