Turn off comments and replies on a poll?

[Andro (Andrew Bernard)]

Its very irritating that my users seem to post the answer to a poll in long explanations instead of just doing the poll. Is there anyway to turn off or restrict replies to a poll topic?

[JammyDodger]

I think you would need to close the topic for that?

Or possibly only have polls in a #polls category where you could limit permissions for replies, perhaps. (Edit: Nope. You need reply permission for the category to be able to vote in a poll)

[merefield (Robert)]

I feel ya! This could be a really good Feature

[nathank (Nathan Kershaw)]

Extending this a bit, sometimes the converse would be useful.

Often in polls it is useful to have a free text answer, or an expanded answer. For example:

• This feature request has my full support
• I don’t think that this request is helpful
• Other

I’d want ‘Other’ to invite a free text response, either as a (short) reply, or maybe something in the poll itself.

[Heliosurge (Dan DeMontmorency)]

@JammyDodger

Edit: Nope. You need reply permission for the category to be able to vote in a poll)

Indeed we need a “vote” permission added to category settings.

Although imagine CSS could be used to help hide the reply buttons if not Op/Staff.

[nathank (Nathan Kershaw)]

@Heliosurge

Although imagine CSS could be used to help hide the reply buttons if not Op/Staff.

You’d struggle to restrict that to topics with a poll, unless you had a dedicated tag or category. I could image a poll-replies-off tag restricted to staff with the relevant CSS could do the trick nicely though.

[Heliosurge (Dan DeMontmorency)]

Yes you would either need a dedicated category or tag to function best or a method to detect poll

But in my idea would be more to have a dedicated category.

Imho is why a feature request or plugin to add category security option for voting However a dedicated tag might be more flexible.

[merefield (Robert)]

FWIW all my polls live in the same Category. I do this to encourage poll engagement so people can find the Polls more easily after having taken part in their first one.

[JammyDodger]

I was initially thinking that, as well as the other possible ways to reply even with the buttons hidden (email replies, possibly, for anyone watching First Post. Or navigating to the topic with an open composer). It seemed like there could be too many ‘accidental’ ways to sidestep it.

[merefield (Robert)]

Another cute way to handle this might be a special Placeholder for that Category or a pop up bannered reminder that you haven’t voted.

[nathank (Nathan Kershaw)]

@JammyDodger

It seemed like there could be too many ‘accidental’ ways to sidestep it.

You are dead right - it would be pretty flakey! The same thing applies to @merefield’s good suggestions.

So yes, this feature request where replies are blocked on the Topic (but voting allowed) makes complete sense.

[JammyDodger]

For the specific scenario in the OP of preventing replies to polls, it could be possible to use the close topic approach + a micro theme component to hide things based on tag. Though instead of the reply buttons, target the closed padlock icons so the topic doesn’t look ‘closed’ (until you close the poll and remove the tag).

I went with a tag of open-poll for this, and created a custom theme component of:

// hide lock icon in topic list

.topic-list-item.tag-open-poll .d-icon-lock {
	
	display: none;
}

// hide lock icon in topic title

.tag-open-poll .topic-statuses .d-icon-lock  {
    
    display: none;
}

// hide 'closed' small action post

.tag-open-poll .small-action {
    
    display: none;
}

(Though remember my CSS is not so hot, so please check my homework )

And then something like this for the OP of the topic:

And it’ll look like this in the topic list:

And if you remove the open-poll tag when the poll is closed then everything appears back into view again and it will look properly closed when the vote is over.