VOTE! Misc. Avatar Contest - Spirals

[Mary Ann]

We have some great entries for the subject of spirals, so the voting is going to be very interesting. Vote for your favourite three. The poll will close Thursday evening GMT. Good luck!

O-kay, I'm having trouble putting the poll up! Sorry about this; I've not done this before. Could a mod or someone who knows how to put photos in a poll give me a hand, please? Many thanks!

 

[rhubarbodendron]

afaik polls are uneditable and a normal post can't be edited into a poll. How about starting a new one and letting this get locked?

You just start a new thread, write the initial post and include the images in it (you can simply copy and paste them from the enter-thread) and add the name of the respective contestant with each picture.

Before hitting "submit" you scroll down to the bottom of the page where it says "Additional Options". There you check the box for a poll and specify the number of poll options (i.e. the number of entries)

Then you click "submit new thread"

Now the board will redirect you to the poll options and there you insert the name of each contestant and specify how many votes the voters have (3) and when the poll will close.
Check twice before submitting these settings because not even Mods can edit a poll.

Good luck (and don't worry - I think everyone makes a mistake in their first poll)

 

[auntiehill]

Screwing up a poll is a right of passage; everyone does it. It's not nearly as complicated as it at first appears. In fact, once you've done one, you'll see it's easy-peasy--just a bit of busy-work. I'm around all day, if you need help.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

and every cloud has a silver lining: the delay gave me a chance to post my favourite spiral =)

 

[Mary Ann]

The problem arose when I pressed submit after I'd copied and pasted the avatars from my Photobucket account into the poll. I got a message that I'd exceeded 150 characters per line, or something like that. And here I thought I was doing well. Heh, perhaps a mod could lock/close this one (or dump it altogether) and I'll try anew.

Auntiehill, it's 10pm my time and I'm off to bed soon, so I'll try again tomorrow, but thanks so much for your offer of help. How do I get around the too-many-characters thing when copying and pasting the avatars into the poll? When I say I know stupidly little about this fancy computerin' stuff I'm not exaggerating!

 

[scotpens]

When I post a poll I use two browser windows: one displaying the entry thread, the other to set up the poll. I switch to HTML mode, type the entrants' names into the second window, and copy-and-paste the URL of each avatar. I find it less confusing that way. YMMV.

 

[Spot's Meow]

The problem arose when I pressed submit after I'd copied and pasted the avatars from my Photobucket account into the poll. I got a message that I'd exceeded 150 characters per line, or something like that. And here I thought I was doing well. Heh, perhaps a mod could lock/close this one (or dump it altogether) and I'll try anew.

Auntiehill, it's 10pm my time and I'm off to bed soon, so I'll try again tomorrow, but thanks so much for your offer of help. How do I get around the too-many-characters thing when copying and pasting the avatars into the poll? When I say I know stupidly little about this fancy computerin' stuff I'm not exaggerating!

You don't need to insert the images into the actual poll (I'm not sure if that's even possible, I haven't tried it before). You can just insert the images into the post that goes along with the poll, with their respective usernames. The poll then contains only the usernames.

 

[auntiehill]

The problem arose when I pressed submit after I'd copied and pasted the avatars from my Photobucket account into the poll. I got a message that I'd exceeded 150 characters per line, or something like that. And here I thought I was doing well. Heh, perhaps a mod could lock/close this one (or dump it altogether) and I'll try anew.

OK, there's no reason to go through all that trouble. You don't have to save ANYTHING to Photobucket; they are already hosted by the person's service or they wouldn't be posted here in the first place. You're not hotlinking anything.
Here's the easiest way to do a poll:
Open two windows: one with the original entry thread and another for the new thread. In the entry thread, put your mouse over an avatar, right click and select "copy image." Just copy the images over into the new thread and put it in the post. Be sure to check the "Poll" box at the bottom and enter the number of contest entries for the poll. Then hit submit when you are done. The poll will come up, and you can copy & paste (or just type) all the names into the boxes. Be sure to check the "multiple options" box at the bottom. When you are all done, hit submit.

Auntiehill, it's 10pm my time and I'm off to bed soon, so I'll try again tomorrow, but thanks so much for your offer of help. How do I get around the too-many-characters thing when copying and pasting the avatars into the poll? When I say I know stupidly little about this fancy computerin' stuff I'm not exaggerating!

I would say don't bother with the images-in-the-poll thing to begin with. Just do a simple "Poll & Post" thread---look at the SciFi Av contest I just did, "Masks." There's the poll at the top and the pictures in the post. It's the easiest way to go.

Just for future reference: you'll often see people do a "summary" for the last post of the entry thread; that's handy for many reasons. Not only can you double check your entries, you can also just highlight, copy and paste that entire summary over into the voting thread post.

 

[bbjeg]

FYI, You could put the images in the poll with a "[ IMG ] URL [ / IMG ]" tag (without spaces), obtaining the URL as mentioned above.

(and don't worry - I think everyone makes a mistake in their first poll)

I did.

 

[RJDiogenes]

I hate polls. I've screwed it up at least once.

 

[Mary Ann]

OK, there's no reason to go through all that trouble. You don't have to save ANYTHING to Photobucket; they are already hosted by the person's service or they wouldn't be posted here in the first place. You're not hotlinking anything.

Ah, thank you for that. I wasn't sure if I'd be hotlinking or not, which is why I erred on the side of caution.

Today's busy as all hell but I'll do my best to have it up before I crawl into bed this evening. Live and learn!

 

[Mary Ann]

I think I cracked it, guys. Take Two of the Voting thread is over here.

 

[rhubarbodendron]

Congratulations! *huggles macloudt*