Jump to content

Are Polls Fair?


Jeremy

Are polls fair and balanced?  

255 members have voted

You do not have permission to vote in this poll, or see the poll results. Please sign in or register to vote in this poll.

Recommended Posts

Just illustrating the pointless nature of polls.

This only illustrates the pointless nature of poorly designed polls.

 

Not everybody designs crappy polls - and not everybody is biased. You've emphasised some of the problems with poorly designed polls - not polls in general.

 

I REALLY wish that GC.com would poll premium members on things they'd like to see as well as other information.

 

Of course... I think you call that a survey. I know that you could do stuff fairly if it was designed and implemented properly. Will the average user have this ability? Maybe not... but I think the "brass" at Groundspeak is qualified.

 

Of course, I do not see how it could hurt anything in an "Off Topic" forum.

 

southdeltan

Link to comment
Just illustrating the pointless nature of polls.

This only illustrates the pointless nature of poorly designed polls.

 

Not everybody designs crappy polls - and not everybody is biased. You've emphasised some of the problems with poorly designed polls - not polls in general.

 

I REALLY wish that GC.com would poll premium members on things they'd like to see as well as other information.

 

Of course... I think you call that a survey. I know that you could do stuff fairly if it was designed and implemented properly. Will the average user have this ability? Maybe not... but I think the "brass" at Groundspeak is qualified.

 

Of course, I do not see how it could hurt anything in an "Off Topic" forum.

 

southdeltan

Ditto... What southdeltan said. 68.gif

Link to comment
wow, if the site owner made such a crappy poll imagine wht the rest of us would do.

 

btw, i voted for the girls and still support polls

Heh, it's not like the owner of the website was exagerating what happens or anything.... <_<

 

I still don't see what it'd harm in the new "OT" forum - People that want to ignore annoying stuff should stay out of there anyways... :)

 

southdeltan

Link to comment

I viewed the results which entered a null vote for me because I did not agree with any of the available options.

 

I've also now written that fact in the comments under the poll.

 

See how easy that was? The results of a poll are as meaningful as the poll itself. If you construct a well-designed poll, then others will recognize the results as providing potential information. If you do not, no one will give it any credence.

 

In fact, at slashdot.org, they have a regular polling option on the front page with a multitude of answers. The final option is almost always absurdly related to one of the owner/moderators, CowboyNeal. When the CowboyNeal response receives a large percentage of the votes, most people view the poll as being useless. I believe as you can see above, that the same result has shown to be true in this case as well.

Link to comment
I purposely did Not vote for the girls.....I like Women!!!!

Fodder for new poll: Most females from the age of 18 - 60 insist on being referred to as "women," but after the age of 60 they revert to wanting to be called "girls." Why is that?

 

(You can work up the potential poll responses.)

Link to comment

I think if we are not going to EVER have 'poll ability' the NEW POLL BUTTON should be REMOVED for all time. This way, people will not keep bringing up the Idea.

 

So, vote...

 

keep the button

 

delete the button

 

I personally vote

 

DELETE THE BUTTON!

 

Shirley~

 

I am bringing this here because nOOb saw fit to close his thread....

 

Quote from BP

 

Fodder for new poll: Most females from the age of 18 - 60 insist on being referred to as "women," but after the age of 60 they revert to wanting to be called "girls." Why is that?

 

I vote....

 

A thing called 'Old Timers' disease.

 

Shirley~

Link to comment
Just illustrating the pointless nature of polls.

I remember how silly many of the polls in the old forums were. Perhaps the feature was abused, I don't know. Do the polls consume greater system resources than normal threads?

 

Jeremy's example demonstrates that many of the response options for the polls were rather biased. As I remember it, on some occasions the resulting dialogue in the attached thread was both informative and entertaining. Not necessarily bad things.

Link to comment

I get called at work all the time for industry surveys. The questions are always geared, I feel, to get you to answer a certain way which I imagine is helpful for the company running the survey, especially if being sponsored by a particular vendor.

 

What I find amusing is that many times, they will ask the exact same question 2 or 3 different ways throughout the survey. I guess they are hoping to have one of those come up the way they like and they can use that one in their report.

Link to comment

Actually, DEMP, that's often the case to determine the validity of your responses. If you are randomly answering the questions, then on the duplicates, you stand a chance at answering the same question differently...and they can take that into consideration when viewing your other answers. It can be an easy method for sample control.

Link to comment

Just get rid of the t_poll.gif -image in the forum pages. People will gradually forget the feature, and most probably there will be questions about them every now and then, but I bet significantly less than when the icon is visible. Or wanna make a poll of that?

Link to comment
Just get rid of the t_poll.gif -image in the forum pages. People will gradually forget the feature, and most probably there will be questions about them every now and then, but I bet significantly less than when the icon is visible. Or wanna make a poll of that?

Amen. Just replac the t_poll.gif image with a 1x1 clear gif, and be done with it. No code change necessary. Out of site, out of mind.

 

(And how many remember the hidden "bait" link that used to be at the bottom of many pages on the geocaching.com site?)

Link to comment
Yes, this is certainly a meaningful discussion. Can I get my 4 minutes back?

 

Nevermind. I'd probably waste them anyway.

That's what videogames are for, Jeremy.

 

I believe Doom 3 should run quite well on the geocaching servers.. :blink: (just kidding! please don't baninate me! B) )

 

 

Again, I'd like to reiterate that my original request was only for the Off Topic forum. The boss has said no. I'm fine with that. I can understand if the polls were being abused, or rather abusive in some manner (i've yet to webfoot the old pages).

 

However, there are caches out there, waiting to be found! Life does exist outside the forum (did *I* just say that? Hit me!)

Edited by New England n00b
Link to comment
Having some inside knowledge of the topic, I dislike girls. But it was kind of nice to see a different colored envelope icon for a change.

yeah, i liked that too... something other than red and blue is nice.

 

jeremy, ever thought of new color schemes for the board?

I voted for the green color theme, but all I got was girls. :rolleyes:

Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×
×
  • Create New...