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View Full Version : Should people be able to run unofficial polls to judge entry popularity?



heretic
2007-01-21, 02:37 PM
Well?

Cursed message has to be longer. There.

Amotis
2007-01-21, 04:33 PM
So like electorial vote vs. majority vote? But doesn't it not matter because you're voting directly anyway? Or am I misunderstanding the question?

Mike_Lemmer
2007-01-21, 07:47 PM
I think he wants to run polls before the actual voting to see how current entries are doing. I say no; the bias this will insert into people's votes will outweigh any advantage it gives entrants by showing them their entries are trailing. Let me lay out some scenarios:

1. A voter doesn't want to spend looking through all the entries. He looks at the poll results, then only looks at the Top 3 entries in it. Why bother voting for anything else? They would lose anyway.

2. A voter enters the poll, deciding his choices early. An excellent entry is submitted after the poll. Since the voter's already declared his choices (even if it was just informally), the new entry has to fight an uphill battle against the established entry for the voter's vote.

In summary, informal polls would put in a voting bias towards the best early entries.

If you really want to give useful feedback, make a comparison thread:
1. It fills a niche the current individual threads don't: they provide opinions on the current entry, but not comparisons to other entries.
2. The lack of a poll will encourage people to read the entire thread instead of just skimming the results.

heretic
2007-01-21, 07:49 PM
Someone would start a poll, like this one, only with the question being something like "Who should win category X for design contest Z?" and then list contestants. I imagine it would be easy to scam, so that is why it's unofficial.

It would be just like political polling before elections, just a guage of progress and popularity.


I think he wants to run polls before the actual voting to see how current entries are doing. I say no; the bias this will insert into people's votes will outweigh any advantage it gives entrants by showing them their entries are trailing. Let me lay out some scenarios:

1. A voter doesn't want to spend looking through all the entries. He looks at the poll results, then only looks at the Top 3 entries in it. Why bother voting for anything else? They would lose anyway.

2. A voter enters the poll, deciding his choices early. An excellent entry is submitted after the poll. Since the voter's already declared his choices (even if it was just informally), the new entry has to fight an uphill battle against the established entry for the voter's vote.

In summary, informal polls would put in a voting bias towards the best early entries.

If you really want to give useful feedback, make a comparison thread:
1. It fills a niche the current individual threads don't: they provide opinions on the current entry, but not comparisons to other entries.
2. The lack of a poll will encourage people to read the entire thread instead of just skimming the results.

Exactly, except I'm against it too. I just had the thought and wondered if anybody would like the idea. I think it would bias the actual election, but I'm not nasty enough to squash an idea that people may like just 'cause I don't.

Mike_Lemmer
2007-01-21, 08:24 PM
It would be just like political polling before elections, just a gauge of progress and popularity.

Except this isn't a political election, more like picking the Oscars, in which debate is good, preliminary polling bad.

heretic
2007-01-21, 08:32 PM
I guess so.