Poll Hacking

[rtillman]

We have been having a weekly poll, designed to discover the opinions of our members and guests and to minister to those visiting the site. We typically get 30-40 responses to each poll. This week our poll question was "Is Homosexuality A Sin?", and up to Wednesday, we had 31 responding with 100% "Yes". On Thursday we had 100 new votes, all saying, "No", so I knew we'd been hit by response from a mass mailout from a homosexual group. I immediately removed the poll from the site and soon received an email from a man in Dallas calling me a coward for removing the poll, etc. My question is: How do I put up a password protected poll through LifewayLink...is that possible?

[Craig]

Place the poll on a password protected page or pop-up window. Simple Javascript; http://www.javascriptkit.com/script/cutindex6.shtml has several examples.

[HansR]

Although I lack the expertise to create such, I suspect it is possible to block multiple voting with a cookie.

[David Gillaspey]

Although I lack the expertise to create such, I suspect it is possible to block multiple voting with a cookie.Hi Hans,

You are correct in saying that -- I use this technique myself on my own website -- as far it goes. But in this case, Rix faced a situation where a pro homosexuality advocate apparently had emailed everyone on a list asking them to go to Rix's church website and vote "No" on the question of whether homosexuality is a sin or not. You can't stop that from happening using cookies or session IDs.

I've held off offering my opinion on the matter, but here it is: Personally I think polls on church websites are without much value, because people who visit a church website likely share the same opinion on many matters. So, unless you ask the right questions, you're really not going to learn anything new. (I realize that "learn anything new" is not necessarily the point of having a poll.) For example, you can pretty much assume that most people who visit a church website are going to vote "Yes" to a poll question like "Is abortion wrong."

Sincerely,

David Gillaspey
President
Great Church Websites

[mrbelfry]

I have to say I agree with David on this matter. I used to have a poll on my church site and I quickly ran out of questions. I wanted to stay away from contentious subjects such as 'Is homosexuality a sin?' because the answers 'yes' or 'no' don't really do justice to the question. So I ended up asking questions like "Who is your favourite worship leader?' and errmm that was about all I could think of.

If you want to make the poll only available to people in your church then a password is the best way of doing it.