The Polls widget is available as soon as a blogsite is created.

To Use the Polls Widget

  1. From within your Dashboard, go to Appearance > Widgets
  2. Locate the Polls widget in the Available Widgets group at the top of the page. Click on the widget and drag it into an available region such as Sidebar 1, Sidebar 2, etc.
  3. Once the widget has been positioned, click on its arrow to open up the widget control panel
    1. Title: this is optional. If you don’t enter a title it will show the default widget title.
    2. Display Polls Archive Link Below Poll?: This will provide links to your poll archives, beneath your active poll.  Select yes or no.
    3. Poll to Display: enter a value here.  Keep in mind that this will show as a list on your site.
    4. Exclude pages: choose one of the following:
      1. Do Not Display Poll
      2. Display Random Poll
      3. Display Latest Poll
      4. Specific poll title from list of all available polls on blog site
  4. Click the Save button when completed
  5. Click on the Visit Site link to see your new widget in action.

To view help instructions on the Polls plugin or settings, just click on the following provided links:

The WP-Polls plugin will allow you to perform several different poll related tasks such as:

  • Creation of polls
  • Management of polls
  • Basic styling of poll elements right through the user interface
  • More advanced styling and layout control using poll templates (suggested for advanced use only)

The WP-Polls plugin has already been enabled on all sites.  All features provided by this plugin are available as soon as any blog is created.  The settings for these items are located in the Polls menu block at the lower left corner of the Dashboard.

To view help instructions on the Polls widget and settings, just click on the following provided links:

You can also locate the specific help post in the Categories menu on this site.

The Sociable plugin allows users the ability to automatically add links on posts, pages, and RSS feeds to favored social bookmarking sites such as: Google, Facebook, Digg, and many more.

Once the Sociable plugin is activated a few different things will happen:

  • The Sociable configuration options will be available in the Settings > Sociable control panel.
  • All posts and pages on your blog site will display a footer that contains icons and links to:
    • Print
    • Digg
    • Sphinn
    • del.icio.us
    • Facebook
    • Mixx
    • Google
    • Blogplay

These are not the only bookmarking links available, though.  A total of 99 links to different bookmarking sites are available through the Sociable settings.

To view help instructions on the Sociable settings, just click on the following provided link:

You can also locate the specific help post in the Categories menu on this site.

The Popularity Contest widget will only be viewed if the Popularity Contest plugin has been enabled. For information on how to enable a plugin, visit the Installed Plugins help post.

To Use the Popularity Contest Widget

  1. From within your Dashboard, go to Appearance > Widgets
  2. Locate the Popularity Contest widget in the Available Widgets group at the top of the page. Click on the widget and drag it into an available region such as Sidebar 1, Sidebar 2, etc.
  3. Once the widget has been positioned, click on its arrow to open up the widget control panel
    1. Widget Title: this is optional. If you don’t enter a title it will show the default widget title.
    2. Report Type: select one – there are many different options
    3. Number of posts to display: enter a value here.  Keep in mind that this will show as a list on your site.
    4. Exclude pages: if you are using Pages on your site you can choose to exclude them here
  4. Click the Save button when completed
  5. Click on the Visit Site link to see your new widget in action.