the fact that the HTMLish poll specification is excised by LJ at posting time and turned into an opaque reference to a poll number
Ah yes, totally forgot about that.
Which not only means you can't edit a poll after posting it, but also (IIRC) means that you can't reliably transfer a poll from one entry to another. (In particular, again IIRC, the poll number remembers the security of the entry it "belongs" to, so if you post a poll in a private entry, then later transfer the opaque reference to a public entry, people will have difficulty filling out the poll because LiveJournal thinks they're not allowed to see it.)
Gosh, how strange. I would have naturally assumed that converting the poll into a reference to an external item precisely should make it easy to refer to the same poll from multiple entries; for example, copying it into a poll-themed community would seem an obvious application.
But there will always be people, I suppose, who contrive to do a thing in a way that has the inconveniences of both the obvious approaches and the benefits of neither :-)
I assume, incidentally, that you're speaking literally when you talk of transferring the reference to a public entry? I actually posted this poll in a my-eyes-only private entry to begin with, so I could make sure I'd got it right, and only once I was satisfied did I make the entry public. Nobody reported a problem with that, though, so I assume that the problem is with transferring a poll into a different entry rather than changing the security settings on the entry it started off in.
I assume, incidentally, that you're speaking literally when you talk of transferring the reference to a public entry?
Indeed.
I actually posted this poll in a my-eyes-only private entry to begin with, so I could make sure I'd got it right, and only once I was satisfied did I make the entry public. Nobody reported a problem with that, though, so I assume that the problem is with transferring a poll into a different entry rather than changing the security settings on the entry it started off in.
*nods*
for example, copying it into a poll-themed community would seem an obvious application.
I've seen a poll in a community where answering it took me to an entry in the poster's personal journal rather than back to the community entry, so I presume he did what you just said (copied the opaque token from that entry into a community entry) and it seemed to work.
Perhaps I was overly pessismistic; it just seems a bit Here-Be-Dragons to me sometimes and I haven't tried out what works and what doesn't with moving poll tokens around.
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no subject
Ah yes, totally forgot about that.
Which not only means you can't edit a poll after posting it, but also (IIRC) means that you can't reliably transfer a poll from one entry to another. (In particular, again IIRC, the poll number remembers the security of the entry it "belongs" to, so if you post a poll in a private entry, then later transfer the opaque reference to a public entry, people will have difficulty filling out the poll because LiveJournal thinks they're not allowed to see it.)
no subject
But there will always be people, I suppose, who contrive to do a thing in a way that has the inconveniences of both the obvious approaches and the benefits of neither :-)
I assume, incidentally, that you're speaking literally when you talk of transferring the reference to a public entry? I actually posted this poll in a my-eyes-only private entry to begin with, so I could make sure I'd got it right, and only once I was satisfied did I make the entry public. Nobody reported a problem with that, though, so I assume that the problem is with transferring a poll into a different entry rather than changing the security settings on the entry it started off in.
no subject
Indeed.
I actually posted this poll in a my-eyes-only private entry to begin with, so I could make sure I'd got it right, and only once I was satisfied did I make the entry public. Nobody reported a problem with that, though, so I assume that the problem is with transferring a poll into a different entry rather than changing the security settings on the entry it started off in.
*nods*
for example, copying it into a poll-themed community would seem an obvious application.
I've seen a poll in a community where answering it took me to an entry in the poster's personal journal rather than back to the community entry, so I presume he did what you just said (copied the opaque token from that entry into a community entry) and it seemed to work.
Perhaps I was overly pessismistic; it just seems a bit Here-Be-Dragons to me sometimes and I haven't tried out what works and what doesn't with moving poll tokens around.