The secret behind POTY’s voting script

Large-scale on-wiki image ballots

This is what you see.

And this is what actually happens.

Machine-assisted voting is required

• if a high volume of
• votes
• voters
• or candidates is anticipated�
• if voting must be easy because
• users from different projects involved
• users with language-difficulties involved
• disabled users (dyslexia, …) involved

POTY: number of voters in the final

3390 eligible voters�(Final round) in POTY 2012

POTY: vote count in round 1

130 000 votes

What is POTY’s voting script technically?

• JavaScript
• is executed in the visitor’s browser�(not the fastest approach)
• rich UX, can be edited administrators�(no developer access, code review etc. required)�
• Makes use of JavaScript libraries
• most notably jQuery�
• OpenSource and available under�a free license
• GPL version 3

Features

• Eligibility check�
• Resizing thumbnails�
• Seeded randomization�
• User control center�
• Convenient voting. From different pages.�Press-one-button-and-that’s-it.

[[:commons:Help:EnhancedPOTY.js]]

Basics for the technical stuff

• API - Application programming interface
• MediaWiki API can be queried by applications
• serves machine-readable data
• serves different formats, e.g. JSON�
• JSON - JavaScript Object Notation
• best format for JavaScript application
• can be converted into an object that can be directly used by JavaScript�
• Commons API at http://commons.wikimedia.org/w/api.php

Eligibility check

Features

Resize thumbnails

Features

/w/api.php?action=query&prop=imageinfo

<img src=”new image size”>

Browser sends request for new image size

MediaWiki image scaler scales image

<gallery widths=300 ...>

<gallery widths=400 ...>

Seeded randomization

Features

Fight the edit-conflict-hell with POTY’s script!

Photo: U.S. Air Force photo/Tech. Sgt. Rey Ramon; PD-US-Gov

Was this all?

It does a lot of other tiny stuff like

• checking for blocks,
• comparing user IDs so shared used computers don’t share eligibility,
• cross-tab communication so one can’t open multiple tabs and evade the vote limit accidentally vote for more media files as allowed,
• asks IP users to please sign-in, ...

Can I customize it?

• Custom styles
• Custom stylesheet possible.�
• Custom application name
• “POTY App” isn’t what you want?�
• Custom translations�
• Custom functions�
• None of this documented, yet

Missing but wanted

• Should work out-of-the-box
• A wizard helping to prepare and config any image election (also advising which method/setting is most suitable for the intended election)
• Full support for multiple voting systems (IRV, Schulze method)�
• Should contain all you need
• Automated vote checking and result presentation
• Patrol-bot (automated recent-changes patrolling)

Still don’t know how it works

Points not covered here:�

• AbuseFilters�
• Title blacklist�
• State-transclusion through header

​

Study the source code or wait until everything is documented.

[[:commons:MediaWiki:EnhancedPOTY.js]]

POTY-Barnstar:�LadyofHats [Public domain]

Banner-Photo:�Llorenzi [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

LTR:�Logo 1: Binnium [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Logo 2: Mystère Martin [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Logo 3: TMg [CC-BY-SA-3.0-de (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/de/deed.en)]

Logo 4: Peter Southwood [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Logo 5: Pequod76 [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

Logo 6: By Lluis Valls [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]

​

via Wikimedia Commons

The right tool for your election?

• Large scale�
• Clear eligibility criteria, no “anonymous” voting�
• Comments and communication less important

By smial GFDL 1.2 (http://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/fdl-1.2.html)], via Wikimedia Commons