Hey, hope i am in the right forum.

We just upgraded to Limesurvey 3.*, but i am unable to find the option to hide "no answer" on non-mandatory questions. Did they/you remove this option?

Google and forum search didn't lead me to any answers.

Thanks for the help.

As far as I know, the automatic "no answer" only appears on mandatory questions.

It now appearing on non-mandatory questions is probably because you included them in your answer options.

If it is about mandatory questions, then there are two places to look:

First of all in the general settings. The super admin can define if the "no answer" is "ON", "OFF" or "Selectable" (later should be the default in LS 3.x).

Now if it is set to "ON" or "OFF" there will be no option in the survey settings to change this. If it is set to "Selectable" the survey admins can decide for each survey if they want it on or off.

You can find this here:

"Configuration" --> "Settings" --> "Global Settings" --> "Presentation":




If it is set to "Selectable", then in the settings for each survey you can see this under "Settings" --> "Presentation":

>As far as I know, the automatic "no answer" only appears on mandatory questions.

It's the other way around, but the rest of your post is spot on. Thanks for the help. I really appreciate it.

You are right. I was 100% sure it was for mandatory questions. I did some research and I guess I had this feature wrong in my head for quite some time now. I could swear that in previous versions it was for mandatory questions, but I checked in a very old 2.6 LTS and even there it was for "non-mandatory" questions. I personally never used the feature, but to me it doesn't make much sense to put a "no answer" option for non mandatory questions, because you can already leave them empty anyway. But I am not a big fan of these general settings anyway. I would always rather put my own "no answer" option manually where needed.

Are you sure about your statement?

dangerdangerhighvoltage wrote: It's the other way around, but the rest of your post is spot on.

Why should a non-mandatory question show an automatic "No-Answer" option?

Holch wrote

As far as I know, the automatic "no answer" only appears on mandatory questions.

If the question is not mandatory, you can just leave the question unanswered and continue.
If the question is mandatory, you need to offer a "No-Answer" option (at least if you don't want people to answer even though they have no answer to the question).

holch wrote: I could swear that in previous versions it was for mandatory questions, but I checked in a very old 2.6 LTS and even there it was for "non-mandatory" questions.

What exact version? Date?

That is really crazy.

manual.limesurvey.org/Global_settings#General

Show 'no answer' option for non-mandatory questions:

Show 'no answer' option for non-mandatory questions: When a radio button/select type question that contains editable answers (i.e.: List & array questions) is not mandatory and the "show 'no answer'" is also enabled (default), an additional entry "No answer" is shown for each subquestion - so that survey respondents may choose not to answer the question. You can select from the global settings one of the following options:

Selectable : If the LimeSurvey administrator selects it, a survey administrator can choose whether his/her own survey displays the "no answer" option for non-mandatory questions or not (see the Presentation wiki section for more details)
On (default value): If this option is chosen, all non-mandatory questions will contain the "no answer" option - this cannot be changed by the survey administrator because the global settings trump survey settings
Off : If off, the non-mandatory questions will not display any "no answer" option - this cannot be changed by the survey administrator because the global settings trump the survey settings

Version 2.6.6-lts Build 171111



So is it not just me that had this feature for "mandatory questions" in mind?

Why should a non-mandatory question show an automatic "No-Answer" option?

Exactly! I already thought I was going crazy. I really wanted to proof "dangerdangerhighvoltage" wrong, but the manual proofs him right and even in my oldest installation it is for "non-mandatory" questions.

So either we got this wrong in our head or somewhere over the years someone changed this setting. But, given that in 2017 this was already the case, it must have been very, very long before or we are remembering it wrong.

I had posted a fairly long post in the forum, but when my 2.6 LTS had it with "non-mandatory" already, I thought it was me that is just getting old and crazy.

I have found that description of behavior in the manual of 2013.

Show 'no answer' option for non-mandatory questions: When a question of a radio button/select type that contains editable answers (i.e.: List & array questions) is not mandatory and this is set to 'Yes' (default), an additional entry 'No answer' is shown for each subquestion - so that participants may choose to not answer the question. Some people prefer this not to be available. Set this to 'No' to turn this off.

If a change has taken place it was earlier in time. Still confused. But we didn't use this function from the beginning

The logic behind displaying a "No answer" on a non-mandatory question might be this:

A radio button click cannot be taken back.
Without a "No answer" option, a non-mandatory question needs be answered once a radio button is clicked.

Interesting.
Always wondered what the feature does.
Thanks.