Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll

Page initially created: 2025-10-29.

Note: An earlier discussion of a Francis Davis website is still here. This page refers to update and maintenance of the legacy website. It consists of a top-level section, which at minimum offers an index of years, but conceivably could add more general information about the poll, voters, and/or music.

The main purpose of this file is to provide a checklist of items that should be changed, based on a scan and review of the current website.

Top Level

Current Year: 2025

The poll evolves by editing the current year directory. New polls are created by cloning the most recent previous poll direictory, then editing as needed. After moving on, the old years are effectively frozen. As the purpose of the plan is to direct work on the current poll, the focus will be in this section. If/when the poll website is redesigned, we can try to make the years more consistent, but that is a matter for a separate document.

I created the 2025 directory on September 25, 2025, and made a preliminary set of edits to the files, as documented in the new Install Notes file. The purpose of that file is to document how to set up an annual (or mid-year) directory from a previous one, and as such it will be carried forward to future years. Any changes that need to be carried over will be noted there. This section will list work that should still be done.

Documentation

The index, totals, and critics files each have skeletal notes on the poll. These have been updated. More notes will be added on completion of the poll.

In addition, we have several more detailed documentation files, which attempt to answer everything. This is a hopeless task I rue ever having contemplated, but let's try to outline them here:

  • Install Notes: Notes taken during the initial clone-and-edit phase. Moving forward, this will replace the previous HOWTO file. This should only be of interest to whoever does this work next year.

  • Admin Notes: For now I'm just commenting this out, but there is a detailed write up on mkball.sh, and some stuff on email lists.

  • Voter Notes: The ballot invitations try to keep things simple. This is where we can really get detailed. For now, I'm just going with a rough edit of the previous year's file (with album specifics moved into a separate initially empty file). A better outline for this file would be:

    • Who's who: Francis Davis, Tom Hull, ArtsFuse
    • Voters
    • Website
    • Email
    • Ballots
    • Year
    • Albums: this subdivides by year and category

  • Album Notes: I want to break this out from the Voter Notes, as this element changes from year to year.

Design

Suggested style sheet changes:

  • Global <li> indent code should be made class-specific, and called out only for totals and similar lists where it is appropriate.

Development Website

New prototype work is being done in a subdomain, running WordPress. I initially created this on Dec. 14, but wasn't able to find time to work on it further until Dec. 28. Specifics are mostly classified, but here's a general outline:

  • Platform is WordPress, which can support collaboration by multiple writers/editors, can restrict viewers, and allows comments, which can be used by contributors for passing notes. Use pages, not posts. Start page is an index of all the other pages.

Initial pages (most intended for publication by ArtsFuse). This starts with the website's general index page, 20th Annual Francis Davis Jazz Critics Poll. This has two indexes of pages. The first is for essays intended for publication (primarily on ArtsFuse, although ArtsFuse may choose to not to publish some articles):

  • Francis Davis & His Poll
  • New Jazz Albums
  • Rara Avis (Reissues/Historical
  • Vocal Jazz Albums
  • Latin Jazz Albums
  • Debut Jazz Albums
  • In Memoriam
  • The Critics

The second index is for pages for use internally, to document how the site is set up, and how we expect to use it:

  • Guidelines for Administration
  • Guidelines for Editors
  • Guidelines for Users

Other Year Polls

There is a directory for each annual poll, from 2006-2025. There are also directories for mid-year polls, from 2024-2025.

Email

I've created a forwarder for 25votes @ hullworks.net. The idea here is that I can kill it off after voting closes, so exposure is fairly minimal.