# Cannot edit a poll after 5 minutes as an administrator
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418
**Category:** Bug
**Tags:** polls
**Created:** [May 7, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418 "2015-05-07T01:53:00Z")
**Posts on this page:** 9
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@kennym](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kennym)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2015, 1:53am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418/1 "2015-05-07T01:53:00Z")
I was trying to update an old poll post as an _administrator_ after updating to the latest version of Discourse, and I got the message “You cannot update a poll after 5 minutes, please contact a moderator”.
Can you please fix that if I am logged in as a moderator or administrator that it updates the poll, please? This is clearly a bug.
I am running on Discourse: v1.3.0.beta7 +2
---
### Author:  [@AmiAthena](https://meta.discourse.org/u/AmiAthena)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2015, 1:54am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418/2 "2015-05-07T01:54:44Z")
I’ve also had this issue as a moderator. It also won’t let me add a poll to a non-poll post that’s over 5 minutes old, which seems like something that should be allowed without moderator approval.
---
### Author:  [@kennym](https://meta.discourse.org/u/kennym)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2015, 1:56am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418/3 "2015-05-07T01:56:30Z")
I also checked the implementation, and it seems to be broken: [discourse/plugins/poll/plugin.rb at 033761d2f629f45d8409ce7c5a547ff30ebb3543 · discourse/discourse · GitHub](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/blob/033761d2f629f45d8409ce7c5a547ff30ebb3543/plugins/poll/plugin.rb#L272)
The verification if the user trying to edit the poll is a moderator or admin seems to be faulty.
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2015, 1:57am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418/4 "2015-05-07T01:57:43Z")
I am sure @zogstrip can get it fixed up. Thanks for diagnosing.
---
### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2015, 3:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418/5 "2015-05-07T15:31:18Z")
> [@kennym](#):
>
> This is clearly a bug.
Actually, it’s not 😉 Here’s the rule:
> Polls **cannot** be modified/updated/renamed/changed **5 minutes** after their inception.
> Pass that time, we only allow staff members to fix a typo (ie. edit the content of an option).
I just pushed a fix that will _hopefully_ improve the copy and make it clearer 🐣
[https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/c1bb7bc7cc54059073b1dccc83a707936ca16b67](https://github.com/discourse/discourse/commit/c1bb7bc7cc54059073b1dccc83a707936ca16b67)
---
### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2015, 3:32pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418/6 "2015-05-07T15:32:32Z")
So what if a post doesn’t currently have a poll, and it is say a month old. If you edit that post, should you be able to add a poll? If so, there is still a bug (as I tried and got the “polls can’t be edited after 5 minutes error”) 😄
---
### Author:  [@zogstrip](https://meta.discourse.org/u/zogstrip)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2015, 3:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418/7 "2015-05-07T15:38:06Z")
Just create a new post then 😉
---
### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2015, 3:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418/8 "2015-05-07T15:55:56Z")
Well, ultimately, I created screenshots, as I was trying to update our “Community Cheatsheet” 😄 So yes, I got around it, just was clarifying that it really is stopping any poll changes after the ninja edit window expires (or so it seems)
---
### Author:  [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [May 7, 2015, 4:12pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/cannot-edit-a-poll-after-5-minutes-as-an-administrator/28418/9 "2015-05-07T16:12:20Z")