I have no interest or time in doing this extension, sorry :/

But you're a ColdFusion and C++ kinda guy?

What an odd mixture!

I'm all for a poll extention... Maybe if I find some free time I could write one. Doesn't look very likely right now. I could use it for my forum which is for our LUG. It would be nice to use that as a way to have member vote on stuff.

I for one would love a poll extension.

i get about 400 spam emails about that everyday. i'm sure one of them has what you're looking for. ;)

one of the reasons we might not move our forum over to vanilla is the lack of a poll. they are important to us as we are using it right now to decide what we should use to host our forums on and other group decisions. So please, someone make a poll extension

What kind of a poll are you looking for?
One that sits in the control panel, or a thread that is actually a poll?

just a pointer for anyone who's interested in online polls.
mod_survey (very very unfornationally only for apache 2) seems to be the most advanced html-poll-toolbox around.
if anyone happens to know a better (or equal) tool please let me know.
i love the design (simple xml to describe your poll, mod_survey takes care of the rest) but the apache requirement has been a showstopper for me so far.

anyways, check out the demos.

I have two suggestions on how the poll should work.

First is that the poll would be on the sidepanel (I'd love to have some more functionality on it) and it could be seen on every page of the thread.

The second suggestion is to add the answer on the right side from the icon and post time, so it would be like "icon 1hour ago answered: not so often" so people would see what the guy answered.

Well, the poll functionality usually comes handy on a community that isn't there just for the community, but the community is created by something larger, as an example, I have used tons of polls in many MMORPG boards on voting for events, changing functionality and so on.

It wouldn't work on a board that is there just to create a community.

I agree with timberford, as we have seen from the top most popular forum softwares, the plethora of funtionality means alot to some communities and their leaders.

I like Vanillas *lack* of features myself. What's there works pretty damn well. This is where extensions come into their own though. Phpbb does too much in my opinion.

"Then why not use the other software? It is a serious question. If you want ALL the functionality of other forum software, then I suggest you use it."

i currently use phpbb but it is tables build and i'd like a css forum.

if you could point me in the direction of a css forum with all the functionality of phpBB then I would be more than happy to go away and use that.

i understand that you don't want vanilla to lose it's simplicity but that certainly doesn't mean there shouldn't be extensions for those that require further functionality. afterall, isn't that the point of the extensions?

If you can have the functionality of the bigger and more popular forums why not make the extensions? Why fight it? Now THERE is a serious question.

I understand the Vanilla ideology perfectly, but if someone loves Vanilla simpilicity and soldi performance as much as I do, why the hell you go and tell him "oh you want a poll? Well bad luck but we don't want one, so go use some other forum software," it's just srange to me.

Hell no, something like a poll, nor a calendar or any other unnecessary functions for a forum to work are not going to be a part of Vanilla, for obvious reasons.

But what I don't understand is why people are against the poll extension is just beyond my imagination.

one consideration with placing it in the side bar is that it doesn't give you much room...

the other obvious place is at the top of the topic between the header and the first post on the page.

What is wrong with putting it in the panel timberford? A nicely styled bar graph would look perfect there.

How about we have something different. A pie graph/ chart. You don't see too many of those around.

Community wide polls, that might not have a topic but just exist on their own, could be placed on the discussion page, at the top.

Well, I like the piechart thing, but it might need some sort of library, I used a JS lib when I did some work in school for my website, it could generate all sorts of charts.

But it might go nicely on the right hand side of the first post explaining the Poll, I really wouldn't like to place it above the first post in any circumstance, and certainly not above everything in Discussions page, it gives the poll way too mcuh attenttion and "rule".

If your only thing against phpBB is the fact that it uses tables, there are other themes out there for it that are pure CSS... Mike Lothar makes one (or more?) of them, and there are a few others as well... and you could always, make your own.

Nifty pie charts would be cool, or a fancy bar graph like someone linked to (css graph). I dont like things that require the image library things, GD, imagick (or something) ... I dont have any if those. On my server or in my testing setup. Although I do like the things that they do, never felt compelled to install it all just so I can thumbnail an image...

The "Raid" theme is 99% css, only like 2 tables as the main structure...

If you are going to force people to comment when they vote, why have them vote, if you have to read all the comments anyways? Thats my thoughts.

I do like the idea of a vote history option. With the users name and the option they chose.

--And I never said I didnt like polls, just never found much use for em.

\o/ for not having to install extra stuff

My toughts on the poll is, it's not like politics, if we have a community vote, I'd sure would like to know why you voted for something, and when people can see what you voted, you have to stand behind your vote and not flipflop, which would ultimately destroy the poll.

And as for the "If you are going to force people to comment when they vote, why have them vote, if you have to read all the comments anyways? Thats my thoughts."

Example, you have a community with 10,000 users, and you have an important poll, are you going to read through roughly 30,000 posts (if it is an important issue) and having the possibility of non clear opinions like "I'm kinda against the for it, but I'm not sure", the poll is for a fast way of checking how the poll is progressing, the comment is for them to have the time to explain themselfs. But, they are not forced to do that.

I completely loathe anonymous posting in a community, faceless people are worst kind there is.

I'm also heavily in favour of a poll extension. I understand not adding it to the core of Vanilla and completely agree with that. I think the beauty of Vanilla is that it's quite a pure base to build upon.

To the people saying 'why not use phpBB?', my personal feeling is that Vanilla is a much nicer looking system with better functionality and a much better interface. I like it because it doesn't have all the excess crap that phpBB and the likes come with, but still has the option to add the functionality you need.

The reality is that some people find polls extremely useful given the role that their forums play. This may not be the case for you personally, but that doesn't make it any less valid for those who do require them.

As for placement, I think that more often than not, when a thread contains a poll, the poll is the focus of that thread. As such, the top of the thread seems a logical place for it. It's the first thing that catches your eye and makes it easy to vote straight away.

The bottom could also be useful if you want people to actually give the poll some thought and perhaps first read replies before voting.

I'm not in favour of requiring a post to vote, it would lead to too many pointless posts made simply for the sake of voting.

Perhaps the creator of the poll thread could select whether the poll votes are private or not. Having them public would enable everyone to see who voted for what. I definately like the idea of perhaps displying it next to the person's username if they post in the thread. A collapsable div would be good as well, as it allows you to see the votes of those who haven't posted.

Hmm, yeah. Someone should make it, it'd be really handy.