posted
When I posted my Poll I didn't set an end date. So when I decide to end it is there any formal closure, or do I just declare it's over on whatever date & time?
(unrelated q: are there any problems caused to you guys when I forget to log out before going offline?)
Eryk Davis Ester
Created from the Cosmic Legends of the Universe!
posted
quote:Originally posted by Reep: When I posted my Poll I didn't set an end date. So when I decide to end it is there any formal closure, or do I just declare it's over on whatever date & time?
(unrelated q: are there any problems caused to you guys when I forget to log out before going offline?)
I'd suggest leaving it open as long as votes are coming in regularly, then announcing a closing time, to give people a chance to cast last minute votes.
From: Liberty City | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
Yeah, that's understood, and I intend to keep it open at least thru the weekend.
But to clarify my question: is there an actual procedural option open to the Poll creator during the poll to close it down by, like filling in a close date, or clicking a box, etc?
Or is there a lockdown by the founders/mods after I announce a closing date/time?
posted
BTW, here's my thoughts on Poll closures in general. I've already done two, and have a third one in the works. I've been thinking about "Poll issues."
The only people who can vote in the Poll are members. So this is the primamry determinant of Poll duration, i.e.: have the likely amount of members who would vote in a given Poll voted?
Now we are at the first week of this Board and we have 60+ members. Taking a pallpark guess, I'd say a fifth or sixth are maybe Alt IDs, and we can hope these aren't used in voting, but the point is you have to subtract that amount from the current member count to see your max possible electorate.
In this current period, let's say that's 50 members. Now in my Poll on nutty characters, I would guess no more than half or two-thirds of members at best would be interested in this less than mainstream topic.
So that's 30 to 37 members. Currenty my poll sits at 16 voters, which is close to half that range of possible voters.
This is Thursday, and my Poll has been running two or three days now. (God, how quick we forget!) The workweek generally seems a lower posting volume than the weekend, yet I'm halfway there with three days of higher volume likely to come.
Which means that reaching the high end of my likely electorate is going to occur by Monday at the latest, which logically suggests shutting it down on Tues or Wed.
This analysis seems a handy basic model. However, the current kicker is that this site first started during last weekend, and it seems there's still a fair amount of Legion posters that haven't got the word, but will probably, hopefully, find out this weekend. [I Suggest DCMB posters keep the news front and center on that Legion board this weekend.]
So I will let my Poll run during next week and watch the daily percentage of new votes. If it begin to trickle, I'll probably close it. O/W I'll let it run one more weekend.
All this analysis is a round about way of saying that once the membership levels off to a steady small rate of increase, I don't think Polls need to run past a week, two at the most, in order to give everybody a chance to vote. I think it's important not to go past this "time limit" because I predict Poll creation will become very popular on the Board once every discovers it ease.
At which point, the Polls are going to stack up on the first pages driving down much of the other topics. 90% of topics seem to be gone in two days. Having a category of topic that keeps getting bumped for weeks or is often flagged by the mods to be at the top can create havoc.
Rather than create software limits on Poll duration or the amount created by a member, I think as long as it becomes to be understood by the membership that one week is all that most Polls will need to give everyboy a chance to vote, then most of the potential problems will be minimized.
Basically, long Polls are not necessary. After one weekend's availability of voting, if it trickles to one or two votes daily, shut it down, cause that indicates voting has sated and a consensus of opinion probably has been captured.
Lest I forget, after two polls, one a single question, and the other multiples, let me wholeheartedly express that I think the Polls are a fantastic fun capability for members and can be very useful in creating interest in Legion as well as enticing lurkers into membership in order to enjoy the voting experience!
But we need to be proactive with a group sensibility about the necessity of shorter duration Polls.
quote:Originally posted by Reep: At which point, the Polls are going to stack up on the first pages driving down much of the other topics. 90% of topics seem to be gone in two days. Having a category of topic that keeps getting bumped for weeks or is often flagged by the mods to be at the top can create havoc.
Why not create a polling forum then?
-------------------- My views are my own and do not reflect those of everyone else... and I wouldn't have it any other way.
quote:Originally posted by Reep: At which point, the Polls are going to stack up on the first pages driving down much of the other topics. 90% of topics seem to be gone in two days. Having a category of topic that keeps getting bumped for weeks or is often flagged by the mods to be at the top can create havoc.
Why not create a polling forum then?
Since your bringing it up here SoM and Princess Cru brought it up in the Suggestions thread early this morning, I'm in the process of creating such spot right now and moving all current polls over to it. Just hang tight for awhile. I'm not as fast at doing this as Nightcrawler is.
From: Utah | Registered: Jul 2003
| IP: Logged |
quote:Originally posted by Reep: BTW, here's my thoughts on Poll closures in general. I've already done two, and have a third one in the works. I've been thinking about "Poll issues."
The only people who can vote in the Poll are members. So this is the primamry determinant of Poll duration, i.e.: have the likely amount of members who would vote in a given Poll voted?
Now we are at the first week of this Board and we have 60+ members. Taking a pallpark guess, I'd say a fifth or sixth are maybe Alt IDs, and we can hope these aren't used in voting, but the point is you have to subtract that amount from the current member count to see your max possible electorate.
In this current period, let's say that's 50 members. Now in my Poll on nutty characters, I would guess no more than half or two-thirds of members at best would be interested in this less than mainstream topic.
So that's 30 to 37 members. Currenty my poll sits at 16 voters, which is close to half that range of possible voters.
This is Thursday, and my Poll has been running two or three days now. (God, how quick we forget!) The workweek generally seems a lower posting volume than the weekend, yet I'm halfway there with three days of higher volume likely to come.
Which means that reaching the high end of my likely electorate is going to occur by Monday at the latest, which logically suggests shutting it down on Tues or Wed.
This analysis seems a handy basic model. However, the current kicker is that this site first started during last weekend, and it seems there's still a fair amount of Legion posters that haven't got the word, but will probably, hopefully, find out this weekend. [I Suggest DCMB posters keep the news front and center on that Legion board this weekend.]
So I will let my Poll run during next week and watch the daily percentage of new votes. If it begin to trickle, I'll probably close it. O/W I'll let it run one more weekend.
All this analysis is a round about way of saying that once the membership levels off to a steady small rate of increase, I don't think Polls need to run past a week, two at the most, in order to give everybody a chance to vote. I think it's important not to go past this "time limit" because I predict Poll creation will become very popular on the Board once every discovers it ease.
At which point, the Polls are going to stack up on the first pages driving down much of the other topics. 90% of topics seem to be gone in two days. Having a category of topic that keeps getting bumped for weeks or is often flagged by the mods to be at the top can create havoc.
Rather than create software limits on Poll duration or the amount created by a member, I think as long as it becomes to be understood by the membership that one week is all that most Polls will need to give everyboy a chance to vote, then most of the potential problems will be minimized.
Basically, long Polls are not necessary. After one weekend's availability of voting, if it trickles to one or two votes daily, shut it down, cause that indicates voting has sated and a consensus of opinion probably has been captured.
Lest I forget, after two polls, one a single question, and the other multiples, let me wholeheartedly express that I think the Polls are a fantastic fun capability for members and can be very useful in creating interest in Legion as well as enticing lurkers into membership in order to enjoy the voting experience!
But we need to be proactive with a group sensibility about the necessity of shorter duration Polls.
Just my 20 cents.
Reep, sounds more like $1.20 to me.
Anyway, all well thought out and more than I can take in and comment on in the manner it deserves right now. But, like I've already said above, I'm in the process of creating a special forum just for polling. I hope this will help ease the issue a bit for all involved.
From: Utah | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
LL, if there's a Poll forum, then I can't see my concerns really becoming problems.
Still just for organization purposes, it may be a good idea to put a 3 week limit on Polls, as I doubt longer is necessary and after that the Poll Creator may very well forget about them.
With a Poll forum, will there be much of a need to flag any as "important," unless there's a real time-sensitive issue that's being polled?
quote:Originally posted by Reep: LL, if there's a Poll forum, then I can't see my concerns really becoming problems.
Still just for organization purposes, it may be a good idea to put a 3 week limit on Polls, as I doubt longer is necessary and after that the Poll Creator may very well forget about them.
With a Poll forum, will there be much of a need to flag any as "important," unless there's a real time-sensitive issue that's being polled?
Another 8 cents.
I don't have an issue on the 3 week limit. And I think maybe we can come up with some 'poll etiquette' to post to the new forum that can be used as guidelines when creating polls. Things like a time limit and headlining.
From: Utah | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
For those tracking this topic here, the polls have been moved from the individual forums and placed into one new forum here. This will now be the place to poll your hearts out. In conjunction I have turned off the polling function in all areas except for The Planetary Chance Machine. The only exceptions I have made to this is allowing Steve and Dave to have polls in their respective sections. Please let me know if anyone has any questions about this change. Thanks for bearing with us.
From: Utah | Registered: Jul 2003
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quote:Originally posted by Reep: But to clarify my question: is there an actual procedural option open to the Poll creator during the poll to close it down by, like filling in a close date, or clicking a box, etc?
Or is there a lockdown by the founders/mods after I announce a closing date/time?
I didn't want my main question about Poll closure procedure to be lost after my long spiel, so whenever either of you can advise is cool.
quote:Originally posted by Reep: When I posted my Poll I didn't set an end date. So when I decide to end it is there any formal closure, or do I just declare it's over on whatever date & time?
As the poll's creator, I think I'll leave that decision to you. When you feel it's right to end it go ahead. I'd probably post a warning a day in advance to let anyone who hasn't voted vote, but that's me. It's your poll and you get to decide how it operates.
quote:Originally posted by Reep: (unrelated q: are there any problems caused to you guys when I forget to log out before going offline?)
Nope. I don't log out when I leave either. It saves me the trouble of logging on again. Regardless the software indicates you were here up to 30 minutes after you leave.
From: San Diego, CA | Registered: Jul 2003
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posted
NC, I understand that as poll creator it's up to me to declare it over. I'm quite clear on this.
My actual question is this: do I actually do anything to the Poll to shut it down so no one can vote anymore, or do you guys do that? Or is this even done?
Likewise am I correct in assuming that if the Poll is truly shutdown, however accomplished, the Poll results are then accessible to all viewers, whether voting or non-voting members, or even non-members? Or will I instead need to summarize the results in a post for everyone to read?
I'm just trying to get the details on any mechanics involved in closing a Poll and revealing the final results.
I hope I have made myself clear because I think my "essay" above may have obscured the simple points of my original questions!
posted
In looking through the control panel I can see no way to close a poll that does not have a closure date set at its creation. So, in partial answer to your question, no one can close the poll short of closing the actually topic.
If you set a closing time upon creation of the poll, the final results will always be available for anyone to view after the closing date. So in that case you would not need to summarize the results. But without a closing date posters can continue to vote on it until the topic itself is closed.
I hope that helps answer your questions.
From: Utah | Registered: Jul 2003
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So the final point, and anyone thinking of doing a Poll should pay note, is this: set a close date. O/W the only way everyone can see the results when you say it's over is if you type them up which can be a legnthy process depending on the Poll.
Thanks again, LL. I'm about to post a major Poll, and I will set a close date.
Hyperpath: Email this page to someone!
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