Asking a question with a poll

Press Add Poll in the composer to turn a post into a question. You get up to four options, and the post's own writing is the question - a poll with no words asks nothing, so it won't publish without them.

Two choices to make before you post:

• Allow more than one choice - tick it and people can pick several options; leave it and they pick exactly one.
• How long it runs - from five minutes to seven days. Every poll ends, because a result nobody can call final isn't a result.

Two options can't read the same, even in different capitals. An answer names the option by its text rather than by its position, so two that look alike couldn't be told apart when one came back.

A poll goes in place of media or a link, not alongside them - the options are the thing to interact with.

Answering one

Pick your option or options and press Vote. Your answer is final: there's no changing it afterwards, since being able to switch after seeing the running total would make the total the thing being voted on.

Once you've answered - or once the poll closes - the options are replaced by the results: each one's share of the vote with the number behind it, and your own choice marked. Underneath, how many people have answered and how long is left. On a poll that takes several choices those are different numbers, which is why the count is of people rather than of votes.

Reading while logged out shows you the results from the start, since there's no vote for you to cast. Signed in and haven't answered yet, you'll see the options - and can still cast one - right up until the poll closes.

Across the Fediverse

Polls travel. People on other servers can answer yours and their votes count here, and you can answer polls from accounts you follow elsewhere. For a poll from another server the numbers are that server's to keep - we show what it last told us, so a total can lag slightly behind the vote you just cast.