RELEASE: vBpoll hack version .0.1

Here is the first release of the vBpoll hack. It is still pretty rough aroung the edges, so I would appreciate some feedback. If you have any questions please post them here.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/vb.html

got it running anywhere?

I don't have it running with vB anywhere, but you can check out what it looks like at
http://www.linuxquestions.org/slash

It can (and will) be integrated into vB just like it is integrated into that page.

hmm, was working on one too. Would like to see it in action

not too bad looking. it will be great once it's integrated into the software so people can start poll topics...

How exactly would you like it to be integrated? What is a poll topic? As I have it now you can place a poll anywhere you want on a webpage. I am open to ideas.

My upstream provider had a routing issue for the last 30 minutes or so. I apologize to all who were not able to get to my site. I have a trouble ticket open and everything appears to be OK now.

what i am working is incorparating a poll into a thread post. ie you can post a new thread or a new poll (my implementation will allow also inthe future to post reply polls).

I'm pretty far with it, hopefully by the weekend, I'll have a working test version.

You want anyone to be able to post a poll? hmm. To be honest I didn't think of that. You could do that extremely easily with mine - just do not password protect the admin.php file and then make a link to it that says something like "create a poll".

Doron has the right idea - polls that can be started just like a Thread, appear in the forum listing just as a thread and allows replies to be posted in the poll thread (and perhaps more polls).

Like it said this could be done with mine without any problems (or modifications). BUT the more I think about it the less I like it. I think that 100's of polls on random topics would be confusing and even potentially somewhat annoying.

yeah, the poll is embedded in the thread, with replying available.

the reply canbe a poll won't be in my initial release, but I'll make sure it is not hard to do later.

you wouldn't be able to post a poll in any topic. you would have to start a topic as a poll. at least that's the way it would be set up ideally.

Delphi.com has that incorporated into their board right now.

I still think I like the idea of well thought-out, somewhat relavent, admin/moderator controlled polls. What happens when person A posts a poll, then person B posts a "How many people think poll 1 sucked" poll and so on down the line. I also don't really like the idea that there could be one thread with 47 polls.

Martin,
I was typing my response to doron and you snuck a reply in there :)
I wouldn't mind users being able to start a thread as a poll I guess. That would be EXTREMELY easy to do the way I have the script setup right now. Just make a link to vBpolladmin.php3?op=create and the user will be taken to the poll creation page.

[Edited by customcpu on 07-05-2000 at 04:23 PM]

as I said, I would limit the polls to be the first post of a thread and only regular replies allowed to comment on the poll.

as far as the "who thinks poll #1 sucked?" polls, isn't that what admin and mods are for?

One could easily add a "Can create poll" permission to the User Groups if need be.

I guess the reason I think that is the best way to do it is because it gives users a new toy. Users love toys. The more toys they have to play with, the happier they are, The happier they are, the more likely they are to stay :)

yep, the permissions thing is planned, as is a max # of polls per person per week or so, to stop people from going poll crazy (all this will be done via the control panel)

the poll as reply thing would be kinds useless, maybe a max 1 poll per thread or so.

you can already limit the number of options in the poll via the control panel on my current version, I just finished the check if you have voted or not.

putting the remarks on my todo list (tm)

This is just a test ;)

The check must not user cookies as a user can wipe them and re-vote. I hope it uses the database to store whether they have voted or not on a particular poll.

Originally I wasn't going to require registration to vote in a poll, so the database was not used. I am going to change that in .0.2 as tracking via cookies has a few problems.

I think it would be best if we created a forum for just polls to keep things less cluttered.

-Brian

Perhaps add a permission to Modify Forums like 'Allow Polls' so that behaviour can be set if so desired.

my version simply saves evey vote in the db, including the time and what the user voted. this way, the db is used to check if you voted, so no ips.

also working on a vote history, where you can see who voted when (but not for what, that would be unfair ;)

I'm actually pretty close to releasing a preview version, everything is working except for the limitations on who can post a poll.

The only issue left is (gulp) editing of a post/poll. Do you think it should be possible to edit the questions or not? (abuse here would be an issue)?

if editing were allowed, it should be restricted to admin/mod. the posibility of abuse by user editting is too much.

Allow editing as long as there are no votes (yet).

Hi!
How do you include this poll in your vB, sincs it strips out the PHP-Tags.

bye,
Michael

i'll be posting a demo forum with the poll hack later today for testing. the poll script in the url in this thread is not the poll I used

I've seen many people wondering how the polls will work, and I think OpenTopic has it implemented very nicely, and to be honest, their board is what inspired many to crave polls in either UBB or vB. Don't take my praise for the OT Poll Feature as praise for OT. It's very nice software, but way to expensive for individual webmasters IMHO. But lets not turn this into a vB vs. OT debate. Here's their implementation of polls, and one I would like to see copied.

http://beta.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?q=Y&a=tpc&s=1000946&f=9000946&m=77809659

BTW, I fully support the idea of having the option to restrict voting to registered users. It would be the best way to prevent users from cheating the system, and also give an incentive for lurkers to register to vote.

you can test my still not-finsihed vesion at:
http://www.naboonline.com/polltest/index.php

Originally posted by Martin
I guess the reason I think that is the best way to do it is because it gives users a new toy. Users love toys. The more toys they have to play with, the happier they are, The happier they are, the more likely they are to stay :)

You couldn't be more right!

Hi,

thanks for working on such a functionality.
If I could add a function to the list of what is currently being written, I'd say...please add a graphical representation to the poll result.

Some people read text other graphs