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I've updated my voting system to allow preferential voting (the previous method uses approval voting). It gives a score to each candidate based on its rank. E.g. if there are 10 candidates, and you give a candidate 1st preference, it gets 10 points, second preference gets 9 points, etc.
It's therefore functionally equivalent to "range voting".
<?php
/* How to use:
Put all emails in an array with values in $emails["text"] and $emails["user_id"];
Put the list of valid candidates in the function valid_candidate();
Put the check for user-authorisation in function valid_user();
Enjoy.
*/$emails_array = array(
array("user_id"=>234, "text"=>"
option1 = 1
option3 = 2
optionwhatever = 3
"),
// Duplicate user, will be handled correctly.
array("user_id"=>234, "text"=>"
Oops forgot one I like:
Optionfour = 2
// Did I mention:
option1=1
"
),
array("user_id"=>1234,
"text"=>"
// I hate option1
Option1 = 6
option2 = 1
")
);function valid_user($user_id){return true;} // put user filter in here if necessary
function valid_candidate($name){ return true;} // is the name one of the candidates?$number_of_options = 6;
// Process all emails
foreach ($emails_array as $email)
{// Is it a valid registered user?
if (valid_user($email["user_id"]))
{// Process each line of the email
$email_lines = explode("\n", trim($email["text"]));
foreach ($email_lines as $this_line)
{
// Does it have an '=' sign and only one = sign
$equals_sign = strpos($this_line, "=");
if ($equals_sign !== false)
{
$cleaned_up_line_text = trim($this_line, ";.!\t\n\r\0");
$parts_of_line = explode("=", $cleaned_up_line_text);
if (count($parts_of_line) == 2)
{
// Is it a valid candidate and rank?
// Candidate is in lower case.
$candidate = strtolower(trim($parts_of_line[0]));
$rank = intval(trim($parts_of_line[1]));
if (valid_candidate($candidate) && ($rank > 0) && ($rank <= $number_of_options))
{
// Get the score for this candidate.
// The score is the number of options - how far it is ranked below 1.
// e.g. a rank of 1 would give it a score of $number_of_options.
// a rank of 2 gives it a score of $number_of_options -1.
// See "range voting".
$score = $number_of_options - ($rank-1);// Make sure this vote for this user hasn't already been cast
if (!isset($user_votes[$email["user_id"]]) ||
!isset($user_votes[$email["user_id"]][$candidate]))
{
// Remember this user has voted for this name already.
$user_votes[$email["user_id"]][$candidate] = true;// Count the vote towards the total
if (!isset($candidate_votes[$candidate]))
$candidate_votes[$candidate]=$score;
else $candidate_votes[$candidate]+= $score;
}
} // end of check for valid vote values.
} // of check for correctly formatted vote
} // of check for equals sign
} // End of for loop for lines of email
} // of check for valid user.
} // end of for loop for all emails.print "votes:<br>";
print_r($user_votes);
print "<br><Br>";
print "candiate_votes<Br>";
print_r($candidate_votes);?>
(Score: 2) by martyb on Monday March 31 2014, @08:07AM
Interesting discussion; thanks for the reply!
Based on this and your prior posts, I'm starting to notice a pattern. It seems to me that there would be value in having separate functions for:
Ballot extraction/filtering - A function that, given an arbitrary chunk of text, extracts and returns only that part which contains the vote.
Ballot validation - A function that, given a filtered ballot and a set of flags, tests to see if the ballot is valid for the selected type of vote. Could be implemented as sub-functions selected by the passed flags. Flags could be OR'ed together and passed as a single argument. (I am not up-to-date on the different kinds of votes that could be taken, so please consider this as very rough) Flags might include:
May also want to have an argument (e.g. ballot_choice_limit) to limit the number of votes on a ballot that will be tabulated. I.e. pick the top 3 (three) candidates out of the list of 7 (seven) candidates offered.
The function would return a string containing: count of the errors found followed by the error text for each, separated by new-line characters. If there are no errors found, then the returned string would contain a zero, new-line char, and then a new-line delimited string containing the validated votes.
Ballot vote extraction and scoring. Given that the vote has been validated, apply whatever scoring rules are desired. If there were 5 items on the ballot and the user rank voted them from 1 to 5, this might provide scoring (from top to bottom) of "5,4,3,2,1" or "10,8,6,4,2" or "25,16,9,4,1"... you get the idea.
Vote tallying - This would be a separate pass through the validated and scored votes. Simply a bookkeeping step to find the winner.
Am out of time, so will post this now. Am interested to see your feedback!
(Score: 2) by prospectacle on Monday March 31 2014, @10:37PM
Yes, it's definitely getting to the point where the feature, line, and configuration-option count suggests a good refactor is in order. The separation of function you describe seems sensible. Additional options might be to parse either plain text, or a form submission with checkboxes, or drop-downs. I could also add an option for whether to use ranked or approval voting.
Probably I won't do it any time soon though, since I don't imagine anyone is or will be using this code. Still it's been a fun little project and maybe I'll find more time for it before long.
Thanks for your feedback and suggestions.
If a plan isn't flexible it isn't realistic
(Score: 2) by martyb on Tuesday April 01 2014, @09:41PM
A simple text-entry field would suffice for starters. Use a "validate" button to invoke the ballot validation checking. Use a "Reset" button to re-load with an initial, clean ballot. Repeat display, parsing, and validation until it comes back "clean". Then a "Vote" button could display and when clicked, would save this new-line delimited vote string to the DB.
We are looking at a way to roll out community voting. For example, for the name of the site. I think you've got 80-90% of what we need already coded. I'd encourage you to continue on this endeavor... you're sooooo close!
It's been a pleasure! I hope you decide to continue; we really could use this, and soon!