nips/69.md

Poll event

A poll note is a nostr event type (kind 6969) for conducting polls, containing predefined voting options, which users may vote on via zaps.

Purpose

• define new standardized event kind for voting polls

Poll format (RFC)

Should a poll be self-contained in a single event (including its voting options) or be a parent event (#0) with separate (but linked) child voting option events (#1, #2, #3, #n), each referencing the parent poll event?

Self-contained poll event

• Pros:
  • likely results in better UX by providing compact, widget-style notes immediately recognizable as unique poll type
  • promotes more uniform implementation across clients
• Cons:
  • increased poll event complexity, owing to internally nested voting options (each necessarily containing their own zap requirements)
  • potentially increased difficulty of client implementation

Single parent poll event with linked child voting option events

• Pros:
  • better alignment with existing event (specifically zap) structures
  • potential for backward compatibility with clients uncompliant with polling events, i.e. non-compliant clients could handle poll event chains same as existing threads
  • possibly simplifies implementation by clients?
• Cons:
  • introduces possibility for fragmentation of polls, e.g. separation or loss of child voting options
  • increased potential for non-uniform implementation of polling UI/UX across clients

TODO

• define basic polling features
• define basic polling format
• outline polling NIP
• publish RFC to nostr dev community
• implement polls in 1 relay
• implement polls in 2 clients
• send pull request to nostr-protocol/NIPs
• merge with nostr-protocol/NIPs