[JohnKSa]

As it stands, if a person POSTS on a poll, the poll thread gets a btt.

If a person VOTES on a poll but doesn't POST, the poll doesn't get a btt.

That means a well designed poll (one designed so that voters can choose a selection without having to post accompanying amplifying information) will rapidly disappear in spite of the fact that people may be voting like crazy...

That doesn't seem right. :(

[Darrin]

2 days and no bite. I'll give it a whirl.

Typically on most other boards I've spent time on, they are set up for exactly how you ask. Wanna know what's funny? The 'Tech Support' forum on those boards is filled with people asking for how THR is set up.

It actually become more annoying because most of the time you are following conversations, right? What gets annoying about having a poll bump a thread back to the top is; you end up re-reading the entire last page only to discover you've already read those posts. Where's the new post? The thread is back at the top, what's up? Oh, someone must have voted on the poll. :banghead:


If I may suggest two cool options:

1. "Subscribe to this forum" - You'll see this text immediately below the http://www.thehighroad.org/images/newthread.gif button at the top-right of the forum page. (More detailed explanation coming up soon.)

2. "Subscribe to this thread" - At the bottom of each page within a thread, you have three (3) links available directly below the last post of the page: 'Show Printable Version' , 'Email this Page' , 'Subscribe to this Thread' (Take note of bolded text.)

Know where the User Control Panel is? (Hint: Looks like http://www.thehighroad.org/images/top_profile.gif) When you click that link and go to your control panel, you'll see three links. See the last two? Good. They should look familiar. (Hint: The word subscribe is in both links.) Here's where the coolness comes in:

Let's pretend you find a particular thread you want to follow. Example, a thread with a poll. While viewing that thread, you click the "Subscribe to this Thread." From your CP, you'd have a link right there to get you directly to that thread. Very cool feature if you seem to 'lose' threads often, (Guilty :uhoh: ), or forget where that thread was you posted in last night.

Now, I also told you about the 'Subscribe to this Forum' link. Let's say you only like to visit Shotguns, Revolvers and Autoloaders (and Tech Support! :D ) when you visit THR. If you Subscribe to those threads, you can start your THR browsing from your CP and only visit your preferred forums.

Very cool features once you get the hang of it. Let me know if you have any questions.


Oh, and if you already know about Subscribing to forums and threads, you should stop reading this post now. ;)

[Mal H]

Darrin - good answer and good suggestions. Thank you.

I'm not sure how this question was missed for a couple of days. We can flip a switch so that the thread will go btt when a vote is cast. However, I think Darrin's explanation makes a lot of sense so we'll leave it as is for now. If a majority of members respond here that they would like it changed, no problem, we'll do it.

[JohnKSa]

Darrin,

I'm not having trouble finding the poll after it falls off the first few pages, search is an easy fix for that. The problem is, when it falls off the first few pages, people quit voting and or posting. Which means that there's really no reason to subscribe or do whatever to keep track of it.

If a thread that is receiving posts remains active (by that I mean it stays on the first couple of pages--accessible without a search or paging back into the history) then it stands to reason that a poll that is still receiving votes should also stay active until people quit voting/posting.

I guess I don't understand why voting on a poll should be treated differently than posting on a thread...

[Darrin]

Can polls be limited to a week or 2 of bumping the thread up? Then act as they do now? That would be tolerable.

I don't notice it around here much, but on other forums I have: When someone sees a thread getting pushed to the bottom or the next page, he/she would post a reply with something like, "Hey, I'm not ready for this poll to die. Keep voting!" or, some will simply put, "bump" in the post. ("Bump" being a generic term for posting to raise the thread back to the top of the forum. Around here, I see the letters, "btt" used instead.)

That's a cheap and easy way to keep that poll on the first page.

Personally, I think too many of the polls around here are worthless. The only ones I really see as useful to someone are when a final decision is being made to purchase a gun. Example: "What gun to get: .25 or 10mm?" (Usually, the original poster will end up with a 12 gauge or something...) Regardless, in about 2 weeks, the original poster has made a purchase and the poll is now totally worthless. However, some people don't pay attention to the dates on the threads and start voting away 4 months later. I'd like to see polls get closed in a timely fashion, but that's just me.

As aways: IMO, IME, YMMV, etc...