Discord added a long-awaited feature earlier this month. Discord servers can now abandon voting bots and reaction-based voting systems in favor of polls.
Many social and messaging platforms — like Mastodon and Slack — have had polling functions for years, but this is the first time Discord has formally added the feature. Discord started as a voice chat service for gamers, so perhaps a polling function wasn’t as useful then. But now, the use of Discord has expanded beyond gaming, and servers who use the platform primarily for messaging will find a lot of value in the new feature.
Adding polls on Discord is easy. Here’s why you should consider using polls and what to know about voting using polls. And if you’re considering joining a server, here’s our complete guide to Discord and what to know about ads on Discord.
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This is what it looks like when a Discord poll is final.
Why you should use Discord polls
Polls can be an extremely useful tool for understanding your server. Polls are a quick, clean way for you to get a quick pulse from people in your servers. Before the new polls feature was introduced, the typical workaround was a reaction-based voting system — you would react to messages with specific emojis that indicated your agreement or vote for a specific option. But with large servers, reactions can get messy quickly and it would be harder to see or understand how people were actually voting.
For example, I’m part of my local writing group’s server, and polls could be really useful for helping plan what kind of activities we want to do. Before, we would respond with a pencil emoji for in-person writing sessions and a computer for virtual writing sprints. Now we can use polls and don’t have to worry about our votes somehow getting lost or overlooked.
If you use Discord primarily for gaming, polls can still be a useful tool. You might not need them while you’re in voice chat or streaming, but they can be useful for figuring out when your squad is available or settling debates about which game to fire up.
How to use polls on Discord
You can send polls in most places on Discord. If you have the ability to send messages in a channel, you’ll be able to create polls. If you can only view channels, you can vote in polls but not create your own.
Here’s how to create and send a Discord poll.
1. Open Discord and navigate to the server you want to send the poll to.
2. Click the plus sign (+) to the left of your message bar.
3. Click Poll.
4. Enter the poll name and options. You can add emoji, too.
5. Tap the arrow next to Duration to set how long it will be available.
6. Click Post in the upper right corner.
To vote in a poll, select the option you want and click Vote. You can’t vote anonymously, but you can change your vote until the poll closes. You can add up to ten answer choices.
If you don’t see the option to create a poll, don’t worry. Discord’s help page says the feature will take a couple of days to roll out to all users.
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