Any good reason polls aren't enabled?

[CarnalK]

Way back in '07 some people were asking about the vB polling feature and TubaDiva replied:

@TubaDiva

Polls take moderator oversight to set up and run. We have felt it was best to focus on writing and reading of postings above all else.

I pointed out that was actually not true. Polls are set up by the poster and require no more oversight than any other thread, less so in fact, as there are likely to be less actual responses to review, just numbers and bar graphs. vB takes care of the 1 vote/poster thing. But I guess TubaDiva forgot to go back to that thread and notice that multiple posters had pointed that out because she never responded to any of us.

I can’t think of any reason not to turn on polling in at least IMHO other than change=bad or “that’d take like way too much effort to set up”. Could I be enlightened as to the real reasoning behind resistance to this feature?

[TubaDiva]

It’s not up to moderators to decide what functions are used on this site – it’s management that approves. We request and they let us know. For some stuff we’re still waiting.

[Harmonious_Discord]

TubaDiva are you saying you requested polls to be turned on and are waiting for disposition or your using a generalized statement to make it look like it was requested?

[CarnalK]

@TubaDiva

It’s not up to moderators to decide what functions are used on this site – it’s management that approves. We request and they let us know. For some stuff we’re still waiting.

You’re waiting for Reader go ahead to turn on a vB feature that exists on practically every other forum out there? Honestly, I thought you had a little more leeway as an administrator to tweak vB functionality. Was it a corporate decision to add private messages*? Seems like pretty small potatoes to bother the management with.

I’m curious, like Harmonious Discord, as to whether you mean you’ve actually asked management about this or you’re just making a general statement.

• eta:which seems a lot more likely to affect the server load than polls.

[TubaDiva]

I send requests up the pipeline. Sometimes they come back.

[BiblioCat]

Boy, talk about avoiding the question.
Have you specifically asked for polls to be turned on? Even if it’s just in IMHO?

[CarnalK]

@TubaDiva

I send requests up the pipeline. Sometimes they come back.

Seems like you specifically ignored the actual question: Did you send THIS request up the pipeline?

[TheMadHun]

The Poll feature is an utter waste of time unless it’s monitored for bias. Better just to ask and read the answers like in IMHO.
The site below had a lot of polls that were biased and I stopped reading them, but the ones there today seem rational enough, so I perhaps they started monitoring them.

The polls usually have biased or pointless choices, like
Obama’s school speech
A Good
B About time
C Has no clue
D Blah…blah…blah
Look at Topix.com/forum/topstories or topix.com/poll/hot and see if any of the polls seem legit.

[CarnalK]

Maybe so, TheMadHun, but I doubt that the posters here couldn’t notice when a poll is biased and participate and comment as required. Polls of all varieties, not just the vB feature, should always be watched for a bias. That’s life in the modern world.

Besides, it’s not much different than monitoring plain text OP’s for obvious falsehoods and misleading premises. Can’t see how that would change moderator workload.

[TubaDiva]

Yes, I sent this up.

[sandra_nz]

Was there a time when the powers that be declared ‘there shall be no polls on this forum’?

Or was it just that the original forum software didn’t have a polling option, and then when it did, you felt you needed to ask for special permission?

[Kal]

From one of the guys upstairs:

@jdavis

If the community desires certain features enabled then the day-to-day administrators are the ones to petition. I rarely make decisions about features or at least believe I’m not the decision maker. There may be a misunderstanding going on between the day-to-day admins and myself in that they are waiting for me to say they can turn on features and I’ve been assuming they can turn on any features they want. If a feature causes a performance problem (unlikely for most features) then I’ll tell them why we need to turn it back off.

That said in the past I’ve been a bit gruff in my response to them when I’ve had to turn a feature back off so we’ve probably arrived at an unspoken impasse where I think it’s fine for them to turn on whatever they want and they think they can’t turn anything on. In the first few weeks after the upgrade I also told the day-to-day admins to not mess around with features because I was also doing things and I didn’t want us to bump into each other. So I’ll take responsibility for not going back to them later and saying they could turn on features. I had just assumed that after the performance had stabilized last fall that they could do anything they wanted but it looks like I dropped the ball. Finally, I don’t know exactly why it’s become “common knowledge” that most features can’t be turned on due to performance reasons. From my perspective there are only a small number of features that could cause a performance issue and I think we can turn them on and see what happens anyway. If they don’t work we’ll turn them back off. That doesn’t mean we haven’t had problems with certain features in the past. We have but we’re now in some cases two, three, or even four pieces of hardware and one to two major version levels of vBulletin away from those previous times. Conditions have changed so we can change too.

ETA: Link.

[TubaDiva]

It’s not Jerry who makes that decision; he implements technical stuff.

[CarnalK]

@TubaDiva

It’s not Jerry who makes that decision; he implements technical stuff.

But Jerry did say that “If the community desires certain features enabled then the day-to-day administrators [i.e. You and/or Ed] are the ones to petition.” So was that incorrect? Also, Ed apparently made his decisions on reforming a bunch of the rules around here on his own initiative. Are you waiting on his OK? Is that the length of pipe we’re talking about? Or does someone from the Atalaya board of directors have to sign off on it?

[Kal]

Fairy 'nuff, TubaDiva. Just thought you might have missed Jerry’s comments regarding features and were waiting for his approval while he’s sat there thinking he doesn’t need to give it. Some time back, in reply to a couple of my posts, he had said something along the lines that he was the bloke in charge of day to day stuff and that when you guys refer to management it was normally him you were referring to. Sorry for the bother.

Anyways, my vote is for those of you in charge of day to day stuff to break those shackles of Zottyranny and declare a certain level of autonomy that means you switch some (minor) things on and off as you see fit. The tech bloke doesn’t mind and will just tell you to turn it back off if it causes bother and the guv probably wouldn’t even notice. Even if he did, he ain’t gonna fire the lot of you - just have a scapegoat prepared in advance.

[Revtim]

It’s another thing to stop working and never get fixed, my bet.

[Lord_Ashtar]

So when you say you “sent it up the pipeline”, does that mean it’s on Ed’s desk (figuratively speaking)?

[CarnalK]

Lord Ashtar, Ed seems to be the guy in charge of this place. When he made the sweeping Pit changes he noted:

@Ed_Zotti

The question was raised: Was I told to do this? No. I am trying to put things on a more businesslike basis. To the extent people think we’re running a biker bar here … well, let’s just say where I can see it would complicate my life. So I’d rather deal with the issue now rather than later.

So I have a feeling that he could give the go ahead on something as trivial as this. Since he is in pretty constant communication with TubaDiva, ISTM that this “pipeline” stuff is a bit of a dodge. There must be some other reason not being mentioned for not turning on the polling function. If it just seems too complicated, I suggest that they check out Home - vBulletin Community Forum and either search or ask for help. A little looking there myself seems to show that allowing polls is just a matter of changing some options on the User Groups and Permissions menu.

[Liberal]

Gaudere could easily implement this feature. If y’all did it without asking Ed, what’s the worst that could happen?

[aldiboronti]

Originally posted by jdavis.

… we’re now in some cases two, three, or even four pieces of hardware and one to two major version levels of vBulletin away from those previous times. Conditions have changed so we can change too.

Have admin really taken heed of that message from Jerry because it certainly seems to me that they haven’t and they’re still behaving as if any tweaks will bring the system shuddering to a halt.

As well as the present instance of polls there is the completely unacceptable 5 minute pause between searches, something I have never encountered before in the boards I’ve been on.

For God’s sake, guys, dare to experiment. And if you’re waiting for Ed’s imprimatur you could be waiting for ever, I’m sure he’s got a lot of other things on his mind right now. And do you really need to go to the top for every damn tweak? Take some responsibility.