Allow Guest Voting

Minimum Requirements:
phpBB 2.0.6 - 2.0.21
PHP 4.1.0†

Page Updated: Oct 20, 2006

When designing phpBB, the creators decided that they would never allow guest users to vote in topic polls. They reasoned that such votes cannot be reliably tracked. This permission, labeled as VOTE in the Advanced Forum Permissions of the phpBB admin panel, will always be set to registered members (labeled REG) if an admin attempts to change the setting to all users (ALL). The vote tracking system is also coded to handle only votes by registered members.

Of course, some phpBB forum administrators actually want to enable guest voting regardless of the tracking problems. Allow Guest Voting was created for these people; it will enable the ability to set the VOTE permission to ALL. As with the other forum permission settings, guest voting will be available on a per forum basis. The hack also adjusts the vote tracking system slightly to limit guest votes to one per IP Address.

Before using this modification, board administrators should be aware that it does in fact allow almost unlimited guest voting. It is possible to throw off poll results by voting repeatedly, even with IP tracking. All possible forms of guest vote tracking can be easily circumvented; that is why it is not a feature of phpBB. If you feel that your poll is too important to allow unlimited voting, then you can simply put your poll in a forum whose voting permissions are set to REG or higher. This modification is intended for those who simply want to have some relaxing, fun polls and do not need to worry about malicious users skewing the voting.

Features of Allow Guest Voting 2.0.3

Allow logged out members and guests to vote in polls.
Works with existing forum permission system. Small and simple.
Checks guest votes against phpBB-recorded IP addresses of previous votes.

Also Available At

This refinement can also be downloaded from the following sites. They may have a slightly older version; new releases are posted here before being submitted to these sites. These are the only "official mirror" sites where this refinement is submitted.

phpBB.com - MOD Release Announcements & Support Topic

phpBBHacks.com Download Listing

Additional Notes

† This download was tested only with PHP 4, but is expected to work on PHP 5 also.

Not compatible with phpBB versions prior to those listed.