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Currently, just ATMB (for practicing) and IMHO (because that’s where polls go on the board).
We might add them to some other forums (like Cafe Society), but IMHO is the main forum for opinions, so we started with that.
Please don’t expand polls into GD, the Pit, or especially GQ. They would, IMO, detract from those forums. I could see them in CS or the Game Room, and don’t really care about MPSIMS one way or the other.
We haven’t really thought that far ahead. A couple of us have noted that it would make sense to put polls in Cafe Society, but for now we’re just watching to make sure there aren’t any problems we haven’t thought of.
What happens when you move a poll into a forum that doesn’t support them? Does it lock up the poll function?
Yes. You’re not allowed to vote.
Speaking as a poster, not as part of the moderating staff, I pretty much agree with you. POSSIBLY polls could work in GD, but I really think that they’d be inappropriate in GQ or the Pit.
Speaking as part of the staff, right now we’re just testing out possibilities, and seeing how the polls work, both technically and as part of the SDMB culture.
That doesn’t seem like a good idea to me. I could see them fitting in, but at the same time, I really don’t think they’d raise or even maintain the quality of discourse in GD. A big part of debating is involves analyzing and articulating the reasons behind a decision. Polls are more of a shoot-from-the-hip opinion, and people would likely be voting in the polls before being exposed to the nuances and implications of the choices as analyzed by other posters. Polls are skewed toward knee-jerk reactions.
Poll choices will also be biased by the views of the OP. Even the more contentious thread creators who strive for more impartiality in the first post by placing the own views in a subsequent reply will have some of the opinion injected into the poll answers. And at that point, the thread could just as easily derail into debating the poll choices instead of debating the issue.
A vote for adding them to Cafe Society…
I’m pretty sure Cafe Society will be the next forum to get them, but we want to make sure the test drive is complete before we expand them.
I think, usefulness wise, it would go Game Room, then CS. Elimination tournaments, madnesses, etc could benefit from the poll feature a lot. Granted, if IMHO goes well it wouldn’t exactly hurt to implement both at the same time.
Speaking as both a mod and a poster, if they ever get to GQ, I"m out of here.
I kind of agree with the sentiment that they could degrade GD. Keep in mind that it’s the forum where principles like the rhetorical fallacy of “false choice” shows up (not all choices are given). Or the logical fallacy of “false dichotomy” (choices are not mutually exclusive) is called out.
I think a GD thread should open with an argument, and if the poster wants to hear other points of view, s/he should leave as wide open a window as possible for responses.
I suppose you could try something like an “Are you pro-life or pro-choice” poll. But see, even with such black and white issues, a lot of people are ambivalent. A person might oppose abortion on a personal level; that is; she may decide for herself that she would never have one, but she might be unwilling to deny others the right to decide for themselves. Which is she?
And someone else might say that it should be up to the States. Which position is that?
Yeah, I don’t think polls in GD are a good idea (though I’m open to hearing counter-arguments). And they definitely have no place in GQ or in Cecil and the Staff forums.
This echos my opinion-you don’t get to vote on facts.
At the moment, we (the mods) are thinking that we probably will ask for the polling feature to be expanded into Cafe Society and possibly the Game Room. Time frame is unclear, and we want to see how they’re working in IMHO for a while.
The overwhelming logic is against putting them in GQ, or GD, or the Pit as being contrary to the essence of those forums. And, while not harmful, they don’t appear to serve any useful function in CoCC or CoSR, and would be redundant in MPSIMS (it’s how we distinguish MPSIMS from IMHO.)
All this minor tweaking will go away after the fad dies down. I’ll bet on it that at some point the posters will get to decide where polls are by starting them where they think best.
They need to be enabled to run in a particular forum. As mentioned above, right now they’re enabled only in ATMB (for testing and practice) and IMHO.
Citizen’s update:
They are now available in Cafe Society and The Game Room.
I’m personally curious to see if someone can come up with a forum game that uses a poll…
Damn things are everywhere. Time for a poll tax!
[sings]“I’m a lonesome poll-cat…”[/sings]