We created a contest using the Poll feature with permission allowed for all levels to vote in the poll.
However, when the polls went live early hours today, guests (non-members) were not able to cast their votes.
Any chance some one could assistance us with resolving this, please.
Rather unfortunately this came to light after the contestants had extensively shared the poll across their various networks and social media to campaign for votes and now we are urgently trying to resolve this issue for reputation damage limitations so any urgent assistance would be greatly appreciated.
[NB. We are on a Cloud4 plan so do not have access to the backend]
Comments
A
It was suggested I check the Studio > Permission for Guests
However, there is no "Guests" level in my permissions.
All the permissions levels I have are as per attached
R
Unauthenticated would be the guests, You would have to make sure they have access to the polls page, as well as permissions to view and vote in polls
A
Thanks Ryan for the suggestion.
I have double checked again and it is showing Unauthenticated level have permission to view the poll and vote but even at that guests can't vote. :-(
A
Of note, when we initially set up the poll couple days back, we did a test vote as a guest to make sure things were ok for the launch today and at the time it worked just fine and allowed us as 'guest' to cast the vote. Now it does not allow guest votes.
I now have a nagging but unfounded suspicion that Poll allows only one vote as a 'guest' per poll(?) :-(
A
I have just tested my presumption and it does appear that sadly Poll allows only one "guest" vote per poll created:
- created a new poll
- logged off the site on both my laptop and mobile devices
- checked the newly created poll on both devices as guest on both devices
- it allows view of the poll as guest on both devices
- it allows vote of the poll on both devices
- casted vote on mobile device (went all fine)
- refreshed home page of the site on laptop device
- went to the the poll's page on the laptop
- and it does not allow me to cast vote as guest on the laptop even though I casted the vote as guest only on the phone device.
:-( :-(
So guest CAN vote as you stated above. Sounds like the issue you are having is why can't you vote as a guest on your phone AND laptop.
It could be that the vote is logging the IP Address too. So if you are at home and have internet access via router/modem, and both your laptop and mobile device is using the same "internet connection" (your home internet), then you are only broadcasting 1 public IP Address to the web. Although every device has it's own INTERNAL IP Address, once they leave the router/modem, only 1 IP address is used.
A
Thanks Chris for the follow up comment.
The issue was initially raised when no contacts of the contestants were able to vote and the reported this to the contestants who reported to us. They are all unconnected people from a number of countries who are trying to cast their vote for their favorite to win the prize as guests to the site and none have been able to do so.
When I did the confirmatory test I later mentioned, the phone device uses a different (mobile data) connection from the laptop device.
Hoping this help to put further context to it.
LeonidS - could please help here?
I actually tested this on their site as well. Seems like only 1 guest can vote 1 time and that is it. So if any of the polls are voted on by a guest, no other guests will be able to vote on them. I tried to vote on several of their polls and did not have the option to vote since a guest had already voted on that poll.
I think it recognizes the IP for duplicate votes. I don't know much, but that was my guess.
It might to keep from voting more than once however, this is not the case here. To explain even more, If I create a poll and allow guests to vote on it. I log out of my site, and vote on that poll as a guest. From there on, no other guests can vote on that poll. Meaning, you couldn't couldn't vote in that poll as a guest either.
In a nutshell, once a guest votes on a poll, no other guests can vote on that poll anymore.
Not even a user from a different state or country?
Nope. I tried on one of their polls they had on their site. No way for me to vote as a guest once a guest has already voted.
Oh boy that's not bueno!
A
Many many thanks once again Chris for your kind assistance and time spent in testing this for us and the suggestions made. Very much appreciated.
We are still frustratingly in limbo and have had to embarrassingly suspend the poll for now and strenuously explain the situation to our collaborating partners and the contestants.
Needless to say, with an opportunity for a sponsored overseas travel for the poll's winner, the contestants were not the very least impressed as they had started campaigning vigorously for votes soon as the poll went live yesterday. :-( :-(
A
Will,
Not even from a different country :-( :-(
The poll had an international and intercontinental reach to it and no guest regardless of the country or continent they are from were able to cast their vote.
A
Thanks Mark. Leonid has gotten in touch and is looking into it. Much appreciated
:(
As I understand it - each guest has an ID=0. So only one vote per member means only one vote for ID=0.
Allowing unlimited votes for unregistered guests opens you up to a myriad of problems, it would make it very easy to corrupt the Poll. It certainly wouldn't be something we would want in the version, but it might be achievable as a custom modification.
When user isn't logged in then duplicate voted are determined by user's IP, if your computers have the same public IP then you can't vote second time, to vote again you need to change public IP.
A
Thanks Alex️ for the follow up comment.
That is what we had expected. But unfortunately that is not the case.
As noted in the preceding comments in this discussion thread, we have tested it on different (totally unrelated) computers with different IP addresses, with visitors from different countries and even from different continent and it does not work.
LeonidS has also tested it separately and the same result.
Thank you, we'll recheck it more carefully.