Hi wistex,

Funny you brought that up concerning optionally turning on/off poll auditing.  I was just pondering that last evening and think it would be a good idea.  A checkbox named "Enable Poll Auditing" could easily be added to the poll creation form to accomplish this.  However, taking this step really should involve taking another step to integrate the audit function properly to the permissions level.  That way, polls that your members may create that you're not interested in auditing administratively don't hog up processing resources and get unnecessarily stored in the audit table.

I'll see if I can compile a list of the scripts involved in accomplishing this and get something on the burner.  -boRg- has done an AMAZING job with WWF overall, and the only reason I'm looking at mod'ing the poll process is because I have a small select member pool and was troubled to find that many times single issue votes where reaching a total vote count that exceeded our member count.  I attributed this to the clearing of cookies.  I failed to mention in my earlier post that I also discovered that because the vote is tied to the computer via cookie, a person simply has to go to another computer and they get another vote.  I think this is how some of my members where getting extra votes since many of them have access to computers on a LAN.

Anyway, sorry -boRg- if this thread has now gone beyond the scope of support.  I'll start a thread in the mod's forum to continue my end of the discussion about this.  Thanks for your indulgence. :)

I have a need for something that tracks users votes as well, but not necessarily in every poll.  Perhaps adding a field in the polls table that specifies whether or not to track votes for that poll and a way for the admin to turn that on and off at will.

In my case, I would actually need to track people's multiple votes in a poll!  On my website, we have a battle of the islands, which people can vote in all they want.  The only restriction I have is that THEY have to vote, not their computer (i.e. using a script).  I can't detect all types of scripts, but I could detect if someone is voting faster than humanly possible (which has happened in the past, thousands of votes per second from one machine!).  Plus, I could use the stats to create a list of top voters, which would also keep people in line, because it would be obvious is someone is cheating if they rack up ten thousand votes in one day by themselves.

Obviously my situation is a bit unique, but I wanted to give you some ideas on how voting could be used.

Tracking like this could potentially take up a lot of resources, so it should only be used when needed and when the resources are available.  I, for example, have a dedicated Web Server and a dedicated MS SQL Server at my disposal with Gigs of space.  So I can afford storing the extra information required that someone using Access and a free web host could not.

Mack wrote: I am using WebWiz Forums 7.9. When I create new polls, I do not enable multiple voting. However, I am able to vote TWICE. When I create a new poll, and then vote, and if I leave and then return it lets me vote again. However, after that everything works fine-- it doesn't let me vote again. I can only vote twice.. is this a configuration problem or a bug?

As far as it allowing you to vote twice, when you say "leave" what do you mean by that?  Leave the topic or leave your website?  And are you using the same computer when you come back?

Hi Mack,

I've noticed a similar anomoly with regard to the vote button showing up even though members have already voted on an issue that doesn't allow multiple votes.  I've looked at the "If" logic and didn't really see any reason why it would allow this unless there's something I'm overlooking.  It could be that the user is clearing their cookies.

What I'm doing is moving the reliance of the "already voted" flag from a cookie, as WWF does now, to a "vote audit table".  I'll post something under the mod's section of the forum once I have it all together.

With my forum, I want to be able to see who voted for what as the admin. and this will afford me that administrative luxury.  The bad thing about storing vote information in the cookie, is if ppl clear their cookies then the vote status goes with it.  The table I'm creating will allow a quick lookup to take place in the appropriate scripts, replacing the cookie calls, to see if there is an entry in the table that pertains to the poll they're viewing.

It will also even work as an audit for polls that allow multiple votes because that's tracked using a seperate flag.  The table I plan to use consists of 4 fields.  Vote_ID (Primary key identifier for each vote), Poll_ID (which is the poll id pulled from the querystring), Voter_ID (which is actually the Author_ID of the currently logged in user), and Vote_Time_Stamp (which the date and time of the last vote by the voter captured using the Now() function).

I suppose I'll also have to be sure that as polls and posts are deleted via the responsible scripts administratively, that the vote audit table is being cleared also.  This should be a fairly simple addition.  As I said, time permitting, I'll post my work-around to this in the mod's section; providing somebody hasn't already beat me to it.  :)

Hello, and thank you for a wonderful forum.  This is my first post here, as I have been a little timid seeing that some of the other posters get a bit ripped!  LOL 

Anyway, I was a total newbie on forums, and was recommended WebWiz.  We bought the entire 7.9 box set.  I am happy to say that after a quick install, it has been up without a single problem for 60 days, with 990 very active untechnical ladies pounding on it, sometimes over 6-8 hours/day each!!!

Anyway, with that being said (enough of the sucking up!), I am having the same poll bug as the prior poster.  My members can often (not everytime) vote more than once after they leave a poll topic and return.  I have some bigger polls coming up on future fee based services, and I really don't need people to be able to vote multiple times. 

By the way, I am running the SQL version of the forum.  Thanks in advance for your comments & suggestions.   (I have all kinds of other things that I would like to do to enhance the forum, but I will try to keep reading the posts & figure it out on my own.  Wish me luck!)