Do we know how to do this on IFDB, and if not, will Author’s Choice be public too?
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@dfabulich is currently planning on adding an option to anonymize vote data on polls. If it’s not available in time, then I’ll run the polls in the worst way possible (putting comments on my profile for each Competition on my user profile and having people make private comments that I tally up every couple of days and update).
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Is using something similar to Strawpoll out of the question? I think that’s the one we used in class to vote on movie selections, but there’s got to be anonymous polling options that don’t require the nightmarish private comments tallying?
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I think we can get it in time. The code is public here:
The only line where the username ($voteUserName) is printed is here:
echo "<span id=\"voteQ$i\">$qq "
. "<span class=details>["
. "<a title=\"Click to see more details\" href=\"needjs\" "
. "onclick=\"javascript:expandVote('$i');return false;\">"
. "+</a>]</span></span>"
. "<span id=\"voteF$i\" style=\"display:none;\">"
. "$expQ $rv <i>--<a href=\"showuser?id=$voteUserID\">"
. "$voteUserName</a></i></span>... ";
So we just need to create an optional flag (preferably set in the poll creation dialogue on the same page) that keeps this from being printed. I’m 100% confident Dan can get it in, but anyone can submit a pull request (I think is the term?) with a solution, that couldn’t hurt. I’ll even do it myself if I were desperate (running the apps that are needed to test IFDB code takes 30 minutes to load on my potato computer so I avoid it as much as possible).
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First, sorry if I might appear a bit pessimistic, that is something I’m working on😄 Feel free to ignore this post if I am interfering with something you already cleared with Dan.
I am not very familiar with programming except for a lot of scripting of engineering applications. I also know that this new IFDB Awards is an important step for the IF community.
I also know that Dan is a professional so I can only speak for myself but doing programming under time pressure should be avoided whenever possible. I’m a bit worried as you proposed “anyone” to do a pull request and used the word “desperate” 
EDIT: Just want to add that If IFDB polls are not ready for Author’s Choice I don’t think anyone will complain if Author’s Choice is postponed one year.
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To ameliorate your concerns, I have started redownloading the IFDB development environment and started working on a solution. It would add a new column to each poll with a flag on whether it is anonymous or not, not display the vote names for anonymous polls, and add a checkbox when creating a poll that makes it anonymous. I expect it will take around 10 hrs to make. I full expect others to find a solution before me, but if not I’ll work on it myself as a backup.
In case I also fail, I realized that instead of a ton of private comments on my account, one for each poll, it would be easier for each author to simply send me one private comment containing all their votes.
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Yeah, you could use the format used for the never ending “if you don’t copy and paste this and then share to everyone you’ve ever known you’ll turn into a Grue!” model that I suspect alien archeologists will be deciphering in our fossil signal broadcasts millennia after our extinction.
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I just want to say that I appreciate what you’re doing, Brian.
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I’m proud to say that I started working on this and after a scant 4.5 hours of work, two laptops, hundreds of page lookups and many tears, I have successfully…
Gotten the dev environment to open up. I’ll start working on the actual problem now.
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“Tears” as in crying from frustrated desperation?
Or “tears” as in breaking up the very fabric of space and time allowing untold horrors to seep through from the nether regions of reality?
In both cases, the sacrifice of copious amounts of blood might be in order.
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Both actually. I later found a solution and wanted to send it as a pull request but ended up committing to main on git, which felt like space tearing and gibberish demons pulling me in lol
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Configuring dev environments is the bane of my existence.
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Strangely, my game appears in the PunyInform list. I would not consider this “published” in any way as it’s only a very early beta I shared with the StarDot community for initial feedback. It is absolutely not ready for publication (and quite frankly may never be) and should not be entered into any competition.
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Well, back to the drawing board.
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Let us investigate thoroughly before concluding that there are not enough PunyInform games. There might be more Puny games listed on CASA?
To avoid confusion about the status of my game and to avoid people wasting time playing and voting an early beta (on the rash assumption that anyone is interested), I’ve taken the beta down for now.
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I apologize for the confusion and any grief we caused you.
Does anyone know if Stefan Vogts (@8bit_era) game: “The Ghosts of Blackwood Manor” was made with PunyInform? It was published by Zzap64 in 2022 and was apparently made with Inform:
https://solutionarchive.com/game/id%2C10092/Ghosts+of+Blackwood+Manor%2C+The.html
There are probably more games we need to add.
EDIT: I will send him a message here now.
Just asked him on the Puny discord. I think I found another one as well.
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