I was editing the items in our 2016 poll and finally realized that every time I did so I was losing all the votes, since it must be tallying based on the unique text of the items.
I don’t suppose I can go edit the data to re-consolidate votes for different items that are actually the same item?
And feature request to pass along to @codinghorror: have the poll results show votes for items that no longer exist. Or some other way to make it more obvious that I was breaking everything by editing the entries.
Hm. I just tried to re-cast my votes and when I reloaded the page it has
apparently forgotten them all, so maybe it is more than just editing the
entries that is gone wrong? Or is it expected that I would not be allowed
to vote? Or do I misunderstand the mechanism? (e.g. you’re not supposed to
be able to view your votes after they’re cast or something?)
I think it seems to forget votes if the items were edited.
No, I think we’ve currently lost any votes cast when I had edited the items. Most of the edits where prepending numbers so I undid that to recover as many votes as possible. But my original question stands, if we can see the raw data and consolidate votes for items that were edited but are really the same item.
Are you currently editing them? I just now went to the poll and tried to recast my votes. I clicked on some things and they turned green. Then I accidentally clicked a link in one of the items instead of the item and it took me to that forum post. When I went back to the poll page my greens were gone. I do not see an obvious “submit your votes” button or anything, so I assumed that …
OH. (facepalm).
I finally noticed the “vote now!” button at the bottom of the poll. Can I blame the UI?
Actually, that’s not what happens Let me explain. When you edit a poll, if and only if there is the same amount of options, we consider it as an edit and we will keep the votes. It might require a browser refresh to show up but all the votes are still there
NOTE: I updated you to the very latest to make sure you have all the recent poll bug fixes
We seem to still have data-eating bugs here. As @drtall just observed and @adamwolf confirmed , the percentages are dropping from ~30% to ~2% on some items after I edit them. I’m sure I haven’t changed the number of items. So I don’t think @zogstrip’s characterization can be true. It’s persisting after browser refresh and everything.
I can also see that after editing the items my own votes are forgotten. Each thing I edited that used to be green isn’t any longer.
Not sure if this regressed or I’ve uncovered a new bug but I’m definitely not changing the number of items or the order [1], just appending things like “[FIXED]” to some of the items. When I do that, the next time someone votes or changes their votes, all the previous votes on the edited item disappear.
[1] Nor doing the thing that caused problems last time where I was using asterisks as bullets but then also numbering the items so the poll got confused by the two ways of specifying list items.
Let me explain. When you edit a poll, if and only if there is the same amount of options, we consider it as an edit and we will keep the votes. It might require a browser refresh to show up but all the votes are still there 
