Lack of interest Expand User Group Permissions for Polls

[Amaury]

Currently, the only permission for polls is to vote. I think it'd be nice if we had more permissions, such as managing polls.

The inspiration to make this thread came from KH-Vids, where they're currently holding their annual user awards. The vote results in the polls staff makes are always made public, but a couple staff members forgot to make results public in some of the threads they made. Earlier ones were somehow able to get fixed by the owner of the poll, but some more recent ones I'm not sure can be fixed.

Doing some testing on our test site, it seems that once someone votes, the option to display votes publicly disappears, and not even staff members can change it. However, if the option to display votes publicly is enabled and someone votes, it can still be changed back to be not public.

This is where more user group permissions would come in handy, giving us the ability to do things like make votes public even once a vote has been cast.

 

[Martok]

This is where more user group permissions would come in handy, giving us the ability to do things like make votes public even once a vote has been cast.

This has been discussed before in other threads and the response from many to this is No!

Many users would not be happy knowing that they had voted in a poll, knowing that poll was set to private, only to find that someone had then set the poll to public after they had voted. These users voted knowing that no-one could see how they voted, only to find that their privacy had been broken and now everyone could see their vote.

 

[Amaury]

That's why I'm suggesting user group permissions. (Or as an alternative, it could be made so if Display as staff is checked, then they can bypass all that, similar to how staff can't be ignored if that's checked.)

I can definitely see the point, which is why only staff should have this, and it would be used sparingly, such as only when mistakes are made. Using my OP, it's intended that all poll results be public, but they're only human and can forget to check the box. Sure, users can re-create the poll if they catch it early on, but if many users already voted, we can't expect them to re-vote. (What if they went on vacation and can't?)

 

[Martok]

It's still a big no to this.

Privacy is privacy. If a user votes knowing that their vote is private, their vote should remain private, it shouldn't be made public by anyone, so your argument for user group permissions is void. After all, I'm sure you would agree that there shouldn't be user group permissions to allow some people on the forum to read other people's private conversations...

If you have a problem with people forgetting to make polls public on your site, then just edit the relevant template so that the make poll public option is ticked by default.

 

[Amaury]

After all, I'm sure you would agree that there shouldn't be user group permissions to allow some people on the forum to read other people's private conversations...

I agree there, yes, but I don't completely feel the same for votes. Not saying I completely agree or disagree, I just feel they're different.

If you have a problem with people forgetting to make polls public on your site, then just edit the relevant template so that the make poll public option is ticked by default.

That's actually a great idea, and with a notice on the thread create page to let them know votes will be public (so they can disable it if they want), it could work quite well.

On a semi-related note, sorry if I upset you. Although I could be completely wrong. I already often have problems interpreting online message tones, and it's especially hard to tell with you sometimes because of that avatar. :x

 

[Martok]

notice on the thread create page to let them know votes will be public (so they can disable it if they want), it could work quite well.

That's what the text next to the public vote tick box is for. Of course you can enhance the phrase to suit your needs.

On a semi-related note, sorry if I upset you. Although I could be completely wrong. I already often have problems interpreting online message tones

You haven't upset me. I'm just passionate about defending privacy on forums. Conversations are private and so are votes on polls. Some polls I (and other users) wouldn't vote on if we knew that everyone could see our votes. So a poll being marked as private gives users confidence that no-one is going to see how they voted. It'd be unthinkable to then change the vote to public after that, especially if a poll is on highly personal matters.

especially hard to tell with you sometimes because of that avatar. :x

Clearly you don't know the character of Martok then. He's a very honourable and trustworthy Klingon. Besides, it's just a picture, I'm sure you wouldn't want people to judge you as a person based on your various avatars.

 

[Amaury]

That's what the text next to the public vote tick box is for. Of course you can enhance the phrase to suit your needs.

There's actually no text there, though it can easily be added: https://xenforo.com/community/forums/test-messages.6/create-thread

 

[Martok]

There's actually no text there

There is, it says "Display votes publicly". It's pretty clear to me what that option does.

 

[Amaury]

Oh. I thought you were referring to note text like the "This is the maximum..." one. My bad.

 

[Robert9]

Means that the owner of a board is possible an *******, that maybe wants to **** up his users.

For this reason the software itself should save the world, the admins and the people?

If people are able to decide that they dont want to change private polls to public polls, than they should not do it.

But very often someone opens a poll and forgets to trigger the right option. For this it is a good idea to have this option to change from private to public and vice versa.

 

[Martok]

Means that the owner of a board is possible an *******, that maybe wants to **** up his users.

For this reason the software itself should save the world, the admins and the people?

If people are able to decide that they dont want to change private polls to public polls, than they should not do it.

But very often someone opens a poll and forgets to trigger the right option. For this it is a good idea to have this option to change from private to public and vice versa.

A better option is for polls to be public by default and only be private if the person creating the poll ticks the private option (and this can be achieved by a template edit, something I've done on my site).