Yes, votes on FT can be set up so that they are not anonymous. For TB votes, this is the case except for the election of TB officers.

It would be nice if it could be set so that while the poll is in progress, one could change their votes as well.

I think it's a good idea. It's nice to know that someone has liked, appreciated or agreed with your post.

I've seen it on other forums and it works well.

I was hoping you were incorrect, but the more I see, the more I think you are correct that this is a done deal. :(

Why is this myth being thrown around? I know several TB Members who are either going to vote no or are still undecided.

The poll numbers are hardly encouraging for changing a vote to yes.

Functionally, yes. In vB, it looks like this on the 'create poll' page (I just set up a test poll on our forum to confirm):

Poll Timeout
If you would like this poll to automatically close after a period of time, enter a number of days here.

Set this to 0 if you would like the poll to remain open indefinitely.
Close poll days after 27th December 2014


Miscellaneous Options
-Allow multiple choice: Give users the ability to select more than one answer
-Make votes public: Displays all users who voted, and what choice they voted for.
-Automatically parse links in text

----------------------

In the misc. options area, one needs only to click the check box next to 'Make votes public' and a listing of voters and votes will be accessible in the summary result.

Generally, though, polls I've participated in are always anonymous and that's how we set them up on the forums I moderate, unless for some reason management requests other. The site owner or the development team (anyone with root access to the database) can read the raw results if they so choose, regardless.

Something like that was added to another forum I use.
I stopped going to said forum because of it.

This is not farcebook. There is no need for a "like" system.
If such a thing were to be added, then there must also be a way to opt out of it.

I found not clicking buttons quite easy to do ... It's not mandatory ;)

The poll was created as a secret poll. No one--not even the admins--can undo that.

The poll was (AFAIK) made secret intentionally. If you want an open vote, you'll have to convince the TalkBoard to call for a new poll without the secret mode enabled.

+1.

Shows how the "Like" button could work.

HTB.

For TB votes, you cannot ever change your vote once it is caste.

I can understand that, although it's definitely an argument in favor of waiting a while to vote.

I agree that a 'helpful' button would be nice, certainly much better than a 'like' button. To be really useful, what I'd like is a way to view a thread with only 'helpful' posts visible. This would be tremendously useful when searching for information. Far too often, a search returns some threads with many thousands of posts. Very likely the desired information is buried there, but it's far too much work for many FTers to read through the entire thread, or even the posts returned by a search, to try and find it. If there was a was to only view the 'helpful' posts, it would be much more likely that people would view the thread and see the information.

Quite interesting how much the poll voting suddenly swung today from one category to another. The product of a lobbying effort having come to fruition or of more people being in the office today and a related shift in voting patterns? Quite the large swing in one fell swoop.

"Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap"

Someone should write a song about it.

Sad to see FT gets to this level on a non issue vote.