Ed Zotti, please turn on the poll feature

[Muffin]

Ed Zotti, please turn on the poll feature.

[MsWhatsit]

WTF? Why is everybody suddenly so exercised about the poll feature? It's enabled on a couple of other message boards I go to and it is really not all that exciting. Actually, IMO it leads to people posting a bunch of stupid polls just for the sake of posting polls. I vote no on polls. (See, even without a poll feature I was able to cast my vote and you were able to read it! Amazing.)

[Harmonious Discord]

WTF? Why is everybody suddenly so exercised about the poll feature? It's enabled on a couple of other message boards I go to and it is really not all that exciting. Actually, IMO it leads to people posting a bunch of stupid polls just for the sake of posting polls. I vote no on polls. (See, even without a poll feature I was able to cast my vote and you were able to read it! Amazing.)

It's a bitch to collect poll data on this board. Using this feature the answers are tallied and the people have to stick to the format. Asking for a yes or no answer is futile as it still doesn't get answered that way no matter how much you explain the need to do so.

[Liberal]

WTF? Why is everybody suddenly so exercised about the poll feature? It's enabled on a couple of other message boards I go to and it is really not all that exciting. Actually, IMO it leads to people posting a bunch of stupid polls just for the sake of posting polls. I vote no on polls. (See, even without a poll feature I was able to cast my vote and you were able to read it! Amazing.)Why do you care if other people want polls? No, seriously. Why is it that just because you have no trouble filtering through posts to determine the responses to poll questions, you assume that everyone is gifted with the same astonishing ability? It's like telling people they shouldn't have calculators because you are able to multiply four digit numbers in your head.

[CarnalK]

WTF? Why is everybody suddenly so exercised about the poll feature? It's enabled on a couple of other message boards I go to and it is really not all that exciting. Actually, IMO it leads to people posting a bunch of stupid polls just for the sake of posting polls. I vote no on polls. (See, even without a poll feature I was able to cast my vote and you were able to read it! Amazing.)

You just inadvertently gave the answer yourself. I had to read 4 annoying sentences to get to your vote. If I was actually going to tally a text based poll, lots of people would editorialize like that and make it a lot more trouble.

I think the novelty would quickly wear off and poll making would settle at a pace slightly above the current rate.

I think "everybody" is "so exercised" because the glacial pace of innovation and an entrenched "frills hurt my eyes!" attitude around here can get a little frustrating.

[friedo]

I want the poll feature turned on because:

A. it would be really great,
B. the Democrats want to steal my flamethrowers,
C. Jimmy Fallon sucks and Conan rules,
D. All of the above,
E. Only EDUCATED MORONS THINK A2 + B2 = C2 FASCIST IDOLATRY
6. Six,
F. FAIL,
G. None of the above,
H. All of the above except G,
I. This answer intentionally left blank,
J. All of the above except H but including G,
K. J makes no sense,
M. Emacs,
N. Stick shift,
O. This letter looks like zero,
P. I'd like to give you a real "polling" if you know what I mean,
Q. I know what you mean,
R. I don't know what you mean,
S. I know what you mean, except for what you mean in answer P,
T. Elmo,
U. vi,
V. vee,
W. Jesus,
X. Satan,
Y. ZOMBIES,
26. Twenty-six

[Harmonious Discord]

I want the poll feature turned on because:

A. it would be really great,
B. the Democrats want to steal my flamethrowers,
C. Jimmy Fallon sucks and Conan rules,
D. All of the above,
E. Only EDUCATED MORONS THINK A2 + B2 = C2 FASCIST IDOLATRY
6. Six,
F. FAIL,
G. None of the above,
H. All of the above except G,
I. This answer intentionally left blank,
J. All of the above except H but including G,
K. J makes no sense,
M. Emacs,
N. Stick shift,
O. This letter looks like zero,
P. I'd like to give you a real "polling" if you know what I mean,
Q. I know what you mean,
R. I don't know what you mean,
S. I know what you mean, except for what you mean in answer P,
T. Elmo,
U. vi,
V. vee,
W. Jesus,
X. Satan,
Y. ZOMBIES,
26. Twenty-six

What is the point of this in this serious discussion? No explanation given, just a random list.

[Lord Ashtar]

WTF? Why is everybody suddenly so exercised about the poll feature? It's enabled on a couple of other message boards I go to and it is really not all that exciting. Actually, IMO it leads to people posting a bunch of stupid polls just for the sake of posting polls. I vote no on polls. (See, even without a poll feature I was able to cast my vote and you were able to read it! Amazing.)

I'm interested mostly because it would be a new toy to play with, but I can't help but be fascinated by the stonewalling the admins are giving us. Bullshit answers like "it's up the pipeline" and "I'd be fired as an admin if I turned it on without express permission from his holiness Ed Zotti" make me wonder what the real reason they won't do it is, although I have my suspicions.

[friedo]

What is the point of this in this serious discussion? No explanation given, just a random list.

That wasn't one of the choices.

I hereby demand that Harmonious Discord be banned forthwith.

[CarnalK]

What is the point of this in this serious discussion? No explanation given, just a random list.

I'm sure it's his hilarious way of saying polls are generally stupid. Why he thinks this will differ greatly from regular IMHO and MPSIMS threads he doesn't explore. I guess he thinks actually reading through "How do you wipe?" and "What's your favourite number?" threads are a step above for some reason.

[MsWhatsit]

To answer Liberal's question about why I care, it's because historically, this board has a bad history of implementing features without everything going all fuckety. If polls could be implemented without problems/critical timeouts/dead hamsters/etc, then that would be swell, but I am not very optimistic about this. I also really don't feel this topic is so important that we need to have multiple threads going about it, but I realized a long time ago that I am not supreme arbiter of what is important. (Just to forestall the inevitable question about who made me the supreme arbiter of what is important.)

[aldiboronti]

This is important because we need to know that somebody with power on the staff actually cares enough about this board to take responsibility for tweaking the controls to improve board function. Everybody passes the buck upstairs and nothing gets done: no polls, useless search functionality, and we as members are supposed to like it or lump it.

For God's sake, if Ed can't be bothered to do any of this stuff then let one of the admins/mods ask him for the authority to do it themselves. We have Jerry's word that that this won't bring the whole thing grinding to a halt. If a tweak doesn't work it can be reversed with no problems at all.

This isn't rocket science.

[descamisado]

Who here thinks friedo left out a comma somewhere? Show of hands.

[CarnalK]

To answer Liberal's question about why I care, it's because historically, this board has a bad history of implementing features without everything going all fuckety. If polls could be implemented without problems/critical timeouts/dead hamsters/etc, then that would be swell, but I am not very optimistic about this. I also really don't feel this topic is so important that we need to have multiple threads going about it, but I realized a long time ago that I am not supreme arbiter of what is important. (Just to forestall the inevitable question about who made me the supreme arbiter of what is important.)
The only feature I remember being added which screwed things up was the rss feed, which is an entirely different ballgame. There really is no likelihood of any of those problems you noted with implementing polls.

I agree that another thread was a little over the top but I guess Muffin thought putting Ed's name in the title would make the difference as far jumping to the top of the "pipeline". This is really only the second thread as Tuba closed the first one without comment on the actual issue.

[RaftPeople]

...I also really don't feel this topic is so important that we need to have multiple threads going about it, but I realized a long time ago that I am not supreme arbiter of what is important. (Just to forestall the inevitable question about who made me the supreme arbiter of what is important.)

I don't think you do actually understand that importance is relative. You seem to intellectually understand that you should understand that it is relative, in a theoretical sense, but it appears that the understanding stops at that point.

[Munch]

I wonder how much the IMHO forum will go haywire with polls. I love the idea, and think they could be implemented really well. But I also think they'd inundate most of the forums. And you can't really dedicate a new forum to polls, because they span at least three of the forums nicely (IMHO, Cafe Society and Game Room). Christ - with the number of fantasy football threads currently in GR, can you imagine the carnage if everyone started posting "Who should I start" polls?!

[TWDuke]

IMHO is the forum for polls. Threads started in other forums already tend to be closed or moved there if the mods deem them too poll-ish. Mods can simply continuing banishing threads to poll-land or applying the poll-lock.

[Lord Ashtar]

Now now, TWDuke, are you suggesting we create more work for the already overworked volunteers that give up their time and their health for the thankless job that is moderator of the SDMB? How very thoughtless of you. It could be as bad as it was back when Giraffe decided to start moving all the self-proclaimed "lame" rants from the Pit to MPSIMS. That was a terrible week or two before people figured things out.

Besides, turning polls on is just too stinking hard and will probably cause the server to collapse into a black hole, destroying the Earth and much of the solar system. This in turn would cause intergalactic travelers going through our sector to have to make a course correction. Can you live with forcing these unwary explorers to have to adjust their trajectory or run the risk of being 10-15 space minutes late to their destination?

[Frank]

You just inadvertently gave the answer yourself. I had to read 4 annoying sentences to get to your vote. If I was actually going to tally a text based poll, lots of people would editorialize like that and make it a lot more trouble.

I think the novelty would quickly wear off and poll making would settle at a pace slightly above the current rate.

I think "everybody" is "so exercised" because the glacial pace of innovation and an entrenched "frills hurt my eyes!" attitude around here can get a little frustrating.
I see very few people exercised about it at all, far fewer than are exercised about new smilies anyway.

I agree that the poll feature should be turned on. That allows for both easy tallying and editorializing in the same thread.

I'll add, as a former IMHO mod, I'd have had no objection to the poll feature.

[Liberal]

To answer Liberal's question about why I care, it's because historically, this board has a bad history of implementing features without everything going all fuckety. If polls could be implemented without problems/critical timeouts/dead hamsters/etc, then that would be swell, but I am not very optimistic about this. I also really don't feel this topic is so important that we need to have multiple threads going about it, but I realized a long time ago that I am not supreme arbiter of what is important. (Just to forestall the inevitable question about who made me the supreme arbiter of what is important.)It's understandable that you'd be queasy, but let me (try to) explain how polls work and why they are no extra load on the server. (I'm not very good at explaining things sometimes)

Polls use an HTML element called a "radio button". For each choice in a poll, there is one radio button. Each radio button transmits to the next page exactly one byte of data (either a 1 for yes or a 0 for no, typically — sometimes yes is -1, and sometimes no is just null, or empty.) And so setting up 10 responses to a poll takes fewer bytes than transmitting the phrase "fewer bytes".

That's why it's no extra load on the server.

[C K Dexter Haven]

We do hear you, and we have pushed this back up the line (again.)

[Lanzy]

I'd vote no on polls if doing so didn't sound so much like participating in a poll.

[Idle Thoughts]

Where's the "Don't care one way or another" option? I don't see it anywhere.


Oh, yeah...

*DnR*

[CarnalK]

For those worried about a huge glut of polls, it just occurred to me that we have a real life case study.

As we know, many of the "::squee::"ing type Dope members moved over to mellophant (née domebo) a few months ago. They are nuts for the little bells and whistles - having animated smilies, avatars, image posting, a chatroom and yes polls.

In their "Lounge" forum, the place set up for "idle chat and anything that doesn't seem to fit elsewhere like stray polls", they have a mere 5 polls out of the 50 threads displayed on the first page and only 2 in the top 40. None of their other forums have more than 1 or 2; most have none at all.

If those guys have managed to not go nuts on them then I think fears of us swamping ourselves in polls are likely unfounded.

[aldiboronti]

As we know, many of the "::squee::"ing type Dope members moved over to mellophant (née domebo) a few months ago.

Best descriptor for said members ever!

[Never Say Dice]

Exactly how hard is it to turn them on and off?
Topix.net (http://www.topix.net/forum/recent) turns them off every other day or so. Not sure why, maybe when traffic is heavy.
But it's probably a single button on their monitor control panel.

So, I'm just saying Try it. You can easily turn it off.Topix.net (http://www.topix.net/forum/recent)

[Liberal]

They apparently need explicit permission from Ed Zotti (aka Cecil).

So far, 3 administrators — three! — have said or implied words to the effect that they are pushing the request up the pipe. Well, there is no pipe above these people other than Ed Zotti. Therefore, one may conclude that he does not allow his administrators to make administrative decisions. That's not a knock at Ed. It's just easily deducible that he wants to be involved in the minutiae of the board's day to day operations.

[Never Say Dice]

Au contraire. It means he doesn't care a whit. He only cares about the column, counting his low interest in the board as benign neglect.

[Corner Case]

I want the poll feature turned on because: ...I find polls annoying because the OPs Answers are invariably not exactly the answer I want to give, so I do not participate. Do you find that too? Yes NoOh, and you left out:

A1. Hi, Opal!

[Harmonious Discord]

I find polls annoying because the OPs Answers are invariably not exactly the answer I want to give, so I do not participate. Do you find that too? Yes NoOh, and you left out:

A1. Hi, Opal!

In the case you stated it is better if you don't participate.

You can comment in the thread and it doesn't mess up the poll.

[Qadgop the Mercotan]

They apparently need explicit permission from Ed Zotti (aka Cecil).

So far, 3 administrators — three! — have said or implied words to the effect that they are pushing the request up the pipe. Well, there is no pipe above these people other than Ed Zotti. Therefore, one may conclude that he does not allow his administrators to make administrative decisions. That's not a knock at Ed. It's just easily deducible that he wants to be involved in the minutiae of the board's day to day operations.
What makes you think someone above Ed doesn't oversee the server? Even if that wasn't the case before, now that the new bosses have moved in, things might well have changed.

[CarnalK]

What makes you think someone above Ed doesn't oversee the server? Even if that wasn't the case before, now that the new bosses have moved in, things might well have changed.

As I noted in the other thread about this, Ed said he made all those rule changes a while back on his own initiative. Adding polls is so trivial that it would be rather asinine to require a corporate level decision on it.

And it's not really the server we're talking about, just a tweak to software already running on it. A tweak that would have an entirely inconsequential effect on server performance.

[Muffin]

I suppose the buck stops at the Board of Directors (or Obama), but I was hoping that Ed could handle the request.

I have enjoyed the polls on the new boards, and expect that I would equally enjoy them here. I haven't seen any problems arising out of the polls on the new boards.

[Scissorjack]

Oh, for goodness sake. Look, you are not getting polls. Nor are you getting a Politics Forum, Charter Memberships restored for those who lost them, the Search Function fixed or a pony for Christmas. If any of these things were going to happen, they would have happened two years ago: how many new threads does it take to realise that nothing is going to change here? The staff either can't or won't fix the place and are so ossified in their roles that they clearly regard any questions on the subject as annoying at best and mutinous at worst, so either accept that and continue posting in the current environment, or move on to a place that has the features you want. The Dope is dead in the water anyway; wistful fantasies of how it might one day become profitable aside, it's only going to last as long as Playahata does a swift audit of the Chicago Reader, finds the querulous little nest of squabblers, and pulls the plug. All gone, bye-bye.

[Harmonious Discord]

Oh, for goodness sake. Look, you are not getting polls. Nor are you getting a Politics Forum, Charter Memberships restored for those who lost them, the Search Function fixed or a pony for Christmas. If any of these things were going to happen, they would have happened two years ago: how many new threads does it take to realise that nothing is going to change here? The staff either can't or won't fix the place and are so ossified in their roles that they clearly regard any questions on the subject as annoying at best and mutinous at worst, so either accept that and continue posting in the current environment, or move on to a place that has the features you want. The Dope is dead in the water anyway; wistful fantasies of how it might one day become profitable aside, it's only going to last as long as Playahata does a swift audit of the Chicago Reader, finds the querulous little nest of squabblers, and pulls the plug. All gone, bye-bye.

You're so negative over so little. You can't handle that some people still have hope so you need to smash it flat so they're like you. It didn't work. I still think things happen for the better when people ask politely. You don't always get what you want, but how you act afterward counts for a lot.

[Claire Beauchamp]

I find polls annoying because the OPs Answers are invariably not exactly the answer I want to give, so I do not participate. Do you find that too? Yes No

On one of the several boards I visit where polls are turned on (and really, I've never visited a vBulletin board where they weren't), the culture is to always have the last answer choice be O.O., aka Obligatory Other.

Really, all these dire predictions of the world falling apart if polls are turned on, or the responses that people who want them are wusses, or that The Fate of Nations depends on the decision, are just silly. It's a damned config option -- one of many -- that's essentially a toggle in the software. Flip the switch. It's not going to bring the servers to their knees, it's not going to destroy the culture of the boards as a whole or IMHO, you won't see polls popping up in all the other forums (and if they do, the mods can move them like they move any other thread that's misplaced), the people who don't like polls can continue to not participate. Etc. Etc.

You want a radical vBulletin option discussion? Let's suggest allowing pictures. bwa ha ha

[Scissorjack]

You're so negative over so little. You can't handle that some people still have hope so you need to smash it flat so they're like you. It didn't work. I still think things happen for the better when people ask politely. You don't always get what you want, but how you act afterward counts for a lot.

Neagtive or not, there come a point where choosing optimism over experience becomes downright delusional. Look, I've been here for about five years, and in that time, how many threads have there been asking for new features or at least a fix of the existing ones: tens? scores? hundreds? I have no idea, but it's hell of a lot. Now, in that five years, how many positive changes have been implemented? Praying to Odin, sacrificing a goat or leaving a dollar for the Tooth Fairy would have been about as effective. Look, if change was going to happen it would have happened already, and accepting that isn't smashing anything flat, it's simply learning from experience.

[CarnalK]

Neagtive or not, there come a point where choosing optimism over experience becomes downright delusional. Look, I've been here for about five years, and in that time, how many threads have there been asking for new features or at least a fix of the existing ones: tens? scores? hundreds? I have no idea, but it's hell of a lot. Now, in that five years, how many positive changes have been implemented?
They've turned on the Private Messaging function, they've allowed an edit window and they made the game room forum.

Now your turn, what does acting like you get you? It sure doesn't seem like peace of mind, let me tell you. You're freaking out over the request more than those doing the requesting.

[Scissorjack]

You're freaking out over the request more than those doing the requesting.

Who's freaking out? I accepted the terms on which I still sometimes post here several months ago, and I suggest others do the same instead of repeating "CanIhaveanicecreamcanIhaveanicecreamcanIhaveanicecream?" when it's quite clear they aren't getting one.

[CarnalK]

Who's freaking out? I accepted the terms on which I still sometimes post here several months ago, and I suggest others do the same instead of repeating "CanIhaveanicecreamcanIhaveanicecreamcanIhaveanicecream?" when it's quite clear they aren't getting one.

Sorry I mistook your hyperbolic childish references as freaking out. I guess you are just calmly trying to insult people making a simple request. My bad.

[Liberal]

What makes you think someone above Ed doesn't oversee the server? Even if that wasn't the case before, now that the new bosses have moved in, things might well have changed.That's certainly a possibility. It has been my experience that in small to medium sized companies, the IT department usually falls under the Chief Financial Officer. (Why this has been so, I don't know. I think it had something to do with the fact that office computers were originally very important to the accounting and financial operations.) If Jerry is in charge of the computer systems, which, correct me if I'm mistaken, I believe we've been told numerous times is why he has so very little time to spare for the message board, then he most likely answers to the CFO. That raises the question, then, of whether Jerry is in charge of the SDMB, or for that matter, whether the SDMB is even considered to be a part of the company's general IT department. Now, I believe that there have been clues as to who is in charge of the SDMB. It was not Jerry who came in blustering about rules changes, scattering the membership hither and yon, telling people to leave if they didn't like it, and acting all in-chargish. Rather, that was Ed. If his position over the board has changed, there has been not only no announcement, but no hint of any kind. Neither would it make sense for the CFO to assign Jerry to bother with something that does not provide the company with P&L statements, balance sheets, general ledgers, and things like that. So, while it is possible that the CFO (or even the CEO) has taken an interest in the board, it isn't all that likely from a business standpoint. Ed started the whole Chicago forum and sub forums simply because he wanted to. He could have started a politics forum, but did not. He has a vision for the board, and it doesn't really involve the core membership because if it did, then we would hear from him what with all this pushing up the pipe that is going on. None of us can know, of course, but if I were to speculate as you have done, I would say that the new owners have told Ed to make the board profitable or cut it off. But he doesn't know how to do that. And he isn't interested in our ideas.

[descamisado]

Now, in that five years, how many positive changes have been implemented? Praying to Odin, sacrificing a goat or leaving a dollar for the Tooth Fairy would have been about as effective.I see why you're so negative. Most children have dollars left for them by the tooth fairy; your way has left you traumatized, jaded and mistrusting.

[Never Say Dice]

Who's freaking out? I accepted the terms on which I still sometimes post here several months ago, and I suggest others do the same instead of repeating "CanIhaveanicecreamcanIhaveanicecreamcanIhaveanicecream?" when it's quite clear they aren't getting one.Amen.

[Gukumatz]

Regardless of what happens to the request, the tone of this thread has degenerated beyond what's reasonable and expected for ATMB. This is a Mod Notice to stop. If you want to discuss this further until we get word on the decision, keep it civil in both senses.

[CarnalK]

Amen.

Really? Asking for a standard function to be turned on in a calm, if slightly exacerbated way, is nothing like a child having a tantrum. But as the mod has made a note, I shouldn't address obvious insults along this line further in this thread.

[Never Say Dice]

Yes, really. And BTW, the mod has a point.

[Liberal]

Yes, really. And BTW, the mod has a point.It is against the rules to respond to the mod, but I can respond to you, and say that I disagree. There is a single poster who is degenerating the tone of this thread. Others are still making points without personal assaults or whiny jabs. See my response to Qadgop, for instance. And CarnalK, given the assaults on him by ScissorJack, has been as civil as humanly possible. So, there is no general degeneration (a claim often made as a precursor to a thread shut-down). Instead, there is a single threadshitter who should be called out and stopped.

[Gukumatz]

It is against the rules to respond to the mod, but I can respond to you, and say that I disagree. There is a single poster who is degenerating the tone of this thread. Others are still making points without personal assaults or whiny jabs. See my response to Qadgop, for instance. And CarnalK, given the assaults on him by ScissorJack, has been as civil as humanly possible. So, there is no general degeneration (a claim often made as a precursor to a thread shut-down). Instead, there is a single threadshitter who should be called out and stopped.

And the appropriate forum to call him out is The Pit. If you wish to argue with my mod notice above, I'm not going to be hardheaded about it, but I'd appreciate it if the two of us could resolve it in PMs?

[Scissorjack]

Others are still making points without personal assaults or whiny jabs.

<snip>

And CarnalK, given the assaults on him by ScissorJack, has been as civil as humanly possible. .

All of my posts in this thread have been general observations and neither personal nor assaults: if I have violated the rules of this forum, I should be pleased to be shown exactly where; and if CarnalK or anyone else sees my remarks as being applicable to him, there's probably quite a good reason for that.

[Liberal]

With due respect, only Der Trihs gets away with calling posters (those who are faithful) "delusional". It's sort of like the special rules for Michael Jordan. If you got close enough to him, it was a foul. And if he knocked you down to dunk as you stood still under the basket, it wasn't charging; it was a personal foul on the defender.

[C K Dexter Haven]

> TWEEEET !!!! < ::: Moderator blows whistle for attention :::

OK, this has gone on WAY too long. And this is the second moderator calling for "cut the crap." This is NOT the Pit. This is NOT a forum where personal insults are allowed. This is NOT a forum for "joke" threads. ALL of you need to notch it down several tones.

Liberal, saying "with due respect" isn't a permission clause. Personal insults, against people who aren't even posting here, are not permitted.

Everyone else: insulting large groups of people often becomes problematic. "People who support Politician X are stupid" is usually fair game for insult. However, that sort of depends on context: if it's a response to a specific poster who has just endorsed Politician X, then it can be (situationally) a personal insult. And when the group of people being insulted are all posters ("those who want a poll" or "those who don't want a poll"), with no non-posters in the group, then I don't see any excuse for that. We've probably been lax in the past, but, at least in this forum, that's over. NO PERSONAL INSULTS, not against individual posters and not against groups of posters.

Discussions like this have ALWAYS been in ATMB. This wasn't changed by the rules revisions. This is a discussion about features of the boards. It will henceforth be conducted civilly and respectfully of other posters' opinions, or I will indeed move it to the Pit -- where content will be irrelevant, and no moderators (aside from Pit Moderators) will read it, and no action will be taken.

Now, it's already been stated that this is in process. There's nothing more to report. This is the week of school starting, and Ed is busy with family stuff. He'll get to it when he gets to it.

I would normally close such a thread, but then there would be massive crabbing about how we don't allow free speech. SO, yeah, I'll leave it open. But "free speech" does NOT include personal insults, side-swipes, veiled insults, etc.

[NineToTheSky]

He has a vision for the board

I have asked him, twice, some time ago, what his vision is. He said that he wasn't prepared to talk about it. Either he doesn't want to share it with us, or he hasn't got one.

[Liberal]

> TWEEEET !!!! < ::: Moderator blows whistle for attention :::

[...snip...]

Liberal, saying "with due respect" isn't a permission clause. Personal insults, against people who aren't even posting here, are not permitted.Please accept my apology, which I extend also to Der Trihs.

[wierdaaron]

I'm skipping all the posts in this thread, because an argument about enabling polls drastic enough to require moderator intervention is not an efficient use of my eyeball fluid. However, I would like to say that, while I love polls, when they are enabled on forums they tend to get over-used.

People post a thread as usual, and then when they get to the "submit" button they see those shiny "add a poll" options, and they lose their minds. So you get something like

"I saw a cool cat today.


Do you like that I saw a cool cat?
Yes======_____ (2 votes)
No=========_ (3 votes)"

That doesn't do anybody any good.

There are plenty of free poll-taking websites you can link to if you really want to host a poll.

[BigT]

There are plenty of free poll-taking websites you can link to if you really want to host a poll.

But how many of them can poll the people on the SDMB? As far as I know, we can't post links to other websites like that without mod permission. If we can, then that would practically solve the problem. We could just put vote buttons (i.e. links) in the OP.

[Liberal]

I'm skipping all the posts in this thread, because an argument about enabling polls drastic enough to require moderator intervention is not an efficient use of my eyeball fluid. However, I would like to say that, while I love polls, when they are enabled on forums they tend to get over-used.

People post a thread as usual, and then when they get to the "submit" button they see those shiny "add a poll" options, and they lose their minds. So you get something like

"I saw a cool cat today.


Do you like that I saw a cool cat?
Yes======_____ (2 votes)
No=========_ (3 votes)"

That doesn't do anybody any good.

There are plenty of free poll-taking websites you can link to if you really want to host a poll.That is sometimes true. However, your position is inconsistent. You wish for posters to decide whether to run your scripts, but oppose letting them decide whether to have polls — on the most flimsy philosophical basis possible: that they wouldn't do anybody any good.

"If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life." — Henry David Thoreau

[wierdaaron]

That is sometimes true. However, your position is inconsistent. You wish for posters to decide whether to run your scripts, but oppose letting them decide whether to have polls — on the most flimsy philosophical basis possible: that they wouldn't do anybody any good.

"If I knew for a certainty that a man was coming to my house with the conscious design of doing me good, I should run for my life." — Henry David Thoreau
Well, yeah, but I think this is all on the basis that turning on polls will add undue strain on the already-labored servers. What I meant is that I don't think it's worth the performance cost, given that it will largely be frittered away on nonsense polls.

[Liberal]

On what basis do you say that turning on polls will add "undue strain" on the "already-labored servers"? Granted, they are already-labored, but polls would add no undue strain or frankly strain of any kind. They're just arrays of radio buttons, each of which transmits either nothing or else a byte value. (It's really a bit, but a whole byte field is used.) So taking a poll with ordinary polling buttons takes load off the server whenever polls (already permitted and assigned to IMHO) are instead verbose in nature. Just a post answering "Yes" takes more load than a radio element post (HTML post). So does answering "No". It actually saves server resources.

[Yookeroo]

However, I would like to say that, while I love polls, when they are enabled on forums they tend to get over-used.

I participate on lots of boards that have polls turned on (probably all of them besides this one) and I sure don't see polls being overused at all.

[Mudshark]

I hate when the polling feature is activated on other message boards. Thats one of the nice things about here. No clutter like polls or avitars.

[CarnalK]

I hate when the polling feature is activated on other message boards. Thats one of the nice things about here. No clutter like polls or avitars.

I don't see how a bar graph at the top of a thread could be considered clutter. Certainly not at the level of avatars.

[Liberal]

Me neither. In fact, it is clarifying. Compare the bar graph to manually counting up the responses.

[Manduck]

The way to find out whether polls cause a performance hit, or anything else undesireable, is to turn them on and see what happens. It's not as if they couldn't be turned off again.

[Liberal]

Damn you practicalists! ;)

[Harmonious Discord]

I have a poll that needs tallying for all the people that don't see a problem running polls manually. I got sick when it was running and only tallied about 2/3 of the poll. I had the poll closed at that point. Please tally and give the results as an example of how little effort it is. I would very much like the results.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=522927

[madrabbitwoman]

I have a poll that needs tallying for all the people that don't see a problem running polls manually. I got sick when it was running and only tallied about 2/3 of the poll. I had the poll closed at that point. Please tally and give the results as an example of how little effort it is. I would very much like the results.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=522927

I am pro poll feature but because I like to do boring thankless tasks (and I'm a nice person)I will have a go for ya anyway.

[GuiriEnEspaña]

I have a poll that needs tallying for all the people that don't see a problem running polls manually. I got sick when it was running and only tallied about 2/3 of the poll. I had the poll closed at that point. Please tally and give the results as an example of how little effort it is. I would very much like the results.

http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=522927

I tallied 212 Responses
Q1: Yes: 40, No: 172
Q2: Yes: 50, No: 162
Q3: Yes: 51, No: 161
Q4: Yes: 68, No: 144

[GuiriEnEspaña]

I'm far too new to give an opinion on whether polls should be turned on or not but I can offer some suggestions on how the poll posted by Harmonious Discord could have been quite easy to tally.

Adapt a couple Dolores Reborn's rules for The Feud and only accept answers in the format:
1. Answer
2. Answer
3. Answer
4. Answer
where "Answer" is Yes or No.

Add a note inviting further comments to be added after the 4 answers have been given.

Then simply copy and paste all the replies into Excel, sort them A-Z and you'll be able to see how many "1. No" and "1. Yes" answers there were and so on for questions 2, 3 and 4. For the purpose of tallying, ignore all other comments and any incorrectly formatted replies.

I don't know if this can be applied to all polls but once the OP has an idea of how the poll is going to be tallied, s/he can give specific instructions.

[Harmonious Discord]

I tallied 212 Responses
Q1: Yes: 40, No: 172
Q2: Yes: 50, No: 162
Q3: Yes: 51, No: 161
Q4: Yes: 68, No: 144

Thank You:)

[C K Dexter Haven]

Just to close the loop for history, this feature has now been enabled, at least as a test to see if there's any impact on timing, bandwidth, etc.