To create a poll, you must have an Early Adopter or Permanent Account. This benefit will aslo likely be available to paid accounts when they are available.
You can find the poll creator at: http://www.blurty.com/poll/create.bml
The poll creator will conveniently generate your poll's coding for you, based on your specifications. You then simply copy and paste the code into any brand new journal entry.
You can only create a poll when you first create an entry. For instance, you cannot edit an old post and include a new poll. In addition, you cannot edit a poll once it has been made.
Polls may be embedded into journal entries only, not comments.
Each Blurty user is allowed only 1 vote in a poll. After you've voted in a poll, you can change your answer by clicking on the poll #, and then clicking the [ Fill-out Poll ] link at the top.
The easiest way to make a poll is to use the creation tool. If you require further understanding of how to put together your polls, question types, use, and poll attributes, the rest of this FAQ will help you understand. With the below information, you may also choose to write the code for your poll manually, instead of using the poll creator. Either method will work fine.
When writing a journal entry, you can tell the Blurty servers that you want to start a poll by inserting the <lj-poll> tag. When the server parses this tag, it knows to display a poll based on the questions (<lj-pq>; "poll questions") and possible answers (<lj-pi>; "poll items") you provide. However, to make sure your poll displays properly, you need to provide a closing tag for every opening tag you declare.
A very basic poll would follow like so:
<lj-poll>
<lj-pq type=radio>
What is your name?
<lj-pi>Sir Launcelot of Camelot</lj-pi>
<lj-pi>Sir Robin of Camelot</lj-pi>
<lj-pi>Arthur, King of the Britains</lj-pi>
</lj-pq>
</lj-poll>
Each tag has different attributes, for example, a poll can be named by including the following attribute: <lj-poll name="My First Poll">
Different attributes defined:
----------------------------------
<lj-poll> (beginning poll tag)
name="..."
Labels the poll with a descriptive, easy to remember name
whovote="all(default),friends"
Specifies who is allowed to vote in your poll; options include any Blurty User (all), or just the people on your friends page (friends)
whoview="all(default),friends,none"
Specifies who is allowed to view who voted for what choices in your poll; options include either any Blurty User (all), just the people on your friends page (friends), or no one (none). Depending on the security level of the post that the poll resides in, people might be able to see the statistical data (percentages and bar graphs) of the poll, even if this option is specified as "none".
Ex:
<lj-poll name="The Bridge of Death" whovote="friends" whoview="all">
(This starts a poll named the "The Bridge of Death, where only the people on your friends list can vote. Anyone can see the raw data.)
<lj-pq> (poll question)
type="check,drop,radio,scale,text"
Ex:
<lj-pq type=text>
"What is your quest?"
</lj-pq>
Question Type specifications (<lj-pq type="?">)
-----------------------------------
type="radio"
Each item listed as a possible answer will have a radio button next to it, which means that people can only select one possible answer. At least one <lj-pi>possible answer</lj-pi> must be specified per each "radio" question.
type="check"
Each item listed as a possible answer will have a check box next to it, which means that multiple choices may be selected. At least one <lj-pi>possible answer</lj-pi> must be specified per each "check" question.
type="drop"
Each item listed as a possible answer will be displayed in a drop down selection box, so that only one answer may be viewable after selection. At least one <lj-pi>possible answer</lj-pi> must be specified per each "drop" question.
type="text"
Displays a box that allows a person to freely type in a string of text as their answer. When a text input question is declared, there are no possible choices to be displayed (<lj-pi>).
Text has 2 possible attributes, "size" and "maxlength". Example, size="30" will display a 30 character wide input box, while maxlength="50" will limit the voters' answers to 50 characters each.
The limit for the "size" is 100. The limit for "maxlength" is 255.
type="scale"
Displays seperate numeric options based on the information specified. Voters are typically expected to be ranking or rating something, based on a number scale given.
If absolutely no attributes (discussed below) are specified, it will be assumed that a straight from 1 to 10 choice is desired.
Scale has 3 possible attributes, "from", "to", and "by", which defines the range of the question. "from" is the beginning number, "to" is the finishing number (which is required to be greater than the "from"), and "by" is the value of units in between each choice; this value must be at least 1 or greater.
For example, if you want to make one of your questions "How old is old?" and wanted to include choices between 40 - 100, but only want choices in increments of 5 (eg 40, 45, 50, etc), you would input : <lj-pq type=scale from=40 to=100 by=5>
Scale type questions must be limited to 20 possible choices per question. (eg, scale from 1 to 100 by increments of 5 is ok; scale from 1 to 100 by increments of 1 is not)
By using the scale method, the Blurty servers are able to tell you interesting numerical statistics on the way people have voted, such as the median and the average.
A few things to remember:
----------------------------------
Each tag needs an appropriate closing tag.
Each <lj-pq> requires a "type" attribute.
The question text must follow immediately after the <lj-pq> tag.
<lj-pi> tags are for radio, check, and drop questions only. All possible answers are wrapped in <lj-pi> and </lj-pi>. They are to be inserted after the question's text, but before the question's closing tag </lj-pq>
Poll tags need to be nested correctly in order to work (ie, you need to close a question before you start a new one) Last Updated:
bertho, 2003-07-20
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