The discussion revolves around enabling anonymous voting in polls on a Discourse forum. Jamie_Liu1 notes that despite having 100+ views on their poll, no one voted, possibly due to reluctance to register an account. codinghorror suggests using a third-party tool like Google Forms to enable anonymous polling.
However, Stephen raises a concern that allowing anonymous users to participate in polls might discourage them from registering. He advises Jamie_Liu1 to focus on making registration more appealing instead. Jamie_Liu1 and Stephen agree on this point.
papyrophilia proposes an alternative solution, suggesting that Jamie_Liu1 make poll data and responses available only to registered users, thereby incentivizing registration. Jamie_Liu1 finds this idea helpful and plans to implement it and provide an update on the results.
Hey there! I created a poll in our forum yesterday. I got 100+ views but ZERO votes. I think a big reason is that people are reluctant to register an account just too cast a vote, even if they are actually interested in the topic.
So my question is, is it possible to vote a poll anonymously? I searched a bit here but didn’t find a useful answer. Seems like Discourse doesn’t support this as a setting. Is there another way, say a third-party plugin, that can help achieve this?
Thanks in advance!
You would need to embed an anonymous polling or forms tool — for example Google Forms. It depends on the tool.
Could you explain a little more about the size and state or your community here? Are you just starting out?
If you enable lots of features for anonymous users, won’t they have even less reason to register?
Good point! I didn’t think about this actually. Yes you are right, we are just starting out. So maybe I should try what @codinghorror suggested above, using a third-party tool. Thanks for sharing your thought!
Better still, think of more reasons to make them want to register.
Makes perfect sense. Thanks!
Agree @Stephen. So @Jamie_Liu1, can you make the poll data/responses/analysis only available to registered users–and make clear that only registered users can like, reply, etc to any resulting topics? Maybe add a message for anon users at the end of their poll/survey to “register here!” to view results or discuss? 
@papyrophilia Good suggestions! Thanks a lot! I will try to improve my survey and come back here to keep you informed of the results.