Subject: voting for the new fvwm logo?

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 14:02:51 +0200

Someone suggested to make a web page that allows voting for the
new logo.  Otherwise I'd collect votes on the logo mailing list
or in private.

The voting mode I'd use:

  - Every voter may or may not vote for each logo.  The idea is to
    vote for all logos that one would like to see as the new
    official logo.

  - The logo with the most votes wins.

  - This voting mode should give us the broadest acceptance for
    the winning logo.

Ciao

Dominik ^_^  ^_^
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From: Uwe Pross <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 15:51:15 +0200

Hi there,

On 02 Sep 2003 at 14:02:51 +0200, Dominik Vogt wrote:

> Someone suggested to make a web page that allows voting
> for the new logo.

I have thought about this some time ago but I came not to  a
efficient  solution  which ensures that each person can vote
for one logo only once. A solution which checks ip addresses
may  fail since since someone could have access to more than
one ip address. The same can be said about email  addresses.
The  only  procedure which seems to be secure enough is that
voters get a login and  a  password.  This  one  has  to  be
checked by a person to avoid that someone votes twice. 

> Otherwise I'd collect votes on the logo mailing list
> or in private.

I think sending votes to the list seems the most secure  and
transparent way. I could provide links for each logo to make
voting easier. For instance: 

mailto:[email-masked]?subject=voting_for_logo_35

So it would be up to you to ensure that each voter can  vote
only once for each logo.

>   - This voting mode should give us the broadest acceptance for

Who is allowed to vote?

Cheers, Uwe
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From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 16:50:14 +0200

> checked by a person to avoid that someone votes twice. 

At least we could have a page with a check box for each logo with
a big button "send mail to vote".  I'd solve the multiple voting
problem by asking for the voter's real name and possibly a mail
address.

> So it would be up to you to ensure that each voter can  vote

Yes.

> >   - This voting mode should give us the broadest acceptance for

Everybody.

Ciao

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

---

From: Uwe Pross <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 17:11:51 +0200

Hi there,

On 02 Sep 2003 at 16:50:14 +0200, Dominik Vogt wrote:

> At least we could have a page with a check box for each
> logo with a big button "send mail to vote".  I'd solve the
> multiple voting problem by asking for the voter's real
> name and possibly a mail address.

This can be done. But it might take a couple of days since I
am quite busy and want to add the remaining logos first. 

Cheers, Uwe

---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Sep 2003 18:48:48 +0300

I already suggested the following voting system on June, 1.

First, some observations:

  * The prize will go to one artist
  * Most of artists submitted several logos
  * There are hundreds of logos totally
  * Some logos are not really separate logos, but variations, starting
    to clean this up before voting is useless now for hundreds of logos
  * It is technically difficult to place all these logos on one page
  * It is practically difficult to choose one from hundreds for a voter
  * It is practically difficult to score hundreds of logos at once

So any one-stage voting system is problematic.
Here is a more useful (and I think fair) voting system.

First stage. Choosing 3 best artists.

We leave the logos page as is and ask voters to choose 5 best artists
from the current 43. So every voter gives one point to 5 artists and
0 points to the remaining 38 artists.

We have 3 (or in some rare cases more) best artists who get the largest
number of points.

Second stage. Choosing 1 best logo.

All logos of the 3 best artists are gathered, cleaned and separated (so
all variations of the same logo are counted as one logo).

Now, when we have about 10 clean logos instead of hundreds, we can apply
the Dominik's voting system. We create a web interface for these 10
logos. Every voter gives one of the 5 choices for every logo. The choices
are "very bad" (-2), "bad", "neutral" (0), "good", "very good" (2).
The choices are summed for every logo.

So, for example, if I like the 6-th and 8-th logo and hate the 3-rd, I
may give "neutral" to all logos except for these three.

The logo with the highest score wins and its artist gets the prize.
(I personally would divide the prize between the 3 best artists, since
it is likely that other logos from the winning 10 will be used too.)

> mailto:[email-masked]?subject=voting_for_logo_35

For the first stage, it would be something like:

  "voting for artists: 6, 14, 22, 25, 32"

For the second stage, it would be something like:

  "voting for logos: 1=0, 2=0, 3=-2, 4=0, 5=0, 6=2, 7=0, 8=1, 9=0, 10=0"

> Who is allowed to vote?

This is a good and not easy question. Giving that most of the artists
participate because of the prize, the voting will be definitelly
compromised if we don't make it difficult to fake it.

I would say, only FVWM users may vote. So to ensure this, we may post a
snippet that should be saved as file ~/.fvwm/logo-competition-voting and
then manually read as "Read logo-competition-voting". The snippet then
creates a cookie like G5J54ka2H42JK4Ui that encodes $USER, $HOST and
other things. Every voter should enter this cookie manually into the
voting web interface. The bad cookies are dismissed. This is only an
idea, the exact protection mechanism may be discussed.

It is not trivial to implement this voting system (just like any other
for this reason). But definitelly doable. The best part about this, it is
possible to make it really easy for users to vote using the web.

Does this make sence?

Regards,
Mikhael.

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 09:59:02 +0200

>   * It is practically difficult to score hundreds of logos at once

Most of the logos are series of the same logo in various formats.

> First stage. Choosing 3 best artists.

I think this will almost boil down to choosing one of the logo
series.

> Second stage. Choosing 1 best logo.

It may be problematic to make people vote twice.

> the Dominik's voting system.

By the way, I did not invent it.

> We create a web interface for these 10

Actually, scoring the logos has a problem.  Let's assume you have
ten logos, and you, as a voter, like logo A best, and logo B
second best.  Then it may make sense to give A the best score and
B the worst score just to prevent that B wins over A.  The system
I proposed reduces this kind of tactical voting because of the
risk that a different logo wins over both your favourites.  This
is especially important since the voting will take place in
public.

> it is likely that other logos from the winning 10 will be used too.)

We can hardly take away part of the prize from the winner now.

> possible to make it really easy for users to vote using the web.

Hm.

Ciao

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 13:21:30 +0300

The main reason I think it better to find best artists first and only
then go to the winning logo is that currently the competition is very
artist centric. Take a look at:

  http://fvwm.org/logo-competition/logos_new.php

BTW, I don't always understand how Uwe chooses the overview image.
For example, take a look at:

  http://fvwm.org/logo-competition/logos/Keran/index.php?no_software_patents=ever

I see at least 12 different designs, but the overview contains only 1.

Other reasons why to choose best artists first:

  * good artists usually create good works
  * artists that created many of good logos (spending a lot of time)
    more deserve to win
  * good artists are likely to help us to scale and change logos in any
    way we ask them, reducing our work and giving the best resulting logo

Together with my previous reasons, like a lot of work to clean up
all hundreds of logos and having a very long page with hundreds of
check boxes.

It is ok for me to make changes to the previous suggestion. For example,
a voter may choose any number of artists on the first stage and not just
five. As for the second stage when voting for logos of the 3 best artists,
the boolean scoring may be used rather than 5-base-scoring.

So both stages may be simply boolean votes. Either check or not check the
artist from all 43 artists. And then either check or not check the logo
series from about 10-20 final logo series. Seems simple.

Regards,
Mikhael.

---

From: Uwe Pross <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 13:04:33 +0200

Hi there,

> Most of the logos are series of the same logo in various formats.

Which makes it even more difficult since votes for different
logos of a serie should be count together.

> It may be problematic to make people vote twice.

That's right. It might be too complicated since there are
two deadlines.

> > I would say, only FVWM users may vote. So to ensure
> > this, we may post a snippet that should be saved as file
> > ~/.fvwm/logo-competition-voting and then manually read
> > as "Read logo-competition-voting". The snippet then
> > creates a cookie like G5J54ka2H42JK4Ui that encodes
> > $USER, $HOST and other things. Every voter should enter
> > this cookie manually into the voting web interface. The
> > bad cookies are dismissed. This is only an idea, the
> > exact protection mechanism may be discussed.
> > 
> > It is not trivial to implement this voting system (just
> > like any other for this reason). But definitelly
> > doable. The best part about this, it is possible to make
> > it really easy for users to vote using the web.
> > 
> > Does this make sence?

Yes, but I think it is too complicated and too  much  effort
for  the  voters. So I guess using this system we won't have
many voters. The most convenient solution  would  be  a  web
voting  system.  I  think we are not the first and only ones
which have  this  problem.  So  there  might  be  already  a
solution for this problem. 

Talking to a collegue during lunch we came up to a  solution
were  a voter is required to insert its email address into a
web form and gets sent a email-password combination which is
used for voting. 

Cheers, Uwe

---

From: Uwe Pross <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 13:14:48 +0200

Hi there,

> I see at least 12 different designs, but the overview contains only 1.

It is a matter of time. Most times I took one image which
seems to me represent the logos and scaled it down. For some
authors I used gimp to make a overview image from more than
one logo. But this is quite much work.
 
For the voting system we might need to rearrange the logo
pages anyway. 

Cheers, Uwe

---

From: Dawid Kuroczko <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 14:26:51 +0200 (CEST)

Few thoughts about voting system.

First of all, I think the first stage should be web-and-email based.
First a html form with list of logos in _random_ order (this should
make it more fair to all the artists -- after dozen of logos one is
paying less attention to detail; this way all works would get 
statistically equal attention ;)).  Probably it would be a good idea
to hide the artists' names -- so voting for someone's creation would
be a little bit harder.

At the end of the form (or beginning), there would be a place for
e-mail and full name.  BTW, Calls For Votes for new groups in pl.*
Usenet hierarchy require that user enters real name (first and last
name), to prevent anonymous voting.  And it proved quite successful.
Of course from time to time some people forge votes, but usually
they are easuer to spot (and it feels "more wrong" to vote using
your neighbour's name than using "johny17" as a nickname :-)).

OK, so the user fills the web form.  Then an e-mail should be sent to
her, and she should reply quoting the message, to confirm that she
indeed voted that way.  In the e-mail there should be something
like this:

> We have received your vote on http://www.fvwm.org/contest/ page,
> you should confirm that indeed it was you who took votes.
> Please reply to this mail quoting _one_ of these lines:
>
>    *** I VOTED for 4 logos in Fvwm contest.  ID=DFSDF4534
>    *** I DIDN't VOTE for 4 logos in Fvwm contest.  ID=DFDF4534
>

THe ID could be a MD4 sum from e-mail and votes used.  This would
make it easier to identify similar votes and it would make forging
votes a bit more difficult (one would have to click-through random
logos every time he wants to place a vote; it would be impossible
to send 10 or 100 "vote reply" e-mails from different addresses).

And as for the vote system itself.  I'm for two stage voting.
If there is only 1 logo with foo as a theme, and 20 logos with
shmoo, people who like foo would probably win.  And shmoo voters
would divide between 20 logos (yes, I know, one can vote for more
than one logo, but the votes would divide nonetheless).
Them, at the second stage we'd have one foo logo and one or
two shmoo logos to choose from.

  Regards,
    Dawid

---

From: Mikhael Goikhman <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 16:13:53 +0300

> That's right. It might be too complicated since there are

You don't need to get the deadlines too precisely. We didn't expect to
get hundreds of logos back then.

It is interesting that you say in another message that you don't have a
time to create one good overview image, but still want to go with one
stage voting that requeres a lot of clean-up work, literally going
through all hundreds of images and splitting them in some cases and
grouping them in other cases, so different variants appear as one logo.
Much *much* harder than creating overview for every artist, which is
already almost ready. Anyway, since it is you that do most of the work,
your thoughts have more weight.

Regards,
Mikhael.

---

From: Uwe Pross <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 16:42:51 +0200

Hi there,

> your thoughts have more weight.

I am not sure at all how the voting should be
realized. My current thoughts are:

* Web voting seems to me most conventient.
* Web voting requires that the web server has write
  permisions at least to one file, which might be a security
  issue.
* If this is not possible at fvwm.org I may set it up at my
  university account.
* Preselecting authors in the voting process seems to me is
  not the right way since we want to vote for logos not for
  authors.
* It might be good to make a vote page(s) where all logos
  are displayed independently from authors. Logos which
  belong together should be handled as one logo.
* Voting pages should be in a way that all logos have equal
  chances.
* Hidding any information about the author of the logo on
  the voting page might be useful.
* There are several voting scripts on the web. We might
  check some of them if they can be used for our issue.
* Estimating how many people might vote would be quite
  helpful for making a decission. I fear to setup a big voting
  system for a handful of voters. On the other hand using
  emails for votes from hundreds of voters will be a lot of
  work. 
* Voting counts should be hidden in all way to make
  manipulations difficult.

Hints and thoughts are welcome.

Cheers, Uwe

---

From: Dominik Vogt <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 3 Sep 2003 17:04:08 +0200

> get hundreds of logos back then.

Ritght.  But there really should be a NEWS entry on the web page
that the submission period is over and that due to the amount of
contributed logos, voting will be delayed a bit.

Ciao

Dominik ^_^  ^_^

---

From: Kingsly John <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2003 10:24:20 +0530

> one logo. But this is quite much work.

I think "montage" from ImageMagick would be easier.. works from the
commandline so you can write a script to automate the overview image
creation. (ofcourse won't match the fancy layout that you have hand-made with
gimp.) It'll give a thumbnail representation of all submitted logos.  Which
would ensure that one can see all submissions at one shot.

Kingsly