Polling and Surveying the iBoats Forums

[southkogs]

Polls and surveys can be valuable to iBoats, the Forums and the boating community at large, so they are not prohibited on the forums. This tutorial will address rules about surveys and polls in the iBoats Forums as well as a "how to" on starting a poll.

There are three rules that seem particular to surveys and polls in the iBoats Forums:

6. You may not post in the forum to promote any personal enterprise, advertise a business or product, or to solicit responses for contests, off-site polls, or similar. This includes directing members to social networking sites.
The First post of a thread MAY NOT be used to advertise or promote a product, company, internet site, sale, individual, or service. If you wish to promote a product or internet site, please contact iboats for rates/permission. Please remember that iboats is a retail vendor of marine products and do not post anything that would be detrimental to iboats' interests.

NOTE: You may NOT link to off-site polls or surveys, you MUST use the polling feature in the iBoats forum editor (see tutorial below).

8. You may not solicit any personal transaction (buy, sell, rent, trade, free, donate, etc.) in the forum. Personal transactions arranged completely by Private Message are not affected by this rule. Solicitation by PM must be preceded by contact in the forum. Please note: threads or posts that give extensive details on anything that is for sale will be assumed to be an attempt to advertise and are subject to deletion. If you are selling a boat - paid advertising through iboats is acceptable to post in the forum. A link to the ad is mandatory and must be included in your post. Signature links for boats advertised on iboats are acceptable. We encourage members to use this service.

iBoats is an online store and is the host of this Forum: Please be courteous to our business and understand that anything that is a competitor or links to a competitor or competitive product will be deleted / edited by our Moderator Team. If you have questions as to if a poll or survey is allowed by the rules, please send a private message to one of our moderators.

11. Please do not post multiple threads in multiple forums about a single problem. This is confusing to those trying to help you. Multiple threads in the same forum about the same issue are also confusing. If you want help fast, one thread in the most closely related forum is the best way to get it.

Please do not post the same poll in multiple forums. Post only one topic with a poll. You may point back to that poll in other topics that are appropriate provided you do not hijack topics or post in topics over 90 days old.

All other FORUM RULES apply.

 

[southkogs]

To start a poll in the iBoats Forum editor, CREATE A NEW TOPIC in the forum you feel you will get the most responses - Choose your forum based on interests that most meet your question. Not all members visit all of the forums.

Once you click on "+ NEW TOPIC" the editor window will appear:


Enter a title for your topic / poll (highlighted above), and add "Tags" if you wish to help make it your survey more "searchable" on the internet (highlighted above). Then click on the "Poll" icon in the editor (see red arrow and circle above).


Once you click that icon, the editor will change to match the above image. You have a window to type a description or question (red arrow), and several spaces for typing possible responses to the poll (black arrow).


The editor will automatically set three slots for responses. If you would like fewer responses, then simply click "REMOVE" (outlined in red above). If you would like more responses, click "Add another answer" (outlined in red below):


The editor will allow at least 20 response options (I haven't found what it's limit of possible responses is). However, you may only have one "question" per topic. The editor won't allow a 10 question survey, however it will allow 20 possible responses to a survey question.

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[southkogs]

Once your question / description and responses have been typed into place, there are three options you may utilize at the bottom of the editor window:

"Set Poll Timeout" allows you to close the poll on a given day at a given time (if you want to limit the survey period). Once you check that box (red circle above), a window with a calendar icon will appear (red arrow). Clicking on that calendar icon will bring up a small calendar for you to select the day you would like your poll to end. Notice the slider bars at the bottom of the window; those bars will allow you to choose a specific time on the day you choose your survey to end (default is midnight).


You may also select "Allow Multiple Choices". By checking this box, respondents to your poll may select more than one answer ("click all that apply" for example), effectively allowing them to vote for more than one option. Leaving the box unchecked will allow them only to select one answer in your list.


Checking the "Make votes public" box will allow anyone viewing the poll results to see which forum member voted for which answer. There is an example of this below.

Once your survey is the way you would like it, click on the blue POST button at the bottom right.

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[southkogs]

Once you click post, your topic should look like this:

Respondents will click the button(s) they would like, and then click on "Vote Now." (NOTE: once a member has clicked on "Vote Now," they cannot vote again in this poll). Any member, regardless if they voted in the poll, may view the poll results (clicking the "View Poll Results" button on the bottom right).


IF you did NOT select "Make votes public," then when you or other members view the poll results the window will look like the above. The total number of votes will be in a blue box in the upper right, then for each possible response there will be a % of the entire response and a number of votes for that response.

If you DID select "Make votes public," then the window will look like this:

There will be a "head and shoulders" icon next to the number of votes on each response. Clicking on that icon will bring up a box with forum members screen names who voted for that response (see red arrow above).

 

[southkogs]

As with any post, you may edit your poll for one hour after posting it. Past that time, you will need to PM a moderator to make any changes to the poll.

Any member can post responses to the topic with the poll just as if it were a normal forum topic.

Mods can edit the poll, topic or posts at any time if it does not comply with forum rules.