Use of polls in topic

  • More use of Polls would enhance the quality of the forum
  • I did not know it was possible
  • Naah, I see no use for it

0 voters

Iā€™ve compelled to explain my vote for ā€œI see no use for itā€!

In my experience, online polls quite often have problems including:

  • The answer I really want to give isnā€™t offered as an answer
  • It is open to ā€œpiling onā€ by one person (or group) who advertises the poll among like minded people only who then participate in the poll and skew the results

And donā€™t get me started on the silly questions Iā€™ve seen!

Iā€™ve yet to see a poll offered in any non-private online forum that led to results that could be considered meaningful.

One possible reprieve for this forum would be to restrict the user trust level required to create a poll to trust level 3 or 4, and restrict the user trust level required to provide an answer to one trust level lower. This would lock out newbies, thus avoiding the ā€œpiling onā€ problem.

1 Like

Which would effectively defeat the purpose of most polls, as it is usually the quiet voices that you want to ā€˜voteā€™ . Because the opinions of the frequent users are either fairly well known or amount to only about 30 votes at best.

Polls have their place, but they need to be appropriate and taken in context.

Personally I feel you can start a thread with a Poll, but throwing a poll into a thread wonā€™t get anywhere near a proper result. People not only have to access the thread, they need to read as far as your poll and then bother to vote. Most peopleā€™s attention span isnā€™t even long enough to proof read their own posts.

Iā€™ve not voted in the poll as there isnā€™t an appropriate response for me.[poll type=regular public=true]

  • A brilliant response
  • Absolute genius
    [/poll]
2 Likes

ā€¦ and ā€¦

ā€¦ sum it all up. I cannot answer as no response is adequate to my position on the matter.

Possible missing choices are:

  • ā€œThe current level of poll use is fine.ā€
  • ā€œLess polls would be better.ā€
  • ā€œWho Cares? A forum is about discourse and discussion, making THIS POLL irrelevant.ā€

And by the way, Iā€™ve moved this thread to itā€™s proper category (Meta) where issues and topics concerning the SketchUp forum site belong.

This is a user generated poll! Iā€™m going to try to add a 1 answer poll, then make the reply a Wiki - that way anyone can add their own answers! Letā€™s see if this works:

  • Polls that are also Wiki replies sounds like a fantastic idea!
  • Polls that are also Wiki replies will drive me to drink!

0 voters

Looks like it worked! This reply is now a Wiki and contains a poll!!

Whoā€™ll be first to add/change a poll answer?

1 Like

NO ONE. The system will not allow editing a poll after votes have been logged.

Yeah, iā€™m getting this error

1 Like

Rats! I just tried it myself and couldnā€™t change the poll. So much for sowing even more potential flare points! :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

4 Likes

Obviously, polls have nothing to do with ā€˜civilizedā€™ discourse, which was the reason I put it in the corner bar areašŸ˜„
When I discovered the option , I did not recall to have seen it in a topic. I do see likes. In fact, likes have the same culprit as polls :
You canā€™t specify WHY you liked it and are thus totally IRRALEVENT for the discussion ( you canā€™t add the reason )

I agree with ā€œLikingā€, thus I use it for acknowledging replies, and / or agreeing with what was said.

Many people have asked for dislikes (such as YouTube has) but the owners of Discourse do not believe in letting people anonymously ā€œdislikeā€ posts, saying it is not actual discourse. Ie, if you disagree strongly enough then (they say) you should state why. I disagree because without balance a ā€œlikeā€ is meaningless.

I wish we (Discourse users) all had full rights (and means) to like what we will, dislike (thumbs down) what we must, acknowledge (hat tip) what is deserving, and agree (nod) with what weā€™d wish we ourselves said. (I wouldnā€™t mind a modifier popup choice that allows us to give the ā€œresponse ticketā€ a reason like ā€œtoneā€, ā€œspamā€, ā€œofftopicā€, ā€œsubstanceā€, etc.)

1 Like

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