# Polls can't be altered (even by Moderators) after 5 minutes?
**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [March 4, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393 "2014-03-04T17:35:46Z")
**Posts on this page:** 20
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2014, 5:35pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/1 "2014-03-04T17:35:46Z")
Is this a setting somewhere? As I think moderators/staff should be able to alter a poll regardless of the time limit.
What if a regular user creates a poll that is “unfitting” or one of the options isn’t permitted by forum rules?
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### Author:  [@BhaelOchon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BhaelOchon)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2014, 5:45pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/2 "2014-03-04T17:45:31Z")
I agree, as long as poll edits are forbidden if the poll already has votes. In that case, the poll choices should be permanently locked. If you want to change the choices, you should close the poll and open a new one with the corrected options.
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2014, 5:49pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/3 "2014-03-04T17:49:49Z")
I’m on the fence on that. I can see reasons why you may want to alter the poll option but keep the votes associated to that option (make it more descriptive, correct spelling, whatever).
Though I do see your position and this issue likely exists because of the infancy of this option right now. Once it matures more, it may be more suitable to editing than what it is today.
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### Author:  [@BhaelOchon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BhaelOchon)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2014, 5:55pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/4 "2014-03-04T17:55:21Z")
The reasoning behind my opinion is one of general pessimism and mistrust of “people on the Internet.” Not very civilized, I know, but I can’t help it. I don’t want to vote for, “Yes, I love ABC!” only to have an evil forum mod later change the the option to, “No, I hate ABC!”
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### Author:  [@radq](https://meta.discourse.org/u/radq)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2014, 5:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/5 "2014-03-04T17:56:03Z")
Because of the way the plugin works right now, since votes are directly linked to the contents of the actual option changing an option will cause you to lose all of the votes for that option.
Maybe allow both the original poster and staff or moderators to edit the options if there are no votes (and getting rid of the 5 minute restriction), and allow staff to edit poll options after that but reset votes if they press “OK” on a warning that the votes are going to be reset?
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### Author:  [@probus](https://meta.discourse.org/u/probus)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2014, 6:34pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/6 "2014-03-04T18:34:48Z")
> [@BhaelOchon](#):
>
> I don’t want to vote for, “Yes, I love ABC!” only to have an evil forum mod later change the the option to, “No, I hate ABC!”
Why aren’t you afraid that the same evil forum mod will edit all your posts and user profile data as well? It’s not like this is going to be used for voting for the President.
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### Author:  [@BhaelOchon](https://meta.discourse.org/u/BhaelOchon)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2014, 7:00pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/7 "2014-03-04T19:00:56Z")
> [@probus](#):
>
> Why aren’t you afraid that the same evil forum mod will edit all your posts and user profile data as well?
Who says I’m not? But that isn’t what this topic is really about.
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### Author:  [@probus](https://meta.discourse.org/u/probus)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2014, 7:56pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/8 "2014-03-04T19:56:29Z")
> [@BhaelOchon](#):
>
> Who says I’m not?
Well, if you are afraid of those thigs happening as well, that argument doesn’t seem to be about polls at all but general mistrust in moderators.
Polls should be editable just like avery other kind of post because:
1. There is no reason for them to be any different
2. Every reason for editing posts stands for editing polls as well
3. User interfaces should be consistant across similar functions
You can always look at the editing history if you’re feeling paranoid.
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### Author:  [@joshbrodienz](https://meta.discourse.org/u/joshbrodienz)
#### Post date: [March 4, 2014, 10:16pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/9 "2014-03-04T22:16:56Z")
I’m of the same mind as probus on this. I think that if you distrust moderators enough to build that distrust into the system, you should really start to question whether you should have moderators at all.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2014, 12:15am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/10 "2014-03-05T00:15:05Z")
> [@cpradio](#):
>
> What if a regular user creates a poll that is “unfitting” or one of the options isn’t permitted by forum rules?
I dunno, on the fence here, mods should be able to fix typos on options. Removing and adding options kind of invalidates the whole poll even in cases where an option has 0, cause information is lost.
I am ok with allowing mods to alter the text of an option, think that is a good enough compromise that does not change the semantics of votes unless mods are evil.
cc @radq
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2014, 1:34am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/11 "2014-03-05T01:34:55Z")
Yeah, sorry, I really only care about mods and above being able to alter polls. Users should be restricted (even the owner) in my opinion.
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### Author:  [@watchmanmonitor](https://meta.discourse.org/u/watchmanmonitor)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2014, 6:49am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/12 "2014-03-05T06:49:28Z")
> [@BhaelOchon](#):
>
> evil forum mod
It’s our forum. End of story.
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### Author:  [@probus](https://meta.discourse.org/u/probus)
#### Post date: [March 5, 2014, 8:12am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/13 "2014-03-05T08:12:04Z")
Why complicate things? Users can edit posts as much as they like and it works. There is nothing different here.
> [@sam](#):
>
> Removing and adding options kind of invalidates the whole poll even in cases where an option has 0, cause information is lost.
I disagree. Instead of disciplining bad behaviour (someone editing the poll in a bad way) moderators will have to answer to all of the posts and flags like _Hey, I forgot George Harrison from my ‘Who’s your favourite Beatle?’ -poll, can you add that?_, _I made a typo, can you fix that?_ and deal with duplicate polls because the OP can’t edit.
Forums are full of polls like ‘What’s your favourite sports brand: Nike, Adidas’ and adding Puma or New Balance there does not invalidate the whole poll. It just makes more work for the mods if the poster can’t do it themselves. Possibly multiple times, after they request Under Armour, Reebok or whatever comes up in the comments the next day.
How often do you have problems with editing posts? The users who post the polls don’t want to change the semantics of the votes, because it’s their poll after all. And most of them are not evil either.
Users should be allowed to make mistakes, because it works.
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### Author:  [@sam](https://meta.discourse.org/u/sam)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 11:45am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/14 "2014-03-06T11:45:19Z")
I ok to relax this restriction for mods and admins. Normal users should have to PM a mod for help though.
cc @radq
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### Author:  [@radq](https://meta.discourse.org/u/radq)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 1:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/15 "2014-03-06T13:21:16Z")
So should I allow staff to make arbitrary changes to a poll including adding/removing options or only editing existing options? I think adding or removing options should at least reset all votes on the poll.
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 1:24pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/16 "2014-03-06T13:24:03Z")
I’m not sure I see a reason for why you’d need to reset the votes. None of the other forums (or even Poll Daddy) work that way.
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### Author:  [@radq](https://meta.discourse.org/u/radq)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 2:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/17 "2014-03-06T14:03:03Z")
Because in a poll you have to select an option out of the ones presented to you. If you add more options it invalidates the votes on the previous version of the poll.
For example if my college used a poll on a student-only Discourse forum to decide what is going to be served for breakfast on Thursdays and a new option was added, it _should_ invalidate all previous votes. Though a better solution would be to lock the previous poll and create a new one, that way you are sure that everyone knows that a new option has been added and they need to vote again.
I’m okay with letting moderators edit options since the way I see it that is going to generally be used for correcting spelling mistakes or formatting, but allowing adding or removing options makes me pretty uncomfortable.
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### Author:  [@cpradio](https://meta.discourse.org/u/cpradio)
#### Post date: [March 6, 2014, 2:09pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/18 "2014-03-06T14:09:02Z")
I just don’t see that being a clean solution. How do you then notify that all those who voted prior need to vote again? If you wanted to start the poll over, you’d just close it and start a new one. Simply put, you are wanting to add another entry, because you got X number of votes already and several people asking for Y to be on there.
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### Author:  [@Mittineague](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Mittineague)
#### Post date: [March 13, 2014, 3:31pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/19 "2014-03-13T15:31:02Z")
Adding or Removing options is a very bad idea. eg.
- bad choice
- poor choice
- OK choice
- good choice
and gets 0, 2, 10, 100
Then best choice is added but the poll looks like it got no votes for it. Bah!
In my experience the main edits have been
Removing the poll/thread entirely as it was SPAM related
Edit out a non-family-friendly portion of the option text.
I have never been asked to add or remove an option, nor correct a typo
IMHO the OP should have the ability to make edits before submitting only, thereafter only Moderators
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### Author:  [@radq](https://meta.discourse.org/u/radq)
#### Post date: [March 17, 2014, 9:17am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/polls-cant-be-altered-even-by-moderators-after-5-minutes/13393/20 "2014-03-17T09:17:20Z")
It is now possible for staff to edit poll options after the 5 minutes have passed. Adding and removing options is not possible, you will be prompted to lock the current poll and create a new one.
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