It may be my imagination, or just coincidence, but it seems like I’m seeing more and more polls lately where the voters’ names are being made public. And while it’s rare that I encounter a thread where I am actually bothered by people knowing how I voted on an issue, a lot of these threads are on topics where I can’t imagine why it would matter to the OP or to anybody else how any particular person voted. And the OPs clearly have a preference, since polls default to being anonymous.
So I’m curious – what is your general feeling about anonymity in the polls on the board?
And no, I’m not making this one public, tempted though I was. 
I made a poll about handedness and I deliberately made it public so you could see which posters were in which category. But if I started a poll about a sensitive issue or something most people consider personal information, I would make it private. A poll asking how many kittens have you stomped to death, for example? Best make it private, if you want honest answers.
There’s no one option that really matches my preference. It all depends on the question. If the question was “are your eyes blue” then I don’t care if it’s public or private. If the question is “have you stopped beating your wife” then I won’t answer if it’s public.
I voted that I prefer public. I have no reason to hide my choices and if I don’t want people to know what I think, then I just won’t answer that particular poll.
I voted that I prefer anonymous polls, but will vote in some of the public polls, depending on the topic.
Oh wait, that wasn’t an option.
I swear I’d started to post an option for “topic-dependent.”
“Do you prefer your polls written by people who are better at writing polls?”
It’s kind of neat to see who else agrees with me, but I usually forget to look. I only wouldn’t vote in a public poll if it was a sexual or embarrassing question.