Vote

A MediaWiki extension to provide a user-friendly graphical user interface for votes conducted on wiki pages. To add a vote to a page you just add the <vote> tag as follows:

<vote>
</vote>

This extension then turns this tag into a web form with radio buttons for the available options (approve, oppose and abstain) and a textarea to attach a comment to the vote. When you submit the form, the extension simply edits the page, inserting a new line before the closing </vote> tag. By storing the votes in the page text all the changes are conveniently and transparently tracked in the page history.

Additional features include:

• The votes are automatically tallied.

• You can change your vote by just submitting the form again (your last vote counts).

• An end date may be specified for the vote with the end attribute e.g. with <vote end=2022-10-15> the vote will close on the 15th October 2022 at 23:59 in the wiki timezone. After the deadline the web form to add new votes disappears.

• A vote may be cancelled by adding the cancel attribute, e.g. <vote cancel>.

• Any line within the <vote> tag that does not start with * is skipped when tallying, so it is possible to reply to votes by editing the wikitext, e.g:

  <vote>
  * 2022-10-14 12:28 Alice: NO I am concerned that ...
  : Some reply to Alice ... --~~~~
  * 2022-10-14 12:30 Bob: YES I think that ...
  </vote>

Pages with open votes are by default tracked in the Category:Pages with open votes category (which can be customized by editing MediaWiki:pages-with-open-votes-category).

Backstory

The extension was developed by push-f for the OpenStreetMap Wiki to make its proposal voting process more welcoming to people unfamiliar with wikitext. OpenStreetMap is edited by hundreds of thousands people, most of which are probably unfamiliar with wiki editing. While in comparison only very few people participate in the proposal voting, everybody is welcome to do so, so it makes sense to simplify the process.