Board Thread:News and Announcements/@comment-24530269-20181013121254

Hello everyone.

Today I would like to talk about the Polls. A very useful and prominent aspect of the wiki.

But as much as no battle is complete without the polls, they do have their flaws.


 * They don't appear on mobile devices (desktop only)
 * If you edit them, they reset
 * They're very easily cheatable through varying means
 * You have to make a new poll for other questions or combine the questions and answers
 * They're ugly

A thing that many are unaware of however is that this is not the only type of poll embeddable in FANDOM. There are two other types that each have advantages over the default ones. Both of them require you to sign up on a website, make the polls there and then embed them.

Introducing Apester

Apester is a website that allows potent creation of various things including polls and surveys.

Advantages
 * Two types of polls available through the embed mode. One of them is consistent and saves your score
 * Far more customizable
 * Allows custom background images
 * Shows how many percent of people voted for the same option as you after making your pick
 * You can have multiple questions in one poll

How to make?

Go to Apester, sign up and follow their guides there.

How to embed?

There are two ways of doing this. Either way, you will need the ID of the poll.

°°°°°°°°°°°°°° °° Method 1 °° °°°°°°°°°°°°°°

If you are the creator of the poll, you can look for an Embed option. Just like with most sites and their embedding options, you will be given a HTML iFrame code to add to your website's HTML. The latter action though is not required. All you need is the ID inside of the code. As an example:

Where the ID is in bold.

Copy the ID and using it, insert this code into the SOURCE Editor (NOT the VisualEditor or the Visual tab in the main editor):

Replace the pre-set ID in the above example with the ID you were given in the HTML code. You can also freely modify the height and width to your preferences.

Here's a demo of this method in action:

°°°°°°°°°°°°°° °° Method 2 °° °°°°°°°°°°°°°°

The other method is a bit simpler. Rather than using the span class, use this instead:

Where once again, the ID is the one you got from the iFrame code.

An example of a multi-question Apester survey using this method (just set "You're on team [character / team]" or something similar like that as the survey result if you go for this):



Apester polls will not appear on mobile, except if you request for desktop view. Things like userpages, threads and the Forum are always desktop view so you can freely use them here.

Introducing Polldaddy

The advantage of Polldaddy is that they will appear on mobile, even when on mobile view. To make them, sign up on Polldaddy and make one. The poll may be customized on the Polldaddy website, allowing you to change the poll's appearance and size, and the behavior of vote submission.

Do not create a survey; currently, only one question polls are supported by FANDOM.

In order to embed one, use the following code:

Where once again, the ID is the ID for your poll. Let's see Polldaddy in action:

And here you can see that they indeed work on mobile devices! Hooray!

Wrapping Up

I'm not saying:
 * we should completely discontinue / stop using the default polls
 * the default polls suck
 * you're forced to use the other two polls

The real reason I made this thread is to inform you of these poll systems and their potency. I'm not saying you should use them, but I do encourage you to try something new and see how it works. Since these polls have far more features than FANDOM's regular polls and one even loads on mobile view, I honestly believe they are better and we should use them more, but that's just how I feel.

Happy writing everyone! Wither out. 