Feature suggestion for polls

I've noticed on this board that when you're looking at a thread with a poll, you can see the current responses before you vote, while with lots of other forum software out there (e.g. IPB), the responses are hidden until either you vote, or you click a "show results" button.

Personally I like the second behavior better. When I was recently voting in one of HotBlonde's female attractiveness polls, I was surprised at the current set of results and I think it influenced me to vote differently. I think not knowing what the current results are would result in more "fair and accurate" polls, as it would avoid "herd mentality" and whatever the opposite of that is (the desire to be independent and not follow the crowd, which I know is true of me).

I know JB rolls his own software for this site, so this is my feature request - it shouldn't be too hard to add*. You could even make it an option for the person creating the poll.

One slight detail is that some of the other poll software I have seen doesn't allow you to vote if you clicked the "see results" button without voting. I'm not sure if I like that option, so I guess it's up for debate or up for JB and the Wiz to decide if they accept this feature request.

*Personally I do kind of hate it when people say "that shouldn't be too hard to add!" since I work in software and have done my share of web development. It's hilarious when non-technical people say stuff like this for a project that would take a 4 person team 6 months to add and then think a one-line-of-code change is a big deal. But in this case I feel I am justified as even though I haven't seen JB's code, given my knowledge of web development I'm fairly certain this would be a slight tweak depending on if you wanted to make it optional or not.

Interesting idea. If the purpose is to collect votes which are not contaminated by the way previous voters have voted, then having a "Show Results" button would open a loophole, and most attempts to close that loophole would open other loopholes. It seems the only way to close all possible loopholes would be to not have a "Show Results" button, and to only show the poll's results to logged-in members after they have voted.

Opinions?

IMO you should set it up jsut like you descibed..."to only show the poll's results to logged-in members after they have voted.".

That is my vote, because I too feel sometimes knowing the how the poll is going skews my vote a lil.

I think that you should have a, "Show Results," button available to a non-voting party. An individual may not be compelled to vote in a poll, yet still have interest in knowing what the results were. In my opinion, if someone does not want the results to color his/her vote, then that person should not look at the results.

" if someone does not want the results to color his/her vote, then that person should not look at the results. "

I would suggest that persons vote is worthless, as it is not his opinion at all !

I sometimes vote for an empty choice just to skew results :)

Quote: Nareed

I sometimes vote for an empty choice just to skew results :)

Now I know why Jerry Logan gets so many votes.

I should've put a poll on this thread.

Yes, results should be hidden before voting
No, results should be seen before voting

I don't mind the hidden stuff, provided an "other" option or some such is provided. Hiding results without an "out", so to speak, may cause people to vote rubbish just so they can see the thread, skewing results.

As long as we're talking about changing the poll function, I'd like the poll results to remind me of which choice I had voted for when I re-visit the thread. I.E. Most other software will show my choice in italic.

If you are going to put in code "hiding" it until a button to vote is pushed it seems that it would just be a line or two of code to put a button saying "show results without voting." I would like this as there are some polls I don't care about voting in but might care about the result.

I'd say it is a very good idea, like clicking on the banner to go "home" it brings some of the site's look and feel into stanard without changing the charachter of the site.

An idea:
Have a "Cast your vote" with no visible data, but with a "See current vote tally" option that allows a later "after seeing it" vote.

Then if someone choses first to "See current vote tally," - do allow them TO vote after seeing it; if they're surprised or outraged or agree with it, then STILL let them vote if they hadn't. It's not a "contaminated' vote because it is still a valid opinion, plus a vote that evokes a viscreal disagreement must be counted.

But show us the "Blind/naive vote tally" along with a "Full vote tally" and a "dirty vote tally."

Would be interesting...

Quote: JB

Interesting idea. If the purpose is to collect votes which are not contaminated by the way previous voters have voted, then having a "Show Results" button would open a loophole, and most attempts to close that loophole would open other loopholes. It seems the only way to close all possible loopholes would be to not have a "Show Results" button, and to only show the poll's results to logged-in members after they have voted.

Opinions?

As others have suggested, clicking the "show results" could nullify your ability to vote. That would be my preference. This would also require hiding the results from anyone who isn't logged in.

Now a really determined user could use a sockpuppet account to get around that, but I mean it's not like we're voting for president here :). Also one could currently use that approach to skew poll results currently anyway.