A simple approval application that pokes fun at the importance given to voting... or does it? Like or dislike as you will.

A brief introduction: https://vimeo.com/41551442

People or organizations can setup an Account in JudgeMe to list their items, or Artifacts, for other people to like or dislike. JudgeMe provides two modalities for users to express their approval: web and sms.

JudgeMe explores the social dynamics behind user preferences through a three-step process:

1. A user expresses their approval (or disapproval) for an artifact
2. The application reveals other peoples' preferences and prompts the user to reconsider their initial preference
3. The user can optionally change their preference

JudgeMe provides support for contextual preference expression through both modalities, overlaying the social aggregate selection with an immediate dynamic re-evaluation prompt.

The web interface provides a simple display for users to click a thumbs-up or thumbs-down icon for a particular artifact. The images are then replaced by the number of users selecting each (e.g., 504 Likes, 372 Dislikes). After these aggregate preferences are shown, a modal dialogue prompts the user to either "Keep It" or "Change It" (their preference). There are two distinct use cases:

• POS-like device, where the artifact's page is pre-loaded on the screen
• mobile browser, where a visitor snaps a QR code linking direct to artifact's page

The SMS interface takes form as an HTTP callback that you can register with an SMS provider. For example, using TextMarks as your provider with keyword 'JUDGEME', a user could text 41411 with 'JUDGEME Art001 Like' (case-insensitive) for artifact 'Art001'. 'Dislike' is also supported. The user then receives back a message containing the total number of likes and dislikes, respectively. A narrative prompt employs the user to reconsider whether they would like to stay with their initial preference or change it. In this same context, the user may simply reply 'C' to change their preference.

JudgeMe was developed using ruby 1.9.2-p290. You are using RVM, aren't you? Just run this command to install the right ruby.

rvm install 1.9.2-p290

Now create a gemset for the application

rvm use --create 1.9.2-p290@judgeme

JudgeMe manages its dependencies using Bundler (gasp!). If you don't yet have Bundler installed, install it now.

gem install bundler

Now install the JudgeMe dependencies with

bundle install

Now migrate the database with

rake db:migrate

JudgeMe was developed using TextMarks for SMS-enabling the application. Any provider that can make a custom HTTP callback upon receiving a message should do though. The provider should be able to make a GET request containing the the phone number, message, and unique device identifier in the URL path for each subscriber message. Just register your keyword (e.g., JUDGEME) and use the provider's HTTP callback mechanism/API to configure the service. The full setup of an SMS provider is outside the scope of this document.

JudgeMe provides a semi-RESTful* callback endpoint

GET /users/[PHONE_NUMBER]/votes/[MESSAGE]?serial=[UNIQ_DEVICE_ID]

This is configured in TextMarks API Settings with a callback URL such as

http://judgeme.herokuapp.com/users/\p/votes/\0?serial=\u

Note, you need to use your own domain, unless you want to send users to our server. :)

*semi--because a GET request should be safe, i.e., not change state on the server.

The model layer consists of four objects: user, account, artifact, and vote.

• An account may have one more or artifacts
• A user may have one or more votes
• An account may also have users, but that's not currently used anywhere.

To quickly get some data in the database, we've provided a rake task that'll add some auto-generated seed data for you.

rake db:seed

Regular management is currently done through the console. You can use it to create the accounts and artifacts you need.

rake console

To create a new account

>> Account.create(:name => "moma")

To create a new artifact:

>> Artifact.create(:id => "art001", :account_id => 1)

Users will automatically be created for every user that SMS's the application. Anonymous web votes are recorded as the first user, having phone number "0".

You can also create a new user directly:

>> User.create(:name => "John Smith", :username => "johnny", :email => "[email protected]", :phone => "1234567890")

Being a Sinatra app, any Rack-capable web server can run JudgeMe.

To run it locally, we've provided a nice little Rake task that invokes Unicorn using config/unicorn.conf.

rake server

Then open your web browser to http://localhost:2007. You can change the goofy port in unicorn.conf

You'll find three files in the log directory.

• log/sinatra.log for application output
• log/unicorn-stdout.log for unicorn's stdout (like apache's access_log)
• log/unicorn-stderr.log for unicorn's sterr (like apache's error_log)

The quickest way to see a live site is using Heroku. Install the Heroku gem.

gem install heroku

Create a new site on Heroku with

heroku create --stack cedar

Now push your code out.

git push heroku master

And open it in your browser.

heroku open

You should see a list of all accounts created from the seed data or console during configuration above.

You can explore your data using the console mentioned above. Its super easy to traverse relationships, filter through your data, and mutate it to your heart's content.

You can list all users with

>> User.all

Lookup 'Johnny' by username or phone number:

>> User.first(:username => "johnny")
>> User.first(:phone => "1234567890")

Find the id of the first item Johnny disliked

>> johnny.votes.dislike.first.artifact.id

Or find how many artifacts that Johnny still likes (i.e., didn't change his mind and cancel his vote) with

>> johnny.votes.uncancelled.likes.count

The same ideas go for all four objects, such as Account.all and Artifact.first(:id => 'art001').

There's many more ways to use the data in here. Explore!

JudgeMe is written in Ruby for the Sinatra framework using a nice mix of technologies, including DataMapper, Haml, Sass, CoffeeScript and jQuery, SQLite3 and PostgreSQL, Unicorn and Thin. When we finally start writing tests, we'll be using Riot and RR.