Entry form - Dynamically created polls

[BanicaTom]

I participate in a very active forum (fantasy football) where a few forums get hammered with regular requests: "Who do I start this week" or "Which side of this trade do you like better". The problem is that in a given week, there might be 50 to 100 such requests. Even with many helpful members, it is impossible to expect much feedback. Why? To be very helpful, a user would have to click on 50 to 100 threads, read them and then offer feedback. Who is going to do that? NOT ME?!!

My proposed solution is two-fold:

1) a user entry form module. Customizable: textbox, textarea, radio buttons, check boxes, dropdowns
2) backend module that (instead of creating a new thread) would create/regenerate a (very) multi-pronged user poll.

Who do I start example:
Template:
-- PPR (radio buttons)/Other textbox
-- Number of players to choose (textbox)
-- Player 1 (textbox)
-- Player 2 (textbox)
-- Player 3 (textbox)
-- etc
-- Comment (textbox)

Poll: Let's say that 3 members have already submitted (and the poll is already posted and open)
-- Member 4 clicks "Submit"

================================================== =
Member NewYorkFred: PPR=1; Choose 3 players
[checkbox] Player 1
[checkbox] Player 2
[checkbox] Player 3
[checkbox] Player 4

Member BanicaTom: PPR=1; Choose 2 players
[checkbox] Player 1
[checkbox] Player 2
[checkbox] Player 3
[checkbox] Player 4

Member LosAngelesLarry: PPR=1; Choose players
[checkbox] Player 1
[checkbox] Player 2
[checkbox] Player 3

Member AltantaJames: PPR=1; Choose 3 players
[checkbox] Player 1
[checkbox] Player 2
[checkbox] Player 3
[checkbox] Player 4


Which side of trade is better example:
Template:
-- PPR (radio buttons)/Other textbox
-- Special scoring (textarea)
-- Dynasty or Keeper (radio button)
-- Number of teams in league (textbox)
-- Team 1 gives players:
-- Player 1 (textbox)
-- Player 2 (textbox)
-- Player 3 (textbox)
-- etc
-- Team 2 gives players
-- Player 1 (textbox)
-- Player 2 (textbox)
-- Player 3 (textbox)
-- etc
-- Comment (textbox)


Poll: Let's say that 3 members have already submitted (and the poll is already posted and open)
-- Member 4 clicks "Submit"

================================================== =
Member NewYorkFred: PPR=1; 12 team Dynasty
[radio button] Team 1
[radio button] Team 2

Member BanicaTom: PPR=0; 10 team Redraft
[radio button] Team 1
[radio button] Team 2

Member LosAngelesLarry: PPR=1; 14 team Dynasty
[radio button] Team 1
[radio button] Team 2

Member AltantaJames: PPR=1; 12 team Redraft
[radio button] Team 1
[radio button] Team 2


Other considerations: -- Creation/regeneration: Immediate [also checking for other "same time" submissions] creation/reor at an admin specified time (every 5/10/15/etc minutes)
-- Allowing the generated poll to be posted within a forum as a "normal" thread as opposed to having to go to a separate area just for polls
-- keeping tabs of members' votes so that: they can see what they have voted on to this point and can vote on any new additions to the page.

This would allow members to simply go to one thread (instead of having to enter possibly 50 threads), scroll down and quickly vote on any/all items in one fell swoop. I am certain that this would result in many more results for each member with a question!

[glennrocksvb]

Thanks for your mod request. I have some questions:

1. It looks like this is basically allowing members to modify an existing poll to add a new poll option when a poll is already open. Or create a new poll if it's not open yet. Is my understanding correct?
2. How would the system know which existing polls to create entry form for? In your example, you have "Who do I start this week" and "Which side of this trade do you like better". How would the system know you have entry forms for these 2 polls?
3. Each template or form has different information to fill out. Does this mean that the forms have been pre-made? Meaning you already have a set of known forms that you have set/configured beforehand. If I understood it correctly, how would the admin choose which form to make and configure what information is needed for each form?

[BanicaTom]

Glenn! Thanks for such lightning quick response!

1. Exactly. The creation of a poll is certainly nothing new as any poll would have a creation form. I believe what is new here is allowing the dynamic modification of an already open poll.
2. As a coder in a former life, I hated "hardwiring" anything and always tried to make whatever possible a user-modifiable variable. So you will hopefully see that in my reply.
   
   In this case, I see two options.
   1. Simply what any forum software has polling, an entry form with a textbox for the title and the thread is created in whatever forum the member is in or in a poll section is the forum is structured that way
   2. The form provides the poll name based upon admin entered options. In my case, a combo box with 2 options: WDIS and Trade. This would lead directly to the thread. Well, there is one more tidbit, I think. The start time (which includes the system date, of course). For me, personally, a single Trade poll would remain open for an unlimited time (oh no! I forgot something important! see below!) while a new WDIS thread would be opened every Tuesday (with the previous one closing Monday night).
      
      So unless I am overlooking something, the Combobox/system time would give the id of the poll to create/modify.
3. This, to me, is probably the toughest to implement well. But doing so makes this very configurable far beyond my personal needs. I am guessing that rather than touch a forum's existing poll function, this would be a complete and self-
   contained add-on to address answer 2.2 above.
   
   Rather than try to pre-determine what an admin might need with pre-made entry forms, I think the best path to take would be to allow the admin to create as many such polls as desired. And so, the admin module of the plug-on would have to be pretty full fleshed.
   
   It would need to provide the ability to add the pieces together to create the entry-form that would give the results desired. While some items would be mandatory (start date and Poll name, for example) others would be completely configurable.
   
   For example, the WDIS poll setup would add the optional configurable components:

• radio button (including one tied to an "Other" textbox) (the text for Other is configurable of course).
• radio button to determine if the options would be
  • radio buttons
  • checkboxes (choosing this would activate an option to specify (if desired) the maximum number that could be checked (choose 3 of these 5, for example)
  • ranking textboxes (enter a number next to each option to put them in order. So if there are 4 options to choose from, they would need to be ranked 1 thru 4 using the textboxes)
• the list to choose from would be entered thru textboxes. Either the admin would enter a minimum of two and then the 3rd, 4th, etc would be automatically added as needed (my preference) or the admin would put the maximum number of textboxes any poll would accept and any blank textboxes would simply be trimmed from the poll.

I hope that makes things clearer, but at times I surprise myself with my talent to confuse things!

The important tidbit that I forgot! I mentioned that the Trade poll would be ongoing/never ending (until the admin, changed the closing date for the poll to allow it to close). HOWEVER, this is really a module to make one large poll out of multiple individual polls. Each individual poll should be closed/removed when it reaches its ending date. This, I would guess, is another "new" feature to polling!

For me personally, the admin would chose the specifics of when to close each individual poll. For example, for trades in FF, a week would be a length to keep a poll open. The admin should be able to specify: Close individual polls in __ days automatically. Additionally the individual asking the question could specify a close date that was BEFORE (but never after) the admin's date.

So let's say the admin chooses 7 days. I then open a TRADE poll at 11:53pm on May 7. Another member also opens a poll at 11:53pm on May 7 but specifies the poll should close in 3 days. The first time that the poll is regenerated after 11:53pm May 10, the second poll is closed and REMOVED from the Trade poll. The first time the poll is regenerated after 11:53pm May 14, my poll is closed and removed from the Trade poll.

[glennrocksvb]

Thanks for the detailed explanation. This mod is very specific to your forum and I'm not sure if there will be demand for it from other forum members. This should be considered as a custom project for you and not for general public.