A third option in a yes/no poll is ridiculous

In My Humble Opinion
1

  1. It’s a yes or no question. So there are two answers: (i) yes or (ii) no.

  2. It’s a freaking messageboard. People make posts to talk about stuff. So, if you’ve left something out, they can post to talk about it. There doesn’t need to be a poll choice that they can click–they can just choose to not participate in the poll. Which brings up the next point . . .

  3. Polls on the SDMB are not representative of any population greater than those who actually answered the poll. You can’t even say that a poll is representative of the SDMB as a whole but just with a greater margin of error than a normal random sample poll it doesn’t work that way. The only way a poll would be representative of the SDMB as a whole is by brute force (i.e., if some huge percentage responded, like 85%). I kind of got off on a tangent here, but the point is that you aren’t Zogby–you don’t have to design a perfect poll, because the answers don’t mean anything.

  4. It’s just dickless. Don’t be dickless (women excepted).

2

Simple minds need to reduce reality down to simple answers. But some of us prefer our reality straight with all its complexities and nuances.

3

There’s always a third option: don’t answer the question.

4

Insisting on only two options in a poll reminds me of this classic thread. Some hypotheticals need to be fought, and restricting a poll to yes/no seems like the equivalent of preemptively plugging your ears and going “la la la la la!” in case someone wants to offer an alternative you hadn’t considered. That’s dickless.

Yeah, but a poll with a majority of respondents picking the c) other tells a different story than a stark yes/no poll with a few people in the body of the tread stating their reasons for not answering.

5

This is how you spend your Friday nights now?

6

Fool of a Took, you forgot _____________.

7

No online poll is complete without a comedy option…FACT

The 3rd option (way) allows people who don’t really have an opinion (and or) don’t understand the question to feel like they have contributed.

8

What, we’re supposed to worry about the self-esteem of people who can’t commit to a yes/no poll answer now?

9

I know! Where will it all end?

10

Is doing the third option when there seems no obvious need inextricably linked to me at this point?

Anyway, as Marley points out by implication, I do this a lot. Partly because I like to leave open the possibility that I’ve overlooked something, and partly because it’s a cheap joke.

In other matters, Rhymer policy requires me to release thousands of hungry lemmings aimed in Marley’s general direction. It’s not personal, just business.

11

Yes. No wait–no. Shit, is there a third option?

12

There’s almost always a third answer beyond the simple yes-no extremes.

Maybe
It depends
I don’t know
I haven’t made up my mind
Who’s asking?
I’d rather not say

Two-value logic is archaic.

13

No

14

I agree that it makes sense to just have the two options with a yes/no poll. As you point out, if somebody cannot answer “yes” or “no”, they are free to post to explain why. However, this I disagree with:

Obviously the answers mean something. They mean that some people have expressed certain opinions, and that may lead to some kind of understanding for those involved. I’ve seen a few polls where the OP thought they were the only ones who did something, but the poll revealed that not to be the case. Of course it could be argued that the poll-takers were lying, but I think that’s stretching it.

And of course one doesn’t have to design the perfect poll - it depends on what they’re looking to get from it. Having said that, I find it interesting that my quest to find out how many books dopers owned is very nearly bell-shaped. (Link: How many books do you own?)

15

Annie X-Mas has a poll running about loving thunderstorms that shows why, even for seeming simple & binary questions, it’s good to leave wiggle room.

16

Do you still diddle poodles?

[Rhetorical Question alert, in case any mods are tempted to sic a can of whuppass on me]

17

This is covered in point 2 of my OP.

18

Also, I think some of you are getting confused between the OP of a thread and a poll. I’m talking only about the poll.

19

The answer is it’s a poll on a messageboard. Don’t get all twisted up in knots about how people choose to word their polls.

Also, nice dollop of sexism at the end of your OP.

20

If I follow the OP and your apparent objection to the response about two-value logic being inadequate to cover polls asking for either a Yes or No response, then if any of the Non-Yes and Non-No conditions I mentioned (along with others of that sort) would pretty much force a would-be participant in the poll just to abstain or avoid answering.

Said another way, if you put up a poll and allow only Yes or No as a response, and I can’t say Yes or No without some qualification then I should just avoid answering? I can do that. Then you have no way of counting my opinion. If all you want is Pure Yes or Pure No, then a lot of people will just pass by on the other said and leave your poll alone.

And if your poll question is one of those rare situations where Yes and No are indeed the only real choices, you haven’t learned much about that situation.

I challenge you to come up with a Pure Yes-No question that doesn’t have another way of being legitimately and truthfully answered with some of those choices I mentioned in the cited post…