# All the polls in Cafe Society **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [September 23, 2010, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757 "2010-09-23T12:48:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Sparky812](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Sparky812](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sparky812)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/41 "2010-09-29T13:24:57Z")
> [@interface2x](#): > > I agree that it’s a little annoying but I’m most annoyed by the ones that mention the album name but not the band name. I understand that you’re a huge fan of a band and have every album memorized, but hell if I know what band made “Moving Pictures” or “Reckoning”. At least give me a hint. ``` Except if you don't recognize the album name and the band it belongs to, why would you participate in a poll about it. ``` I assume the idea is to get people who are fans of that particular album or band to discuss their favorites, etc.. Chances are, you haven’t heard all the tracks, so why would you vote? Or worse, you vote for the one song you recognize but that fans consider the worst? i.e. “What’s the Frequency, Kenneth” being best song on Monster! ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/42 "2010-09-29T15:03:03Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > > > And it’s not that, personally, it bothers me, or that I think anything needs to be done about it. I just feel really left out of Cafe Society right now, because I’ve never heard of any of these albums and so don’t have an opinion. > > At present, the first page of Cafe Society contains at least 33 threads, including the top four, about TV shows I’ve never seen and never intend to see. Should I complain about that? If the threads were “Who’s your favorite character on show A”, “Who’s your favorite character on show B”, and so on for 33 threads, sure. Complain all you want. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/43 "2010-09-29T15:19:51Z")
> [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > > [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > > > At present, the first page of Cafe Society contains at least 33 threads, including the top four, about TV shows I’ve never seen and never intend to see. Should I complain about that? > > If the threads were **“Who’s your favorite character on show A”, “Who’s your favorite character on show B”** , and so on for 33 threads, sure. Complain all you want. You just gave me an idea. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/44 "2010-09-29T15:23:05Z")
> [@MTCicero](#): > > > [@Captain\_Amazing](#): > > > > If the threads were **“Who’s your favorite character on show A”, “Who’s your favorite character on show B”** , and so on for 33 threads, sure. Complain all you want. > > You just gave me an idea. I hope this is a joke. **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 3:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/45 "2010-09-29T15:49:25Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > > [@MTCicero](#): > > > > You just gave me an idea. > > I hope this is a joke. > > **twickster** , Cafe Society moderator It was. But what if it wasn’t? ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/46 "2010-09-29T16:02:59Z")
As all three Cafe Society mods made clear in the first few posts of this thread, we’d prefer not to get involved with trying to regulate these threads. We’d also prefer that y’all don’t push things to the point where we (the mods) have to have another discussion amongst ourselves about whether we need to do so despite our reluctance. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/47 "2010-09-29T16:36:00Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > At present, the first page of Cafe Society contains at least 33 threads, including the top four, about TV shows I’ve never seen and never intend to see. Should I complain about that? Sure, if you feel like complaining. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/48 "2010-09-29T17:06:07Z")
> [@twickster](#): > > As all three Cafe Society mods made clear in the first few posts of this thread, we’d prefer not to get involved with trying to regulate these threads. We’d also prefer that y’all don’t push things to the point where we (the mods) have to have another discussion amongst ourselves about whether we need to do so despite our reluctance. I’m not trying to be an asshole, truly, but could you elaborate more on what “push[ing] things” entails? For example, what if someone actually does post a “Who’s your favorite character on **Chuck** ” poll (strictly an example; I’ve never seen the show), and then, maybe a week or two later, posts a “Who’s your favorite character on **Lost** ” poll? What would happen, if anything? To my mind, these are no more or less relevant than are threads asking for coq au vin tips or threads discussing individual TV show episodes. And to lay the smack down on the album poll threads would be needlessly authoritarian and would be giving in to the broomstick-up-their-asses element to boot. ---
**Author:** ![twickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ec9cab/32.png) [@twickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/twickster)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/49 "2010-09-29T17:22:31Z")
No, I’m not going to be any more specific than that. There are currently a lot of very specific polls in Cafe Society, and a bunch of people who want to see fewer, not more, of them. It is my hope that we _don’t_ have to create specific rules and guidelines to control that number, so I’m not going to be specific about what would cause me to start instituting specific controls. I’m asking people to not go overboard with this, and in general they’re being cooperative. (I very much appreciated, for instance, your cooperation when I asked you to hold off on more Metallica polls after you started four, one right after another.) Let’s keep this on a case-by-case basis that is sensitive to the fact that not everyone who goes into Cafe Society is happy to be confronted with several dozen polls about albums they’ve never heard or TV shows they’ve never seen. Although we’re no longer limited to only 50 threads on the “front page,” we still want to keep a mix of threads available. You [general you, not specific you] are welcome to start polls, but please don’t run every variant of a single theme in the same 24-hour period. Think of this as an opportunity to follow our golden rule, “Don’t be a jerk.” And that really is all I’m going to say about this. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 5:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/50 "2010-09-29T17:28:56Z")
Ah, I see. So it’s an imminent win for the whining contingent then? ---
**Author:** ![Thudlow\_Boink](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thudlow_boink/32/320_2.png) [@Thudlow\_Boink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Thudlow_Boink)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 9:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/51 "2010-09-29T21:35:29Z")
If there are a lot of these polls on the front page of Cafe Society at one time, it means one (or more) of the following: (1) Somebody’s starting a lot of these polls awfully close together—probably too many at once. In that case, I agree that such a person ought to be at least gently asked to start fewer or space them out more. (2) Quite a few different people are starting polls of their own, all more or less at the same time. In that case, I can see how it’d get annoying if there are too many at once, but I’m not sure what you can do about it without getting draconian. (3) The polls were started at reasonably long intervals, but their threads have been popular enough and have generated enough discussion that they’ve stayed active for quite a while. In that case, it’s just a matter of people want to talk about what people want to talk about, and if the whiners don’t like it, they should just ignore those threads and start or participate in threads about what _they_ want to talk about instead. ---
**Author:** ![FoieGrasIsEvil](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/foiegrasisevil/32/16638_2.png) [@FoieGrasIsEvil](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FoieGrasIsEvil)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/52 "2010-09-29T22:46:21Z")
I like them. They are fun, and they bring traffic to the site. Nothing worse than thinking “oh, I’ll check up on the olde Dope and see what’s going on” only to find the same threads going on that haven’t moved from the front page of the forum. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [September 29, 2010, 10:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/53 "2010-09-29T22:59:09Z")
> [@Thudlow\_Boink](#): > > If there are a lot of these polls on the front page of Cafe Society at one time, it means one (or more) of the following: > > (1) Somebody’s starting a lot of these polls awfully close together—probably too many at once. In that case, I agree that such a person ought to be at least gently asked to start fewer or space them out more. Most of the “Best Song” polls are part of the two ongoing projects: **ArchiveGuy** ’s Beatles survey and **woodstockbirdybird** ’s trawl through the R.E.M. catalog. **ArchiveGuy** started 22 days ago and has posted nine polls, with about half a dozen more to go. **woodstockbirdybird** has posted the first ten R.E.M. albums over 12 days, and has, I believe, four more to go. So neither of them is exactly flooding the board. ---
**Author:** ![Amblydoper](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/fbc32d/32.png) [@Amblydoper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Amblydoper)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/54 "2010-09-30T03:18:51Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > …neither of them is exactly flooding the board. The problem is that this trend can easily get out of hand, if, say, 3 or 4 other posters decide to start their own projects. The “whiners” are really just asking for the polls to be spaced out a bit, so a flood doesn’t happen. I think a flood would turn this all into a fad as people would get tired of it quickly, but if they are a bit slower it could become an ongoing feature of CS that everyone looks forward to. (Like the MMP, Rebo’s Fued game, Sklad’s Hypotheticals, etc.) ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 3:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/55 "2010-09-30T03:22:36Z")
> [@MTCicero](#): > > So it’s an imminent win for the whining contingent then? Are you planning on starting threads on “every variant of a single theme in a 24-hour period”? :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/56 "2010-09-30T03:40:22Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > > [@MTCicero](#): > > > > So it’s an imminent win for the whining contingent then? > > Are you planning on starting threads on “every variant of a single theme in a 24-hour period”? :dubious: Nice cheap shot. But I guess handing cheap shots out willy-nilly is one of the perks of being a mod, no? At any rate, the one (1) time I did this, I was totally unaware of exactly how many delicate sensibilities I had offended/was going to offend, and when asked to slow it down more than a bit, I immediately complied. And until you mods start acting like the Gestapo and outright outlawing polls of this nature unless they comply with your prescribed timetable (which no mod has yet been kind [read: useful] enough to enumerate), I plan on posting such polls on a semi-regular basis. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 12:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/57 "2010-09-30T12:26:19Z")
I think you’re misunderstanding if you think that’s a cheap shot. You seemed upset by twickster’s caution on over-using polls and that’s what Colibri was quoting from. And you really have the blinders on if you don’t realize that calling a bunch of people the “whining contingent” is the actually cheap shot that was thrown. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/58 "2010-09-30T14:34:35Z")
> [@MTCicero](#): > > Nice cheap shot. But I guess handing cheap shots out willy-nilly is one of the perks of being a mod, no? > > At any rate, the one (1) time I did this, I was totally unaware of exactly how many delicate sensibilities I had offended/was going to offend, and when asked to slow it down more than a bit, I immediately complied. And until you mods start acting like the Gestapo and outright outlawing polls of this nature unless they comply with your prescribed timetable (which no mod has yet been kind [read: useful] enough to enumerate), I plan on posting such polls on a semi-regular basis. Nice touch, accusing me of making a cheap shot, and then throwing in a gratuitous Gestapo reference.😃 Glad to hear that you complied with the moderator’s request in the previous instance. And nothing that a moderator has posted here says or even implies that posting an occasional poll would be a problem. ---
**Author:** ![MTCicero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a4c791/32.png) [@MTCicero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MTCicero)\ **Post date:** [September 30, 2010, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/59 "2010-09-30T15:16:11Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Nice touch, accusing me of making a cheap shot, and then throwing in a gratuitous Gestapo reference.😃 Well, one good turn deserves another, is what I always say. 🆒 ---
**Author:** ![Sri\_Theo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f04885/32.png) [@Sri\_Theo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sri_Theo)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 2010, 9:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757/60 "2010-10-01T09:55:33Z")
> [@MTCicero](#): > > Ah, I see. > > So it’s an imminent win for the whining contingent then? Well technically you would then become the whining contingent 😛 Those guys never win… [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/all-the-polls-in-cafe-society/554757.md?page=2)