Note that we are not including Poll::PartialResults for open-ended
questions resutls. The reason is that we do not contemplate the
possibility of there being open questions in booths. Manually
counting and introducing the votes in the system is not feasible.
Similar to what we did in PR "Avoid duplicate records in poll answers" 5539,
specifically in commit 503369166, we want to stop relying on the plain text
"answer" and start using "option_id" to avoid issues with counts across
translations and to add consistency to the poll_partial_results table.
Note that we also moved the `possible_answers` method from Poll::Question to
Poll::Question::Option, since the list of valid answers really comes from the
options of a question and not from the question itself. Tests were updated
to validate answers against the translations of the assigned option.
Additionally, we renamed lambda parameters in validations to improve clarity.
Note that Rails 7.1 changes `find_or_create_by!` so it calls
`create_or_find_by!` when no record is found, meaning we'll rarely get
`RecordNotUnique` exceptions when using this method during a race
condition.
Adding this index means we need to remove the uniqueness validation.
According to the `create_or_find_by` documentation [1]:
> Columns with unique database constraints should not have uniqueness
> validations defined, otherwise create will fail due to validation
> errors and find_by will never be called.
We're adding a test that checks what happens when using
`create_or_find_by!`.
Note that we're creating voters combining `create_with` with
`find_or_create_by!`. Using `find_or_create_by!(...)` with all
attributes (including non-key ones like `origin`) fails when a voter
already exists with different values, e.g. an existing `origin: "web"`
and an incoming `"booth"`. In this situation the existing record is not
matched and the unique index raises an exception.
`create_with(...).find_or_create_by!(user: ..., poll: ...)` searches by
the unique key only and applies the extra attributes only on creation.
Existing voters are returned unchanged, which is the intended behavior.
For the `take_votes_from` method, we're handling a (highly unlikely, but
theoretically possible) scenario where a user votes at the same time as
taking voters from another user. For that, we're doing something similar
to what `create_or_find_by!` does: we're updating the `user_id` column
inside a new transaction (using a new transactions avoids a
`PG::InFailedSqlTransaction` exception when there are duplicate
records), and deleting the existing voter when we get a
`RecordNotUnique` exception.
On `Poll::WebVote` we're simply raising an exception when there's
already a user who's voted via booth, because the `Poll::WebVote#update`
method should never be called in this case.
We still need to use `with_lock` in `Poll::WebVote`, but not due to
duplicate voters (`find_or_create_by!` method will now handle the unique
record scenario, even in the case of simultaneous transactions), but
because we use a uniqueness validation in `Poll::Answer`; this
validation would cause an error in simultaneous transactions.
[1] https://api.rubyonrails.org/v7.1/classes/ActiveRecord/Relation.html#method-i-create_or_find_by
This could be the case when JavaScript is disabled.
Note that, in `Poll/WebVote` we're calling `given_answers` inside a
transaction. Putting this code before the transaction resulted in a test
failing sometimes, probably because of a bug that might be possible to
reproduce by doing simultaneous requests.
With the old interface, there wasn't a clear way to send a blank ballot.
But now that we've got a form, there's an easy way: clicking on "Vote"
while leaving the form blank.
Our original interface to vote in a poll had a few issues:
* Since there was no button to send the form, it wasn't clear that
selecting an option would automatically store it in the database.
* The interface was almost identical for single-choice questions and
multiple-choice questions, which made it hard to know which type of
question we were answering.
* Adding other type of questions, like open answers, was hard since we
would have to add a different submit button for each answer.
So we're now using radio buttons for single-choice questions and
checkboxes for multiple-choice questions, which are the native controls
designed for these purposes, and a button to send the whole form.
Since we don't have a database table for poll ballots like we have for
budget ballots, we're adding a new `Poll::WebVote` model to manage poll
ballots. We're using WebVote instead of Ballot or Vote because they
could be mistaken with other vote classes.
Note that browsers don't allow removing answers with radio buttons, so
once somebody has voted in a single-choice question, they can't remove
the vote unless they manually edit their HTML. This is the same behavior
we had before commit 7df0e9a96.
As mentioned in c2010f975, we're now adding the `ChangeByZero` rubocop
rule, since we've removed the test that used `and change`.
It was a bit strange to leave the end date blank and have a message
associated with the start date, so we're using presence validations
instead.
For the range validation, we're using the comparison validator included
in Rails 7.0.
Until now, we've stored the text of the answer somebody replied to. The
idea was to handle the scenarios where the user voters for an option but
then that option is deleted and restored, or the texts of the options
are accidentally edited and so the option "Yes" is now "Now" and vice
versa.
However, since commit 3a6e99cb8, options can no longer be edited once
the poll starts, so there's no risk of the option changing once somebody
has voted.
This means we can now store the ID of the option that has been voted.
That'll also help us deal with a bug introduced int 673ec075e, since
answers in different locales are not counted as the same answer. Note we
aren't dealing with this bug right now.
We're still keeping (and storing) the answer as well. There are two
reasons for that.
First, we might add an "open answer" type of questions in the future and
use this column for it.
Second, we've still got logic depending on the answer, and we need to be
careful when changing it because there are existing installations where
the answer is present but the option_id is not.
Note that we're using `dependent: nullify`. The reasoning is that, since
we're storing both the option_id and the answer text, we can still use
the answer text when removing the option. In practice, this won't matter
much, though, since we've got a validation rule that makes it impossible
to destroy options once the poll has started.
Also note we're still allowing duplicate records when the option is nil.
We need to do that until we've removed every duplicate record in the
database.
Note that, when taking votes from an erased user, since poll answers
don't belong to poll voters, we were not migrating them in the
`take_votes_from` method (and we aren't migrating them now either).
We were checking we didn't have more votes than allowed in the case of
questions with multiple answers, but we weren't checking it in the case
of questions with a single answer. This made it possible to create more
than one answer to the same question. This could happen because the
method `find_or_initialize_user_answer` might initialize two answers in
different threads, due to a race condition.
Having a class named `Poll::Question::Answer` and another class named
`Poll::Answer` was so confusing that no developer working on the project
has ever been capable of remembering which is which for more than a few
seconds.
Furthermore, we're planning to add open answers to polls, and we might
add a reference from the `poll_answers` table to the
`poll_question_answers` table to property differentiate between open
answers and closed answers. Having yet another thing named answer would
be more than what our brains can handle (we know it because we did this
once in a prototype).
So we're renaming `Poll::Question::Answer` to `Poll::Question::Option`.
Hopefully that'll make it easier to remember. The name is also (more or
less) consistent with the `Legislation::QuestionOption` class, which is
similar.
We aren't changing the table or columns names for now in order to avoid
possible issues when upgrading (old code running with the new database
tables/columns after running the migrations but before deployment has
finished, for instance). We might do it in the future.
I've tried not to change the internationalization keys either so
existing translations would still be valid. However, since we have to
change the keys in `activerecord.yml` so methods like
`human_attribute_name` keep working, I'm also changing them in places
where similar keys were used (like `poll_question_answer` or
`poll/question/answer`).
Note that it isn't clear whether we should use `option` or
`question_option` in some cases. In order to keep things simple, we're
using `option` where we were using `answer` and `question_option` where
we were using `question_answer`.
Also note we're adding tests for the admin menu component, since at
first I forgot to change the `answers` reference there and all tests
passed.
When calculating the stats on, say, January 1st 2024, and using a group
age of, say, between 20 and 24 years, we were considering that everyone
born between 2000 and 2004 had between 20 and 24 years. This wasn't
accurate, since most people born in 2004 would have 19 years at that
point, and most people born in 1999 would have 24 years.
When we first started caching the stats, generating them was a process
that took several minutes, so we never expired the cache.
However, there have been cases where we run into issues where the stats
shown on the screen were outdated. That's why we introduced a task to
manually expire the cache.
But now, generating the stats only takes a few seconds, so we can
automatically expire them every day, remove all the logic needed to
manually expire them, and get rid of most of the issues related to the
cache being outdated.
We're expiring them every day because it's the same day we were doing in
public stats (which we removed in commit 631b48f58), only we're using
`expires_at:` to set the expiration time, in order to simplify the code.
Note that, in the test, we're using `travel_to(time)` so the test passes
even when it starts an instant before midnight. We aren't using
`:with_frozen_time` because, in similar cases (although not in this
case, but I'm not sure whether that's intentional), `travel_to` shows
this error:
> Calling `travel_to` with a block, when we have previously already made
> a call to `travel_to`, can lead to confusing time stubbing.
We were calculating the age stats based on the age of the users who
participated... at the moment where we were calculating the stats. That
means that, if 20 years ago, 1000 people who were 16 years old
participated, they would be shown as having 36 years in the stats.
Instead, we want to show the stats at the time when the process took
place, so we're implementing a `participation_date` method.
Note that, for polls, we could actually use the `age` column in the
`poll_voters` table. However, doing so would be harder, would only work
for polls but not for budgets, and it wouldn't be statistically very
relevant, since the stats are shown by age groups, and only a small
percentage of people would change their age group (and only to the
nearest one) between the time they participate and the time the process
ends.
We might use the `poll_voters` table in the future, though, since we
have a similar issue with geozones and genders, and using the
information in `poll_voters` would solve it as well (only for polls,
though).
Also note that we're using the `ends_at` dates because some people but
be too young to vote when a process starts but old enough to vote when
the process ends.
Finally, note that we might need to change the way we calculate the
participation date for a budget, since some budgets might not enabled
every phase. Not sure how stats work in that scenario (even before these
changes).
Note we're excluding a few files:
* Configuration files that weren't generated by us
* Migration files that weren't generated by us
* The Gemfile, since it includes an important comment that must be on
the same line as the gem declaration
* The Budget::Stats class, since the heading statistics are a mess and
having shorter lines would require a lot of refactoring
For the HashAlignment rule, we're using the default `key` style (keys
are aligned and values aren't) instead of the `table` style (both keys
and values are aligned) because, even if we used both in the
application, we used the `key` style a lot more. Furthermore, the
`table` style looks strange in places where there are both very long and
very short keys and sometimes we weren't even consistent with the
`table` style, aligning some keys without aligning other keys.
Ideally we could align hashes to "either key or table", so developers
can decide whether keeping the symmetry of the code is worth it in a
case-per-case basis, but Rubocop doesn't allow this option.
In case we receive consecutive requests we are locking the poll author record
until the first request transaction ends, so the author answers count during
subsequent requests validations is up to date.
We need to update a couple of tests because a poll is created in the
tests with a timestamp that includes nanoseconds and in the form to edit
the time of the poll the nanoseconds are not sent, meaning it was
detected as a change.
We were already saving it as a time, but we didn't offer an interface to
select the time due to lack of decent browser support for this field
back when this feature was added.
However, nowadays all major browsers support this field type and, at the
time of writing, at least 86.5% of the browsers support it [1]. This
percentage could be much higher, since support in 11.25% of the browsers
is unknown.
Note we still need to support the case where this field isn't supported,
and so we offer a fallback and on the server side we don't assume we're
always getting a time. We're doing a strange hack so we set the field
type to text before changing its value; otherwise old Firefox browsers
crashed.
Also note that, until now, we were storing end dates in the database as
a date with 00:00 as its time, but we were considering the poll to be
open until 23:59 that day. So, in order to keep backwards compatibility,
we're adding a task to update the dates of existing polls so we get the
same behavior we had until now.
This also means budget polls are now created so they end at the
beginning of the day when the balloting phase ends. This is consistent
with the dates we display in the budget phases table.
Finally, there's one test where we're using `beginning_of_minute` when
creating a poll. That's because Chrome provides an interface to enter a
time in a `%H:%M` format when the "seconds" value of the provided time
is zero. However, when the "seconds" value isn't zero, Chrome provides
an interface to enter a time in a `%H:%M:%S` format. Since Capybara
doesn't enter the seconds when using `fill_in` with a time, the test
failed when Capybara tried to enter a time in the `%H:%M` format when
Chrome expected a time in the `%H:%M:%S` format.
To solve this last point, an alternative would be to manually provide
the format when using `fill_in` so it includes the seconds.
[1] https://caniuse.com/mdn-html_elements_input_type_datetime-local
I'd say this feature is actually tested in the "proposal polls specific
validations"; the empty test was probably added by accident in commit
4b8cc85c4.
CONSUL doesn't implement blank votes via web; the comment was based on
the code used in Madrid, which was actually very complex.
And the concept of "all city" was also specific to Madrid. Poll
questions aren't associated to a geozone, so the geozone will depend on
the poll they're associated to.
