PollDaddy ratings and polls
PollDaddy joined the Automattic team last year, and we have been working on adding some of our great features directly into the WordPress platform ever since.
Ratings
The PollDaddy rating feature that was enabled on WordPress.com last week has really started to see some use. Over 100k blog posts, pages and comments on WordPress.com are now being rated. If you need some help getting started, check out our support page for ratings.
This excellent demo video from WordPress.tv gives a good overview of how the service works.
We are working on a new sidebar widget to show your top rated posts, pages and comments which should be live by next week. We will have all of this available as WordPress.org plugin soon too.
Polls
Our polls feature has been available on WordPress now for about 8 months. About 40% of all polls created on PollDaddy are now created here on WordPress.com. You can read more about how it works over on WordPress support.
If you are a WordPress.org user then you can download our plugin from the .org plugin directory. If you have not used our polls before, this video shows you how to create a poll, courtesy of WordPress.tv.
Jul 17th at 9:01 pm
I love adding Polls to my blog. I look forward to seeing the ratings widget.
Jul 17th at 9:36 pm
This video helps out a lot, thanks!
Jul 17th at 9:48 pm
I have used polls before, and know I start using the rating, like this we can know what people think about our posts.
Jul 17th at 10:07 pm
It looks really cool.
Jul 17th at 10:20 pm
Coolness! I give this a “thumbs up” rating. Or I would…
Jul 17th at 11:03 pm
Nice. I’ll need to have a poll on what to have a poll on.
Jul 17th at 11:05 pm
Great Feature . . . thks guys
Jul 17th at 11:16 pm
I really like this! For some reason I must have missed the announcement last week. I am going to add it right now!
Jul 17th at 11:28 pm
Nice new feature. The other feature you need to add is the ability to easily create a new post with the results of the poll. I can do a screen shot, but why not just build the feature. You know lots of people are posting the results of the poll in a new post.
Thanks.
Jul 17th at 11:37 pm
Great feature, thanks. I think I’m going to use it.
Jul 17th at 11:51 pm
Just… Awesome !
I was waiting for a rating feature on posts and comments since, oh, a long time…
slowly but surely, wordpress.com is approaching the perfection !
I may have just another point on my WP.com wish list. is that the team give more ease to all the web designers to create/propose/spreed new wp themes for basic users. To me, it’s the only weak point in the wordpress.com community, there is no place for “theme creators / designer” ecosystem in the wp.com universe.
Jul 18th at 12:08 am
This is a grrrrrr8 feature! Thank you.
I enabled it on some of my blogs last week; the ratings do not show on the home page/main page but show only with the permalink of the posts and many users in the forum including me had thought that it is a glitch! I guess it is normal and that is how it is!
Another problem that I had faced was that it was not activated for just the comments/pages. When I had activated it for posts and only then it was activated for comments/pages! I read your June announcement on Poll daddy blog that it may have some bugs!
Does it impact the page loading time by the way? It is a very welcome addition to the WP stable, just the same.
P.S.: I did not see the videos; poor internet connection, alas!
Jul 22nd at 5:38 pm
Hi,
The ratings do not show on the homepage right now due to a technical issue. We are working hard to get this fixed ASAP.
The bug where it was only working for comments if the post rating was enabled is now fixed.
It should not have an impact on the page load time. It does use an external JS file but it loads at the foot of the page.
Jul 18th at 1:12 am
Thank you so much. Sounds good.
Jul 18th at 1:44 am
I’m not sure if I’ll use the ratings or not (might play with it), but it sounds like an interesting feature. I should do more with the polls, though, when I have a larger readership.
Jul 18th at 1:51 am
I love polls! =D
Jul 18th at 1:58 am
“… new sidebar widget to show your top rated posts, pages and comments … should be live by next week.”
I have turned off ratings on my blog – http://devovolleyball.com – as people voted readily for the short time when they were accessed on the front page. Now that they are “hidden” in the comments, no one is voting. They get lost “at the top” too quickly. Even on, what are for me, very popular posts with 40+ comments, there are no ratings.
And so, until the ratings make it back to the front page, widget or no widget, I’ll be turning the ratings off.
Jul 18th at 2:29 am
ah you guys rock! ★★★★★
Jul 18th at 3:57 am
I have been using this feature since July 15. I thought I just missed your post about this, but I was wrong.
Thanks for this new WordPress feature by the way.
I’m looking forward to that sidebar widget.
Jul 18th at 5:05 am
WoW, Thats really nice so i can post poll on my home page and also on my every post too ????
Jul 18th at 5:09 am
Great feature. Thank you PollDaddy!
Jul 18th at 5:41 am
I love this feature and have already enabled it on my Pages.
The only thing that would make this new feature perfect for me is the ability to configure ratings for each Post or Page, like discussion/backtrack settings. While I definitely want ratings on my PhotoImpact Tutorial Pages, I may not necessarily want it on my About Page.
Thanks again for another great feature; you guys are tireless!
Jul 22nd at 5:40 pm
We hope to add the ability to enable it for certain pages/post soon.
Jul 18th at 7:43 am
Grand!
Jul 18th at 7:50 am
A great addition. Thanks, team.
Jul 18th at 8:34 am
Well, I do think giving the rating feature could be very useful and a ratings widget even better because at last one can show posts that are rated on quality instead of quantity as in the Top Posts feature. However I do hesitate to put in the ratings feature as most people I feel don’t have the time to rate. And with a lot of trolls hanging around one is never sure what percentage of the serious readers use the ratings feature and what percentage of those who don’t bother to read use the feature.
Jul 18th at 8:51 am
It’s fantastic! Thanks!
Jul 18th at 10:28 am
Great News!
The Rating feature was a long-awaited one and now that it has come up, I’m sure people will use it more often.
I just hope that readers not only read our posts and rate them but also leave some comments. We would’nt want the rating stuff to allow people not to say anything else!
BTW, is there an option to turn off the ratings for some posts? I mean, can they be set at a post-by-post basis or is it all global?
Also, I don’t think the users own votes will count (same as visits). Will they?
Jul 22nd at 5:41 pm
Not yet, but its coming!
Jul 18th at 10:44 am
Thank you for posting, I was unable to get polls on my blog and now I know what I was doing wrong, this is a great feature.
Jul 18th at 10:56 am
That’s a great video, thanks.
Jul 18th at 11:00 am
Is great – i using it for some time.
tnx
Jul 18th at 11:36 am
I waited for Ratings for a long time – thanks. Now readers can raise fingers on my blog
Jul 18th at 11:45 am
Never used a poll on my blog but perhaps it’s time I did.
Jul 18th at 12:41 pm
Great Utility
Jul 18th at 4:02 pm
Thanks ! I I set it up immediatly, I wanted it for quite some time now !
But just 1.5 BIG suggestion:
1- Having the rating visible on the main page and not just within the post itself would be a nice option: it is a clue on the quality of the post you may want to click on.
0.5- Actually having the possibility to have the rating in the title of the post would be nice. (an example on how it could be: http://www.lejapon.fr/blog/index.php)
Thanks for the continuous efforts by the way, you are making world a better place.
Jul 18th at 4:09 pm
oups, for our reader, an example of blog with the rating option set on: http://bigshashin.com/
As shown in the video, this is fairly easy, straightforward to set up.
today, you have to click on the post to check the rating or vote.
Have a nice day.
Jul 18th at 4:24 pm
Thank you!
Jul 18th at 6:23 pm
Is there a way to stop voting after a time? To close the poll? Thanks
Jul 22nd at 5:43 pm
Its not part of the WordPress plugin at the moment and we need to add it. In the mean time you can get access to your polls over on PollDaddy.com and set a close time. Just go to the request password page on PollDaddy and enter the email address you use for your WordPress account to get access.
Jul 18th at 6:30 pm
Nice feature! I’ve tested it a little on my own blog (skarh.wordpress.com), would it be possible to add an option to sort comments that are rated higher up in the comment-list? For example: A comment with 5 thumbs up would be arranged on top over a comment with 2 thumbs up. A comment with 3 thumbs down would be sorted lower than a comment with 2 thumbs down.
Comment a (5 thumbs up)
Comment b (2 thumbs up)
Comment c (not rated)
Comment d (2 thumbs down)
Comment e (3 thumbs down)
Jul 18th at 7:52 pm
Love the ratings! Always good to see what people think of the site even if they don’t comment. Thanks WP!
Jul 18th at 10:20 pm
polldaddy is a great site for poll’s, i’ve been using it like 2 years when i started blogging in october 2007 whit wordpress
THANKS WORDPRESS AND POLLDADDY (also can’t wait for more cool stuff)
Jul 18th at 11:17 pm
This is FANTASTIC news! I’ve not been getting much feedback from my visitors, and I think this will really help me know which direction to go with new posts / content.
Jul 19th at 1:34 am
Can you center the polls?
)
(also, awesome!!
Jul 19th at 6:57 am
Love it! I give it 5 stars!
One thing I wish WordPress and Polldaddy would get together on, is making it so that all the interfaces or ‘skins’ for the polldaddy poll widget *actually fit in the sidebar*
What makes Polldaddy better than other polls are their cool skins, but all the coolest skins are too wide for the sidebar, and the ones especially created for the sidebar are nowhere near as attractive, and are actually too skinny for the sidebar. Looks count.
I bet a lot more people would use polldaddy polls in their sidebar if they could make the attractive skins fit. Seems there ought to be an easy fix to make the poll skins the correct size for each sidebar.
Jul 19th at 6:58 am
Thanks
Jul 19th at 9:02 am
i like it. thanks.
Jul 19th at 10:01 am
sad. because WordPress doesnt allow a poll from PollDaddy to be posted on our sidebar.
i hope WordPress will give us more liberty here.
Jul 19th at 1:26 pm
Genial!! Solo falta que lo pongan en Español
Jul 19th at 1:39 pm
Hmm . . . Well, that’s stupid.
Jul 19th at 3:50 pm
Ok! Very nice!
But, why the ratings appears only in the comment mode?
Thanks!
Jul 19th at 7:25 pm
I added this and of course, as other’s are saying in the forums, it does need to work better on the posts!
Jul 19th at 9:34 pm
It would be nice if you could ask more than one question in a poll….
Jul 19th at 11:04 pm
umm I’m kinda new to wordpress so im not sure what that is. lol
Jul 20th at 3:14 am
I’m really loving it!
Jul 20th at 5:38 am
A fabulous new addition. Many thanks.
Noticed a snag though, the ratings appear only when the blog post is viewed by clicking the title of each post.
It does not appear on the blog ‘home page’?.
Jul 20th at 6:21 am
It would be great to show this on posts on the main page, instead of only showing when the post is displayed in full.
Jul 20th at 6:35 am
very nice, thanks
Jul 20th at 1:29 pm
( Why this post have not rating? lol )
Is very nice feature.
Jul 20th at 2:05 pm
These tools are certainly handy!
Jul 20th at 2:14 pm
good news! is it customizable for each post?
Jul 20th at 2:56 pm
Grrrreat.
Probably coming to WP.org also?
Too pitty I have hacked a lot on the excellent WP_ratings plugin so much to adjust it to my specific needs…
Jul 20th at 5:40 pm
You guys are awesome!
Jul 20th at 6:54 pm
Thanks.
Jul 21st at 12:10 am
Love the ratings guys. That’s one of the features I lost that I really liked when I moved from Blogger. Very nice work guys.
Keep it up.
Jul 21st at 12:32 am
its nice but we should be able to costumize it or put more styles
Jul 21st at 2:32 am
it’s so fun!
but is there a way to enable comment rating without enabling post rating?
Jul 21st at 5:10 am
awesome!
Jul 21st at 5:19 am
I love the ratings option! One thing I’ve noticed is that in order to have the comment rating system show up, there needs to one enabled for the posts as well (the second I disable the post rating, the comment rating automatically disappears as well). Is that how it is intended or is it simply a bug right now?
Jul 21st at 6:02 am
Great addition..
But I found a bug, I did Advanced Settings, it came up on my posts properly. Now when I return to Advanced Settings for further tweakings, the options that I had changed have all been reset to default.
Jul 22nd at 5:34 pm
Are you sure you are not looking at the advanced settings for one of the other ratings, like comments or pages?
Jul 21st at 7:41 am
Sure
Jul 21st at 8:40 am
That widget would be great. Thanks!
Jul 21st at 8:45 am
I’ve started to use this feature since last week and I really really really appreciate it. Thanks wordpress!
Oh, and btw, couldn’t we manage things like choosing what to write in the comment form? I mean, like in Blogger, we could instead of having a common ‘leave a reply’ or ‘leave a comment’ we could parhaps change it to ‘Tell me that you LOVE this post’.
Keep it up WordPress! I love your features!
Jul 21st at 11:13 am
I am so gonna try this!
Jul 21st at 12:02 pm
Is there a way to stop voting after a time? To close the poll? Thanks
Jul 21st at 2:20 pm
poll daddy is awesome
Jul 21st at 5:24 pm
Okey…..
thank’s!
Jul 21st at 5:27 pm
This is really cool. Rock on
Jul 21st at 8:21 pm
It has been very interesting for readers and bloggers! Thanks!
Jul 21st at 9:53 pm
Good,i love it
Jul 22nd at 1:44 am
love the ratings
simple question – for clarification purposes
one now has an option of :
a) nothing
b) a rating
c) poll question
for any/all blog posts, pages and comments
if there is a rating, one can not also have a poll question and visa versa
at least that seems to be the case on my blog
and visa versa
excellent support
thxs to all for making this happen
Jul 22nd at 1:45 am
I always wanted the rating!
It would be good too… the rating on the topic and not just inside the comments…
But I guess the new templates will offer it…
Thanks for the rating!
Jul 22nd at 2:10 am
I dig it
Jul 22nd at 3:46 am
Looks great! Keep up the good work!
Jul 22nd at 4:21 am
doesn’t work – I get an error and referral to Polldaddy.
Jul 22nd at 5:35 pm
Is this still happening? Can you send the error message to PollDaddy Support? We should be able to get you up and running again.
Jul 22nd at 5:03 am
good
Jul 22nd at 5:26 am
I just started using these features, had no idea they were new…so great job! No noticeable bugs, very easy and intuitive, without feeling “dumbed down.” Thanks!
Jul 22nd at 6:04 am
I did take a stab at a poll. Very easy to use.
Jul 22nd at 9:30 am
Tried it and like it – thanks guys. Just a suggestion, though: the Ratings thing only appears on the page that displays the full post. Lots of us have the [n] most recent posts on our blog homes pages and they don’t display the Ratings thing (or maybe that’s because of the theme I use?). Any chance you could tweak that?
Jul 22nd at 11:47 am
Wonderful!
I have a little problem with ratings with posts but I ask on support forum
‘bye
J
Jul 22nd at 12:22 pm
love it
Jul 22nd at 1:22 pm
A great way for me to see if people like my new WordPress.com blog. Nifty little tool!
Jul 22nd at 2:25 pm
very good!
Jul 22nd at 3:21 pm
Can’t the ratings be featured on the front page? It looks like you have to click onto the post to see the ratings interface. I’d love it if they would be shown on the main, front page!
Thanks!
Jul 22nd at 5:18 pm
Woooow.. it’s verry nice..