Halalan Information (was: Halalan admin's voice)
Waldemar Bautista
On Tue, Jan 31, 2012 at 4:22 PM, Mary Macapagal
<mary.ma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> About Halalan
>
> What is it? (Secure, simple, online voting system for student and
> organization elections. -Ry) Anything else?
As found in http://halalan.uplug.org/about/,
"Halalan is an open-source voting system designed for student
elections. It aims to automate the manual processes of elections such
as counting, archiving, and voting. It is designed to be easy-to-use
and secure.
It is currently being developed and maintained by the UP Linux Users’
Group (UnPLUG), a student organization from the University of the
Philippines Diliman."
As for me, I really don't have a definition. I consider Halalan as a
simple way to contribute to UP and the FOSS community.
> Can you give examples of what you consider its competitors/similar products?
Most voting systems that I encountered are the academic type which
means they are proof of concepts, not available to the general public,
or not actively developed anymore. On the other hand, there is a
voting system, called Helios Voting (http://heliosvoting.org/), that
have good points and can serve as an inspiration.
> What sets Halalan apart from #2? According to Rystraum, you made it for
> unplug, then offered it free for orgs who have a similar need. But why did
> you make it in the first place? What did those competitors lack that you
> included in Halalan?
When we first developed Halalan, the thought of looking for an
existing voting system never crossed our minds. I think this was
because we were just learning how to create web applications and we
wanted something to do. At that time, a member of UnPLUG (the
immortal Pio) had a chat with the Office of Student Activities (OSA).
OSA narrated how the counting of votes during student council
elections took so long and such other problems. And since we were
young and passionate (mapupusok) back then, we jumped on the
opportunity to not only test our skills but more importantly, to serve
the University. So we designed, coded, and tested Halalan with the
aim of being used in student council elections in UP Diliman.
Together with the USC (with chairperson Kris Ablan), we held a series
of demonstrations to some colleges and student publications. This was
during the academic year 2004-2005. Unfortunately, due to lack of
time and other issues, Halalan was not used in the USC 2005 election.
After that, Halalan was inactive for around a year but had been
revived in May 2006. The rest is in the mailing list archives. I can
expound on this, maybe during a pizza party or something.
> About the Users
>
> Who are the usual users? (Do you have stats on the # of Halalan downloads?)
Student councils and student organizations. There are a few
non-student organizations that have used Halalan but it's hard to
classify them.
There is a download count in http://code.google.com/p/halalan/downloads/list.
> Do the users/downloaders write back or give feedback? How? (fb, twitter,
> personal email, press release, etc)
There are a couple of feedback in
http://halalan.uplug.org/documentation/portfolio/, a few have sent an
email, but mostly, we only found out that Halalan is being used
because of Google Analytics.
> Who are your ideal users? Whom did you build this for? (Student orgs
> -Rystraum) Does that tally with the users you encountered in #1?
Since the original target has been achieved (implementation in student
council elections), maybe we can try to push it to other forms of
elections. Either way, Halalan has been designed to be as generic as
possible (although there is a UP-specific repo for UP-specific use
cases).
> What are the common user problems? (note: I've read through the issues page
> - is that it or is there some other channel I can monitor to find possible
> UI improvements? Do they email you guys directly?)
Common user problems are "reliably" reported by "reliable"
publications during USC elections. In other elections, the issues
page and the Halalan mailing list (not this one) are the only avenues
that we have received such problems from, so far.
I hope this helps. Thanks.
--
Waldemar Amado Bautista
Mary Macapagal
Looks like there are no fixed goals yet (design and user-wise). I'll think about those too when redesigning the UI.
Thanks for the interview Wally!
--
Waldemar Amado Bautista
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Waldemar Bautista
<mary.ma...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Looks like there are no fixed goals yet (design and user-wise). I'll think
> about those too when redesigning the UI.
Yup. Right now is just "rewriting" the 1.5.x series.
> Thanks for the interview Wally!
No problem.
--
Waldemar Amado Bautista