[Foundation-l] election ballot

Mon May 17 00:57:33 UTC 2004

Anthere wrote:

>Feedback from a french contributor, named coeur (cœur)
>
>* he mentions the fact a user could be registered
>under different name on 30 wikipedias, hence vote 30
>times
>
>-> my answer. This could happen. Some people do have
>different names, and a tiny few could do it on purpose
>and could cheat. However, the risk is limited, we
>trust people per default not to abuse the system, and
>likely it would be an artifact.
>We could limit the risk by setting a minimum of
>contribution, perhaps ?
>
>
>* he mentions the fact different users could have same
>name under different wikipedias, hence good votes
>would be discarded
>
>-> my answer. This will happen, we already know
>several cases. Checking and discarding will not be
>automatic but be human powered with control. 
>I suppose I am correct :-)
>
>* he mentions he is *bound* to have different names on
>en and fr, as his name need utf8 encoding. 
>
>-> my answer. I said we trusted him to be honest here.
>And he should have stick to a good old name with no
>weird caracters ;-)
>
>  
>
You can't determine identity automatically. Two people may have the same 
name on different wikis. Two people may share the same IP address or 
even the same computer. Our defences against dishonesty are as follows:

* All votes are logged publicly. The name, number of days since first 
edit, and number of edits are displayed to all. Who the person voted for 
is not displayed.
* Election administrators can also see the IP address and user agent of 
each voter.
* Election administrators can strike out votes by clicking the "strike" link
* Other secret methods may be implemented in order to catch people out 
who think they know our defences

However it would also be useful if anyone caught cheating in the 
election could be banned from Wikimedia web sites for an extended 
period. It should be clear that this is not a game.

A demonstration of the voting system is at 
http://test.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Boardvote . There are two open 
accounts:

* Voter -- a user who has been around for 90 days
* Election administrator -- a user who may strike votes and view IP 
addresses

Both have no password.

-- Tim Starling