Are polls anonymous?

[Lusitan]

I would like to create a poll but it's the type of question that should be answered anonymously. Are poll-votes anonymous from everyone's perspective (including the creator of the poll)?

 

[REWahoo]

Polls are anonymous, including moderators. Dory or BigMoneyJim might have the capability to see how an individual responds, but I'm not sure the software allows them to do that without some w*rk, which is probably a pretty big deterrent.

 

[Lusitan]

Thanks, REWahoo.

 

[farmerEd]

I doubt that polls are anonymous...a poll done several months back only one person chose a certain option on that poll...after the poll closed someone stated "look, somone chose option  xxx...and he was on a dial-up line!"...the only way somoneone would know if  the poster was on a dial-up line when he voted would be if the ip address was logged with the poll...and w/out a doubt the ip address is also logged with posts; most forum software does that by default....so connecting the poll-ip with the message ip and the user is usually a trivial exercise if you have moderator/owner status on most message boards.

So, I'd say no its not truly anonymous...and the few times I actually particpate in polls anymore, I keep that in mind when I put in my vote  

 

[Nords]

...so connecting the poll-ip with the message ip and the user is usually a trivial exercise if you have moderator/owner status on most message boards.

While moderators have powers not available to the average poster, reading poster IP addresses is not a moderator ability.

Dory & BMJ can read IP addresses, but when we're trying to figure out poster multiple personalities (like mike-1 & limey) we have to hassle the admins to check the IPAs.

 

[limey]

While moderators have powers not available to the average poster, reading poster IP addresses is not a moderator ability.

Dory & BMJ can read IP addresses, but when we're trying to figure out poster multiple personalities (like mike-1 & limey) we have to hassle the admins to check the IPAs.

wow .. I am ever surprised!

I am one of several moderators at another forum.

When I wear my moderator's hat I am able to read the IP addresses and I am often bemused when poster X turns out to be poster Y or worse ...

I don't have to check with anybody.

However, I do have the good grace NOT to divulge such info at my forum. Somethings Nords are best kept to oneself.

N'est ce pas?

 

[BigMoneyJim]

Moved a side-tracked portion of this thread to other topics.

Poll votes are anonymous to the voter and poll operator as programmed, however... IPs are not logged with votes per se, but dory36 or I could comb through the server logs and probably pick out the vote requests out of the million hits per month if we really wanted to. (Actually I'm not sure that's true...it depends on if the posted info is http method POST or GET.) Also, you can see who's online at the bottom of the forum index, and you can click on the "xx guests, yy users" and see more or less who's doing what (this feature only available to logged-in users). If someone were really bored they could watch the Who's Online page and the poll and get a decent idea of who voted which way if you were one of a few people looking at that post and the vote count incremented while you were in there.

Of course dory36 or I could also modify the software to log every vote to a user and/or IP if we really wanted to.

In short, they're anonymous for practical purposes for those who aren't watching you walk into the poll booth and noting the change in counts after you step out.

...a poll done several months back only one person chose a certain option on that poll...after the poll closed someone stated "look, somone chose option xxx...and he was on a dial-up line!"...

Anyone have a link to that? Sounds very odd.

 

[cute fuzzy bunny]

It was probably a joke. Find the context of the post, it might have had something to do with high speed internet. Someone votes oddly, and one of our jokesters adds "AND he was on a dialup line!".

Pretty easy to see how that could happen.

Yep, the board operators could do a lot of work to see how people vote. And anyone could look at a poll, sit at the "who is doing what right now" screen, wait for someone to vote and then run over there to see which number changed. I could sit outside your house with a telescope trained to your window.

We're all well protected by two things though. First, not many people are really that interesting to anyone else, and even when they are, there are limits to how much work they'll do to find out some random nugget of data