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Opening and closing times

1. Straw polls should not have opening and closing times as votes do.
2. A deadline for the survey should be considered so as to resolve the issue in a timely manner.

This seems a bit contradictory to me. --Eleassar 13:31, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

what happened here?

Why did this policy suddenly become an essay?

Upped to guideline, will switch to policy if no-one disagrees within 7 days. --Kim Bruning 09:23, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Policy? I thought you didn't believe in voting? The relevant parts of the guideline were moved to PNSD; the problem with having a guideline called "straw polls" is that it gives people (who tend not to read the entirety of such pages) the impression that straw polls are in most cases a good and useful idea. >Radiant< 10:50, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Alright. Hmm, so where do I find the guidelines to make a proper non-binding opinion poll (aka survey) now? I need them today :-). The Survey Guidelines redirect to here. :-/ --Kim Bruning 10:57, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• It goes roughly like this: (1) list options; (2) get people to !vote; (3) argue over results; (4) argue over what the questions were; (5) argue over quorum; (6) argue over the arguing. I am told that surveys like this typically don't provide very much useful data, and that the outcome is going to be biased towards whatever the writer wants to see. >Radiant< 11:29, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

True, but some kinds of survey can possibly be useful. At any rate, some people feel a burning need for polls. It would be nice to actually describe the safest (for some definition of safe) way to do them, if people must really do them. --Kim Bruning 11:51, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

• Like I said, if one would describe the safest (or arguably, least unsafe) way of doing that, people would assume it was always safe, and feel justified in their burning need, and the next thing you know is we have people vote on facts again. >Radiant< 11:59, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

well, that's what we have now too. Usually it helps to be able to point to something solid. :-/ *scratches head* --Kim Bruning 18:44, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Reworking this back to guideline designation

Ok, I've decided to take it upon myself to head up getting this page back into shape as a descriptive explanation for how Misplaced Pages conducts straw polls. It is incorrect to utilize this page as a soapbox for anti-polling as has been previously done. This is not the page to do that. I encourage fellow editors to help formulate this descriptive page to be in accord with what occurs everyday on Misplaced Pages so that it can thereby become a rule of thumb for folks who may be inexperienced on forming polls. (→Netscott) 12:47, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Hmm, I'd love to write something about people challenging each other's opinions. And we've never really covered the concept of rough consensus before. Feeling up to it? --Kim Bruning 13:12, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

That sounds like a good idea... but first this should be returned to being a guideline... as you've previously said there needs to be something solid for people to look to when they are going to go about gauging some aspect of a discussion. (→Netscott) 13:17, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Hm, interesting... you want a neutral guideline, but at the same time you only want to cover the side of the situation that matches your POV, calling the issues you disagree with "soapboxing" , and hiding the parts of Wikihistory that don't match with your opinion, such as Quickpolls. Needless to say that's not going to work. The best solution would probably be to redirect this page to WP:PNSD, which already covers everything you're trying to cover here. >Radiant< 13:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

No, you're wrong.. this isn't the page to talk about "anti-polling" this is the page to describe current practice on Misplaced Pages. Unfortunately it appears that editors were a bit confused about this previously and I've decided to clear the air. As the page matures it will of course be logical to include a short history of polling on Misplaced Pages but now's not the time... what needs to be done now is to make an illustrative guide on what to do when an editor wants to formulate a straw poll regarding a given issue. (→Netscott) 13:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• Precisely what I said, you want to write a POV essay that covers the issue only from your angle. The most appropriate spot for POV essays is your userspace. >Radiant< 13:59, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

If there's consensus to turn this into a variation on VINE, that's your perogative. But I doubt you'll be able to get it accepted as a guideline if it's taking a pro-polling position. --Minderbinder 14:31, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

This isn't "pro-polling" nor is it "anti-polling" this is describing current Misplaced Pages project practices. Was that not understood? (→Netscott) 14:35, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• You're well aware that you are deliberatly omitting the important caveats. >Radiant< 14:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• Sorry, since when is describing current practice inappropriate outside of user space? (→Netscott) 14:33, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I understand that's how you describe it. I just don't agree that it's describing current practice. --Minderbinder 14:36, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

So you disagree that polling occurs on an hourly basis on Misplaced Pages? (→Netscott) 14:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• Ah, we get the false dichotomy now, and the fallacy of many questions. What's next? >Radiant< 14:43, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• No false dichotomy, just like User:Kim Bruning was pointing out above... there needs to be a solid place for editors to use as a guideline when formulating any one of numerous polls that are conducted on an hourly basis here. (→Netscott) 14:46, 3 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Ah yes, the proof by assertion is next. Unless you're referring to xFD/FAC/RFA, there's no way that we conduct numerous polls on an hourly basis. If you are referring to xFD/FAC/RFA, we have plenty of suggestion pages on that already. >Radiant< 14:50, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• Well getting this page back to its former guideline recognition is probably going to be a bit like pulling teeth much like WP:!VOTE has been... but that's fine, a healthy debate is good. Given the level of dissent on that page it is a safe bet that there will be plenty of support for a descriptive guideline (particular given recent developments). (→Netscott) 15:08, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

On a site with a million articles, I doubt there's much that doesn't happen on an hourly basis, including vandalism, misspellings, etc. Polling certainly happens, but it often is a mess and makes things worse. Polling can help in some cases, but I think a page talking about how to do polling should be clear about the potential problems so that editors can try to avoid them, or be able to make an informed decision whether polling is even worth it. --Minderbinder 15:28, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Of course, all that we need to bear in mind is the mantra this page is descriptive, not prescriptive. That's what makes a good guideline. Minderbinder, have you looked at current version and seen something that wasn't descriptive in the text? (→Netscott) 15:48, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• Well, yes, your deliberate omission of the facts that don't support your point of view. Half a truth is a whole lie. >Radiant< 15:52, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I don't see description of the problems that often happen with polling. It's not really descriptive if it selectively omits part of the description. --Minderbinder 15:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Radiant: That information MUST be added sooner or later, as that is the requirement for a descriptive guideline. If you can provide such information, well, that's all the better. :-) --Kim Bruning 15:56, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

• Again, this isn't "pro-polling" or "anti-polling", this page isn't meant to address such issues. That unfortunately is where so much confusion here has stemmed from. Now we're moving away from such pro or con soapboxing on this page and heading into guideline territory. I know "voting is evil" and "voting is not evil" folks are going to want to express their POVs here but that sort of editing really needs to be curtailed if this page is going to move forward. (→Netscott) 15:57, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Note that we're just being NPOV here. And NPOV is NPOV, no matter where it's used:

I mean , if in particular situations we have found that straw polls blow up in our faces, we write "in this situation, straw polls blow up in our faces". If a straw poll miraculously worked, we say "It miraculously worked here". If it turns out that 99% of all straw polls are abused, we write that 99% of straw polls are abused, beware, you might be messing up too, expected opposition, etc....

--Kim Bruning 15:51, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

I'd agree with that. Let's see how this comes along when the notes at the bottom get integrated. --Minderbinder 15:54, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

NPOV/ invitation

Think of this as writing an NPOV encyclopedia article about "Polling on wikipedia". We can do NPOV, some of Reliable Sources, we can't quite cover Original Research or conflict of interest, since this is about our own practices, but we can try to get as close as possible. That's the basic idea.

If you think that this is a novel concept, think again: this is how all the old policy pages on wikipedia got written. :-)

Worst case this page doesn't make it to policy status, but we might still learn a lot. Care to give it a try?

--Kim Bruning 16:04, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Yes, and descriptive... again the mantra needs to be: no soapboxing either pro or con on the idea of polling. At this point I don't see a need for this page to ever become policy but there is most certainly a need for a guideline. (→Netscott) 16:07, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

While I understand the position that guidelines on Misplaced Pages are supposed to be "descriptive", I see at least two issues with that in this case; first, What if there are multiple practices in use on Misplaced Pages, depending on which people are the most active in a particular article or group of articles (or policy or group of policies)? This appears to be the case in terms of polling. There are some people who like to run around telling people who start polls that "voting is evil", but they can't be everywhere, and often the people who start the polls just ignore them. How do you "describe" common practice when there are multiple, competing practices with no commonality? Second, wouldn't it be more helpful to the users and especially newer users, to have a page that says when polls should (and shouldn't) be used, and how to do them, even if formulating that advice requires some adjustments to, or clarification of, current practice? And it is clear that this will be required if my first point is correct, as the disparate practices will have to be harmonized. It seems to me that on something as basic (or in Jimbo's recent words, "constitutional") as the fundamental decision-making process on Misplaced Pages, some "prescription" is going to have to take place. 6SJ7 17:00, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Pointless

This page is becoming pretty pointless. We already have a page that accurately describes how and when to poll on Misplaced Pages, and that's WP:PNSD. If we fill in this page with all the situations and the caveats, that's exactly what we'll end up with. If we leave out what Netscott calls "soapboxing" and what the rest of us call "warnings about when not to use polls", we end up with a POV essay. Either way we're not writing anything here that hasn't been written before. >Radiant< 16:11, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

That hasn't been written before, indeed... and it was a guideline before as well. When folks are going around saying "voting is evil" there's no mistaking that for what it is, soapboxing. As I explained on your talk page... polling is not evil it is just a tool. Better to educate editors descriptively about how to use that tool beneficially than keep our heads in the sand like ostriches foolishly and see editors misuse it through ignorance. (→Netscott) 16:15, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

When people go around saying "wikipedia is not a democracy" is that soapboxing as well? --Minderbinder 16:22, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Right, you might as well add that Misplaced Pages is NOT a government when you say that. The simple fact to the matter is that it is not uncommon to find organizations that are not democracies but that do employ polling. (→Netscott) 16:26, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Different story, I think. At any rate, polling is... tricky... to get right, at least. Can we agree on that? --Kim Bruning 17:38, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

That and I haven't seen some of the "points to be integrated" elsewhere, at least not explicitly. Please provide links or diffs if you can point them out? (I'd love to have them to whack people over the head with, when they're being clueless again. ;-) ) --Kim Bruning 17:39, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

Polling guidelilne vs. polling pulpit

There is confusion here. This page is going to be for guidelines on how to conduct a poll, not whether polling is evil or not. Polling happens on Misplaced Pages and editors need a guideline on how to do that. The anti-polling or pro-polling viewpoints should be left to other pages (which obviously this page will reference). (→Netscott) 08:49, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Pro- or anti-viewpoints have nothing to do with it. Any page that explains how to do things needs also explain when (or when not) to do things. For instance, our blocking policy doesn't only explain how to block, but also when (and when not) to block. Note, by the way, that we already have a guideline that explains how to conduct a poll. >Radiant< 08:54, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Obviously there is a need for a guideline. I am going to be reviewing the history of the development of this page to try to better understand how its utilization as a guideline became derailed and then see if what caused it to become derailed can be properly addressed. (→Netscott) 09:12, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • There is certainly need for a guideline, and that's why we have a guideline: WP:PNSD. One might argue that there is also need for a policy, and indeed we already have one: WP:DEMO. >Radiant< 09:17, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• No, there is reason this page was a guideline (which even you yourself tagged it as such) that is not covered by "polling is not a substitute for discussion" which lets face it PNSD is just a POV fork of its original page meta:Polling is evil. (→Netscott) 09:24, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • False. PNSD was expanded to cover that, which is why PNSD is a guideline and there is no need fo this page. m:polling is evil is a POV page, yes, that's why PNSD was rewritten from scratch, doesn't even remotely resemble VIE, and is a neutral guideline. >Radiant< 09:30, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I suggest we move the how-to-do-a-poll parts of PNSD to this page, and leave the explicit "we do consensus" at pnsd. --Kim Bruning 11:28, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• That's an interesting suggestion, but the result would be that the people who read this page remain unaware that "we do consensus". >Radiant< 11:38, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Confusing tag

It's kind of novel (not to mention confusing) to note that "this page's designation as policy is disputed" on a page that is not in fact designated as policy. I suspect {{controversial}} is what is meant instead? >Radiant< 09:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

It is not confusing, you are disputing this page being designated as a guideline. Also you've misused the {{controversial}} tag which is only meant for talk pages. (→Netscott) 09:38, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

If you are suggesting that this should be a guideline, I suggest you read up on how guidelines are created. At the moment, you are writing a POV essay here. >Radiant< 09:44, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

No, I am working toward reestablishing this page's previous designation as a guideline (here tagged by none other than yourself as one). (→Netscott) 10:08, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• But that is pointless as it has been superseded. If you're going to cite me you should also listen to what I'm actually saying, rather than misrepresenting me by ignoring the context. >Radiant< 10:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• If you're going to misrepresent this page as only ever having been some non-descript "essay" then I'm going to cite the facts particularly when they involve yourself. (→Netscott) 10:42, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • And where did I say that this page "only ever been some non-descript 'essay'"? For starters essays aren't non-descript. See, you're misrepresenting me. Again. Stop that. >Radiant< 10:46, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Let's see: "Not really, it's more like a perennial dispute between one user who wants to change long-standing redirects to a new essay he's writing, and the rest of the 'pedia". Very misrepresentative. This is not some non-descript "new essay". Such commentary makes it easy to WP:ABF regarding your involvement here. (→Netscott) 10:50, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • We have a guideline against WP:ABF, though. I suggest you read that (along with our WP:CIVility policy, for obvious reasons). And yes, this is a new essay you're writing, because you're basically ignoring the points made by the old guideline (which are incidentally also present in the new guideline). >Radiant< 10:56, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Radiant, let people write out a description here. If it sucks, it sucks, and we drop it. If it works, it works, and we keep it. But please let them work on it, and let's see what they come up with first.

So this page is currently a safe place where folks can be bold and try stuff out. I'd like to see people working on the page itself, not sniping at each other on the talk page for no reason other than to vent their frustrations. Done venting now. Time for working.--Kim Bruning 11:32, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Thank you Kim Bruning for such a sensible suggestion! :-) (→Netscott) 11:33, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

You're welcome. At the same time, it might be a bad idea to label Radiant's quite helpful suggestions as "anti polling propganda". Much of what he's saying are things we learned the hard way, over large periods of time. These are known caveats to polling. You'll have to resolve those issues with Radiant, else the page will never be neutral. :-/ --Kim Bruning 11:39, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

I just want things to read accurately. As I'm doing a survey of polling on the project I'm seeng how it is actually rather commonly used. I really don't appreciate when things are misrepresented. Also I think the {{disputedtag}} should go back up instead of that adhoc {{controversial}} tag created by Radiant! (→Netscott) 11:47, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Please look up "accurately" and "common" in the dictionary. Anyone can find a couple dozen instances of polling on Misplaced Pages (aside from AFD/RFA/etc). A couple dozen instances over the course of five years is not "common". >Radiant< 12:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

12 / ~3 000 000 * 100% = 0.0004% ...Wait, a couple dozen? Let's try 100... 0.0033% . The man might have a bit of a point there.

Perhaps polls are mostly used on really busy pages? (I'm guessing there might be 3000 of those? (there were 1000 in jan 2006, when we had ~ 1M pages) ) In that case it'd be 3% of very busy locations. (rough estimate).

I think perhaps more polls are being held? I know that requested moves spams them across the entire main namespace, for instance.

How would one search a db dump for polls... via looking for ==Support== perhaps? ^^;;

--Kim Bruning 12:36, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

←Polls have been used in very notable cases on Misplaced Pages when forming guidelines and policies. What is the sense in trying to deny this? (→Netscott) 12:40, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Well, when trying to. In the few cases where the polls were defining, the process design typically doesn't work too well. (correlation!= causation, but I have my suspicions... typically it's when people spend more time designing polls and the poll process, than they spend actually designing the darn process itself, ARGH! ;-) ).

Most really good processes are formed through consensus and through writing down a descriptive representation of current practice. (So, basically same as what we're trying to do here :-) )

--Kim Bruning 12:54, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Nobody denies that polls have been used. However, you need to look past the surface and see that (1) in far more cases, polls have not been used, (2) in nearly all cases where polls were used, the "outcome" of the poll was later superseded (improved) by discussion (because as Kim says, issues designed by poll typically don't work too well), (3) in several cases where polls were used, they didn't actually help, and (4) in several notable cases, polls caused a trainwreck and we would have been far better off without them. >Radiant< 12:58, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Well as long as we're going to be continuing to have key polls on Misplaced Pages there obviously needs to be a guideline page specifically addressing that. Kim Bruning is right this smallish section of WP:!VOTE should be here with the rest of the expanded detail about polling. (→Netscott) 13:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • Based on what I just said as well as on WP:ATT, it would make far more sense to not continue to have key polls, except when a poll is explicitly requested by Jimbo. >Radiant< 13:25, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Uh, no. That logic is very counter to WP:JIMBOSAID. Look your anti-polling POV is well expressed here why don't you follow Kim Bruning's suggestion above and, "let people write out a description here" as well as, " I'd like to see people working on the page itself, not sniping at each other"... which I completely agree with. (→Netscott) 14:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:KETTLE. If you don't want to see people sniping, stop sniping (as you did in your previous post). Also, the pro-polling POV you're pushing is very obvious, so that's another WP:KETTLE. >Radiant< 14:02, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

• Relative to, "let people write out a description here", this type of edit is not helpful. What was the POINT you were trying to illustrate? (→Netscott) 14:15, 4 April 2007 (UTC)
  • WP:NPA, WP:CIV, WP:FAITH, WP:KETTLE. I would be happy to discuss that if you promise to stop sniping. >Radiant< 15:01, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Kindly just answer the question please or let us get one with writing this guideline in peace. (→Netscott) 15:10, 4 April 2007 (UTC)

Question

Given their obviously poor track record, what makes you think we should be "continuing to have key polls" in the first place? >Radiant< 15:09, 4 April 2007 (UTC)