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How often should polls change?
| 4% | 14 votes |
| 4% | 16 votes |
| 11% | 37 votes |
| 51% | 171 votes |
| 18% | 62 votes |
| 0% | 3 votes |
| 6% | 21 votes |
| 3% | 11 votes |
[ Voting Booth | Other Polls | Back Home ]
- Don't complain about lack of options. You've got to pick a few when you do multiple choice. Those are the breaks.
- Feel free to suggest poll ideas if you're feeling creative. I'd strongly suggest reading the past polls first.
- This whole thing is wildly inaccurate. Rounding errors, ballot stuffers, dynamic IPs, firewalls. If you're using these numbers to do anything important, you're insane.
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The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
You'll never see all the places, or read all the books, but fortunately,
they're not all recommended.
(Score: 2) by dbot on Thursday November 27 2014, @03:34AM
All of the above.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Thursday November 27 2014, @06:44AM
Polls on a schedule are a distraction, and too often end up being there just to be there.
I think polls should be archived (with a link to all past polls) after they are out there for a while, rather than left forever up just because there is no replacement poll.
And new polls should be put up when there is an issue that needs polling, not just because one is due.
The other site tosses them out there, usually with a banal question and equally banal choices, and they serve no purpose other than to emphasize how sterile and boring their site has become.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:03AM
If there is an issue that needs polling, those side polls are the wrong tool. To quote from the fine print:
The side poll is there mainly for amusement. Serious questions are to be decided with more accurate polling methods.
(Score: 1) by VanessaE on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:17AM
What, no "I let NCommander decide" or similar? :P
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday November 27 2014, @08:13AM
Like the mighty Sperm Whale, we have delved deep in search of the answer to true fear, but inevitably we must resurface to another poll, or else we die. And I didn't even get a giant squid! Can I be afraid of giant squid, say, on a weekly basis? Please?
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Monday December 01 2014, @06:14AM
"Since my friend you have revealed your deepest fear
I sentence you to be exposed before your peers!"
"Tear down the wall!"
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:12AM
But rather - say - two-three days after the discussion (and voting) mostly has ceased.. since at that point it just is empty space.
This however would put most polls on a weekly basis.
But whatever you do, things that ask about a specific day (christmas, halloween, we-accidently-set-off-the-worlds-nukes, oh-look-the-world-has-completed-a-rotation, and similar...) should not stay up for weeks after the day has passed...
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:21PM
Whilst I agree with frojack above that frivolity can drag the site down, I wouldn't mind a quick and silly one separating two heavier ones. But we do need the heavier ones that draw the discussion.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 3, Funny) by FakeBeldin on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:52AM
I already voted this morning!!
</tongue-in-cheek> ;-)
(Score: 2) by francois.barbier on Thursday November 27 2014, @03:04PM
I voted for one of the above. I won't tell you which one ;-)
On a more serious note, this was my favorite poll of all time on the other site : http://slashdot.org/pollBooth.pl?qid=1518 [slashdot.org]
It wasn't really serious, and as someone noted in a comment above mine, they're are not to be taken seriously anyway.
That one however, as simple as it was, gave me great entertainment !
Cheers !
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Friday November 28 2014, @10:09AM
However, I feel sullied because I thought for more than half a second what might greet me if I clicked on the "Deals [NEW]" in the title bar (or whatever you call it in modern webese).
So that others don't need that same experience:
"""
How Many People Will Select The Same Option As You?
( ) 0%
( ) 1-25%
( ) 26-50%
( ) 51-75%
( ) 76-99%
( ) 100%
( ) Just CowboyNeal
"""
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:08PM
I see the polls as a less serious Ask Soylent, where the discussion has lots of off-topic threads and interesting anecdotes.
It is also a good venue for fanboy arguments and product reviews/comparisons. If similar topics were on the front page then they would seem like a clickvertisement.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @07:20PM
A lot. Oh and every two weeks and twice a month? Come-on thinkn before you post.
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Monday December 01 2014, @10:16PM
One produces 24 polls a year, while the other produces 26.
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday November 27 2014, @11:14PM
Every two weeks and twice per month, isn't that the same?
(Score: 1) by Kymation on Friday November 28 2014, @04:30AM
Only in February, when the year is not a leap year.
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday November 29 2014, @02:58PM
Given that a year has 52 weeks (plus one day, or two in leap years) but only 12 months, a poll every two weeks would result in 26 polls per year (plus another one every 11 to 12 years), while a poll twice per month would only result in 24 polls per year.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Snow on Friday November 28 2014, @03:51AM
What if I could pay to change the poll to anything I wanted? The cost to update the poll would decrease over time. For example, to replace the poll the same day it is released might cost $100, and then decrease the cost by 50% per day or something like that until someone else buys a replacement poll.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 29 2014, @09:55PM
what is the users motivation for paying one hundred dollars to replace the poll? who would be interested in that?
shall we pay to censor articles too? and then comments?
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday December 01 2014, @01:12PM
what is the users motivation for paying one hundred dollars to replace the poll?
That's missing the point, if the price halves every day, I can buy a poll to make a joke for about a quarter in 12 days, or if someone doesn't want to see goatse jokes and rickrolls as poll topics (hmm.... note to self, I need to suggest some new poll topics) they could invest a staggering fifty cents at 11 days to buy it before me.
(Score: 2) by meisterister on Friday November 28 2014, @04:09AM
I want the delta in time between polls to approach infinitely small so that we can use calculus on them.
(May or may not have been) Posted from my K6-2, Athlon XP, or Pentium I/II/III.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Saturday November 29 2014, @07:46AM
I suggest the polling frequency to be f(x) = (‑ln(sin(π*x)))/(x*e^cos(x)) days between new polls, where X is the number of previous polls.
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by maxwell demon on Saturday November 29 2014, @03:00PM
So you want to wait an eternity for the next poll?
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday December 01 2014, @07:47PM
Ack! small typo. Try f(x) = (‑ln(sin(π/x)))/(x*e^cos(x))
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by DECbot on Monday December 01 2014, @07:56PM
or if you want something simpler, f(x) = (x + sqrt(x))/x
cats~$ sudo chown -R us /home/base
(Score: 2) by Hartree on Monday December 01 2014, @06:20AM
"I want the delta in time between polls to approach infinitely small so that we can use calculus on them."
For each epsilon greater than zero there exists delta greater than zero such that...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday November 28 2014, @08:44PM
If the Soylent coders created a method to procedurally-generate polls, the poll could change every fifteen seconds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 29 2014, @09:49PM
joking aside,
create a pool of polls much like the pool of stories and every visit the poll would rotate through the accepted subset of the poll pool
users would have to suggest polls but could use a script to quickly implement them from a predetermined format
on a separate polling results subpage show results to all
user should not leave the main page when placing vote, but instead should refresh with results on main page
would be nice if poll and quote were related but that's pretty esoteric
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 29 2014, @01:56PM
So long as it is not a "pulse poll"
{"result":"success","url":"\/pulse\/thankyou\/"}
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday November 29 2014, @02:07PM
It is actually quite sad that Slashdot has decided not to have polls. End of an era.
(Score: 2) by Appalbarry on Sunday November 30 2014, @03:42AM
I mean really, why change something that al;ready works so well?
(Score: 2) by jackb_guppy on Monday December 01 2014, @05:37PM
none of the above
all of the above
All would include, none since it was above. All of the above is anything including nothing!
(Score: 2) by aristarchus on Tuesday December 02 2014, @06:27AM
Not all of the above would have been in order. We just need the "F***it-all" option. While being technically a negation, it does not form the contra-positive, avoiding said conundrum. Or carborundum. See what you started?
(Score: 2) by e_armadillo on Thursday December 04 2014, @08:51PM
Just sayin'
"How are we gonna get out of here?" ... "We'll dig our way out!" ... "No, no, dig UP stupid!"
(Score: 2) by GlennC on Thursday December 04 2014, @08:54PM
Is it that big a deal to change the poll?
(and yes, you can use that as the next question, it you'd like)
Sorry folks...the world is bigger and more varied than you want it to be. Deal with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday December 04 2014, @11:28PM
Once I've had a chance to vote. After that it's just wasted space (for me.)
(Score: 2) by deimtee on Friday December 05 2014, @10:37PM
When a statistically significant number of votes have been cast.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.