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Arantor

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Poll mode
« on March 5th, 2012, 12:28 AM »
Sorry for yet another topic about a single admin setting, but I think it needs a bit of discussion.

Admin > Configuration > General > Poll Mode

You can set it to enable polls (default), disable polls, or show polls as topics. This is a bit weird, so let me explain.

If you disable polls (as opposed to show polls as topics), the poll+topic is actually hidden, it's hidden in message index, it's hidden in unread/unreadreplies, though you can still access the topic directly (which seems to me to defeat the point a bit). If you just 'show polls as topics', it's as though the poll was never added and there are no permissions to add/vote etc.

I don't know about you, but I never came across anyone who ever did properly disable polls, it's always done with permissions rather than outright turning them off (which says to me that people don't realise the option's there) and even if they did know it was there, I can't really see people using it.

So, I'm proposing to remove it, but I want to be sure that no-one's going to use it if I do. It isn't something that can be easily added back with a plugin.
When we unite against a common enemy that attacks our ethos, it nurtures group solidarity. Trolls are sensational, yes, but we keep everyone honest. | Game Memorial

spoogs

  • Posts: 417
Re: Poll mode
« Reply #1, on March 5th, 2012, 12:59 AM »
I've always handled polls via permissions so I guess I wouldnt miss it, heck I wasnt even aware of it  :P
Stick a fork in it SMF

Arantor

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #2, on March 5th, 2012, 01:01 AM »
There's all sorts of things like that in SMF's admin panel, which is why I've been so despairing of it!

If I had more options to polls I'd do what I've done for Who's Online, and make a page out of it, but I can't think of any other options anywhere else in the admin panel that are related to polls.

godboko71

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #3, on March 5th, 2012, 02:35 AM »
Never noticed it to be honest, and even if I had I would have never used it.
Thank you,
Boko

Farjo

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #4, on March 5th, 2012, 08:42 AM »
So it only affects existing poll threads:- from the option's help "Remember this if polls are not working." Maybe in the early days polls were a frequent problem and kept preventing the board / thread from loading / displaying. So this option was written so the admin could turn them off pending a fix, and it has never been removed??

Can't see a use for it now - as said if we decided we didn't want polls anymore we'd do that via permissions and let the existing ones time out or lock them or whatever.

Arantor

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #5, on March 5th, 2012, 09:12 AM »
I'm not sure of the historical basis for it, but I guess at some point people asked for it to be disabled and it got included, but that must have been a long time ago, it's certainly in 1.1, probably in 1.0 and I suspect it may even be in YaBBSE, though I've not actually used it.

Nao

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #6, on March 5th, 2012, 04:24 PM »
+1 for removal.

Would also like to discuss making polls linked to posts rather than topics. And most importantly, multiple polls per post, ie non-unique key.

Arantor

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #7, on March 5th, 2012, 04:25 PM »
I'm not clear why you'd want multiple polls per topic, either directly or one per post (which allows multiple per topic), what use would it have?
Re: Poll mode
« Reply #8, on March 5th, 2012, 06:05 PM »
So I killed the old poll mode setting in r1436. What benefits does reorganising things for multiple polls give us?

Nao

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #9, on March 5th, 2012, 07:43 PM »
Logo madness. Have a poll for font and a poll for logo. Things like that.

Is it that hard to allow for more polls?
I don't remember the codebase much. Honestly as you may have noticed, I'm struggling irl, closing on a burnout, unable to catch up with all your changes. I haven't even read any more of these new topics or my few new PMs. I'm totally lost. Help.

Arantor

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #10, on March 5th, 2012, 08:10 PM »
No, it isn't that hard, really. We convert the poll id to has_poll, a bool. This allows us to fix up all the edge cases like unread replies where the icon is used. Then in Display, we check for has_poll, query for poll details and push to $context. There is actually a mod for it that can be examined, if inspiration is needed.

I had sort of noticed, with my getting streaks of half a dozen commits. Don't worry about reviewing my stuff, I'm not doing that much in the way of "big stuff" so most of it is not only modestly sized, but modestly scaled, the admin panel stuff is mostly minor tweaks, no matter how big it sounds.

All I can say is that you shouldn't worry about loading yourself up too much, you've been very, very busy lately, and you deserve a break to recuperate.

All the "big stuff" that's really left for now is stuff I need to do, so kick back and I'll dig in.

Nao

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #11, on March 6th, 2012, 10:02 AM »
Quote from Arantor on March 5th, 2012, 08:10 PM
No, it isn't that hard, really. We convert the poll id to has_poll, a bool. This allows us to fix up all the edge cases like unread replies where the icon is used. Then in Display, we check for has_poll, query for poll details and push to $context. There is actually a mod for it that can be examined, if inspiration is needed.
I don't know of any mods that aren't in use at Wedge.org, not exactly the area of SMF I played with the most... ;) (either that or themes. Possibly the reason why we rewrote both the mod and theme system, eh ;))
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All the "big stuff" that's really left for now is stuff I need to do, so kick back and I'll dig in.
I still need to finish topic and thought privacy...
I think I'll get back to this today. A bit.

Arantor

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #12, on March 6th, 2012, 02:04 PM »
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I don't know of any mods that aren't in use at Wedge.org, not exactly the area of SMF I played with the most...
Ah, I had the dubious fortune to get to know a lot of the mods there on *some* level. http://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1586 is what you're looking for.
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I still need to finish topic and thought privacy...
I think I'll get back to this today. A bit.
There's no hurry, please take your time :)
Re: Poll mode
« Reply #13, on March 8th, 2012, 03:41 PM »
Is this something that we need in the core? Or something we should look at making a plugin?

(It would certainly be easier to support in the core, I'm just trying to understand if we 'really need' it or not.)

I would note that if we plan on doing 'who voted what' as we talked about, it's going to get awful crowded awful quick.


Also, I'm thinking of setting it up so that there are 10 classes applied to the poll bars, so that the first one is .pollbar .bar1 or whatever, so that themers can - if they want - get the vB look and feel of having different coloured poll bars, but that they're still consistent otherwise.

Nao

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Re: Poll mode
« Reply #14, on March 8th, 2012, 08:25 PM »
Quote from Arantor on March 8th, 2012, 03:41 PM
Is this something that we need in the core? Or something we should look at making a plugin?
What, multiple polls in a single topic? Core, core!
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I would note that if we plan on doing 'who voted what' as we talked about, it's going to get awful crowded awful quick.
Who voted what will definitely be in Wedge... I just didn't think of doing it yet. What's needed already..? Recording the id_member and stuff, is it already done? Is the database ready for that? Hmm...
Anyway, we don't NEED to show the names to everyone. We don't even have to show them immediately to admins... For instance we can add a small button to retrieve the names through Ajax or just show them via JS.
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Also, I'm thinking of setting it up so that there are 10 classes applied to the poll bars, so that the first one is .pollbar .bar1 or whatever, so that themers can - if they want - get the vB look and feel of having different coloured poll bars, but that they're still consistent otherwise.
I don't know what vB looks like... What I know is that there used to be 2 bar divs, I removed one. I'm all for simplicity, personally... :^^;:
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