User:RobLa/Electowidget: Difference between revisions

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Latest news:

* August 9, 2009 - Electowidget back from the dead! I've installed a new version on this wiki, which is now simply a tag extension to standard MediaWiki (no patching required). No official release yet, but there's a new [http://bitbucket.org/robla/electowidget/ Bitbucket repository] with some updated code in it.

* October 29, 2005 - Initial Electowidget release! (version 0.1.0)

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Electowidget is a plugin for MediaWiki designed to make it possible to conduct Internet polls and elections using many different [[wikipedia:Voting systems|voting systems]], including the [[Wikipedia:Schulze method|Schulze method]], [[Wikipedia:Instant runoff voting|Instant runoff voting]], [[Wikipedia:Approval voting|Approval voting]], and even plain old [[Wikipedia:Plurality|Plurality]].

Electowidget isn't designed for secure public elections. ~~Rather, it's designed for the types of informal polls and elections that currently happen on wikis today.~~ It's ~~also~~ designed as a tool to help election theorists provide ~~comparitive~~ examples of how a given result will be tabulated comparing multiple different systems.

Electowidget isn't designed for secure public elections. It's primarily designed as a tool to help election theorists provide comparative examples of how a given result will be tabulated comparing multiple different systems. The initial version supported conducting polls, but this functionality is now dormant. Development in the near term will be focused toward making it easier to input full datasets from election data and/or developing theoretical election results.

~~All data is stored on wiki pages~~, in [http://json.org JSON format]~~. That means that there's an audit trail for every change that~~ is ~~made~~ to ~~the~~ ~~wiki~~.

Currently, a [http://json.org JSON-based format] is the only supported format.

== ~~Example~~ ~~elections~~ ==

== Using Electowidget ==

⚫

Now that you've been warned, the easiest thing to do is to copy the configuration for [[#Example elections|an example election]], and create a new page with your election on it. Since election configurations are just wiki pages, the same editing instructions for editing a wiki apply here, except that the syntax is substantially different.

(Hosted version taken down on 8/19/2007 - test wiki was just too much of a spam trap)

⚫

A somewhat complete reference for the election configuration pages is here:

== Setting up an election ==

⚫

* [[Electowidget Configuration Reference]]

An [http://robla.net/2005/jsonwidget/example.php online Javascript-based editor] for election configurations is available. When you have everything configured like you want it, view "edit source", copy the text, and save it inside of <nowiki><electowidget></electowidget></nowiki> tags.

If you have access to a running version of (such as [http://wikitest.electorama.com the Electowiki test installation]), setting up an election is reasonably straightforward.

== Example elections ==

Before getting started, though, there are several important caveats with the current version:

* There is '''no privacy'''. Since everything is stored as a wiki page, that means there's a complete, public audit log of every change, '''including votes'''. Future versions will probably lock this down, but it's not an immediate priority.

* There is '''little security'''. Ballot box stuffing is easy, and I can't guarantee that ballots cast by one person can't be changed by a different person (though some measures have been taken to prevent the latter).

* Performance is pretty bad. No systematic performance work has happened to fix this up just yet.

* It's probably still pretty buggy.

* [[2003 Debian Project Leader Election]]

⚫

Now that you've been warned, the easiest thing to do is to copy the configuration for [[#Example elections|an example election]], and create a new page ~~in the Election: namespace~~ with your election on it. Since election configurations are just wiki pages, the same editing instructions for editing a wiki apply here, except that the syntax is substantially different.

⚫

A somewhat complete reference for the election configuration pages is here:

⚫

* [[Electowidget Configuration Reference]]

== MediaWiki administrator information ==