We do hear you, and we have pushed this back up the line (again.)
I’d vote no on polls if doing so didn’t sound so much like participating in a poll.
Where’s the “Don’t care one way or another” option? I don’t see it anywhere.
Oh, yeah…
DnR
For those worried about a huge glut of polls, it just occurred to me that we have a real life case study.
As we know, many of the "::squee::"ing type Dope members moved over to mellophant (née domebo) a few months ago. They are nuts for the little bells and whistles - having animated smilies, avatars, image posting, a chatroom and yes polls.
In their “Lounge” forum, the place set up for “idle chat and anything that doesn’t seem to fit elsewhere like stray polls”, they have a mere 5 polls out of the 50 threads displayed on the first page and only 2 in the top 40. None of their other forums have more than 1 or 2; most have none at all.
If those guys have managed to not go nuts on them then I think fears of us swamping ourselves in polls are likely unfounded.
Best descriptor for said members ever!
Exactly how hard is it to turn them on and off?
Topix.net turns them off every other day or so. Not sure why, maybe when traffic is heavy.
But it’s probably a single button on their monitor control panel.
So, I’m just saying Try it. You can easily turn it off.Topix.net
They apparently need explicit permission from Ed Zotti (aka Cecil).
So far, 3 administrators — three! — have said or implied words to the effect that they are pushing the request up the pipe. Well, there is no pipe above these people other than Ed Zotti. Therefore, one may conclude that he does not allow his administrators to make administrative decisions. That’s not a knock at Ed. It’s just easily deducible that he wants to be involved in the minutiae of the board’s day to day operations.
Au contraire. It means he doesn’t care a whit. He only cares about the column, counting his low interest in the board as benign neglect.
I find polls annoying because the OPs Answers are invariably not exactly the answer I want to give, so I do not participate. Do you find that too?[ul][li]Yes[*]No[/ul]Oh, and you left out:[/li]
A1. Hi, Opal!
In the case you stated it is better if you don’t participate.
You can comment in the thread and it doesn’t mess up the poll.
What makes you think someone above Ed doesn’t oversee the server? Even if that wasn’t the case before, now that the new bosses have moved in, things might well have changed.
As I noted in the other thread about this, Ed said he made all those rule changes a while back on his own initiative. Adding polls is so trivial that it would be rather asinine to require a corporate level decision on it.
And it’s not really the server we’re talking about, just a tweak to software already running on it. A tweak that would have an entirely inconsequential effect on server performance.
I suppose the buck stops at the Board of Directors (or Obama), but I was hoping that Ed could handle the request.
I have enjoyed the polls on the new boards, and expect that I would equally enjoy them here. I haven’t seen any problems arising out of the polls on the new boards.
Oh, for goodness sake. Look, you are not getting polls. Nor are you getting a Politics Forum, Charter Memberships restored for those who lost them, the Search Function fixed or a pony for Christmas. If any of these things were going to happen, they would have happened two years ago: how many new threads does it take to realise that nothing is going to change here? The staff either can’t or won’t fix the place and are so ossified in their roles that they clearly regard any questions on the subject as annoying at best and mutinous at worst, so either accept that and continue posting in the current environment, or move on to a place that has the features you want. The Dope is dead in the water anyway; wistful fantasies of how it might one day become profitable aside, it’s only going to last as long as Playahata does a swift audit of the Chicago Reader, finds the querulous little nest of squabblers, and pulls the plug. All gone, bye-bye.
You’re so negative over so little. You can’t handle that some people still have hope so you need to smash it flat so they’re like you. It didn’t work. I still think things happen for the better when people ask politely. You don’t always get what you want, but how you act afterward counts for a lot.
[quote=“Corner_Case, post:29, topic:509541”]
I find polls annoying because the OPs Answers are invariably not exactly the answer I want to give, so I do not participate. Do you find that too?[ul][li]YesNo[/ul][/li][/QUOTE]
On one of the several boards I visit where polls are turned on (and really, I’ve never visited a vBulletin board where they weren’t), the culture is to always have the last answer choice be O.O., aka Obligatory Other.
Really, all these dire predictions of the world falling apart if polls are turned on, or the responses that people who want them are wusses, or that The Fate of Nations depends on the decision, are just silly. It’s a damned config option – one of many – that’s essentially a toggle in the software. Flip the switch. It’s not going to bring the servers to their knees, it’s not going to destroy the culture of the boards as a whole or IMHO, you won’t see polls popping up in all the other forums (and if they do, the mods can move them like they move any other thread that’s misplaced), the people who don’t like polls can continue to not participate. Etc. Etc.
You want a radical vBulletin option discussion? Let’s suggest allowing pictures. bwa ha ha
Neagtive or not, there come a point where choosing optimism over experience becomes downright delusional. Look, I’ve been here for about five years, and in that time, how many threads have there been asking for new features or at least a fix of the existing ones: tens? scores? hundreds? I have no idea, but it’s hell of a lot. Now, in that five years, how many positive changes have been implemented? Praying to Odin, sacrificing a goat or leaving a dollar for the Tooth Fairy would have been about as effective. Look, if change was going to happen it would have happened already, and accepting that isn’t smashing anything flat, it’s simply learning from experience.
They’ve turned on the Private Messaging function, they’ve allowed an edit window and they made the game room forum.
Now your turn, what does acting like you get you? It sure doesn’t seem like peace of mind, let me tell you. You’re freaking out over the request more than those doing the requesting.
Who’s freaking out? I accepted the terms on which I still sometimes post here several months ago, and I suggest others do the same instead of repeating “CanIhaveanicecreamcanIhaveanicecreamcanIhaveanicecream?” when it’s quite clear they aren’t getting one.
Sorry I mistook your hyperbolic childish references as freaking out. I guess you are just calmly trying to insult people making a simple request. My bad.