Suggestion: Blind polls

[hArTh]

I see that more and more companies are starting to use MyADSL polls to help sell their products (nothing wrong with that): http://www.mybroadband.co.za/vb/showthread.php?p=182582#post182582

However, in the interests of making the polls more representative and less prone to manipulation I would suggest making them "blind". In other words, the poll results are only revealed once the poll is finished.

This will help reduce the lemming effect and poll fraud by naughty companies.

If not already in effect, I would also suggest limiting voting to registered users.

 

[Gaz{M}]

second that

 

[VQuest]

I personally think if someone wants to use the myadsl poll results, they should need to get permission from RPM first.

 

[Raithlin]

I personally think if someone wants to use the myadsl poll results, they should need to get permission from RPM first.

Seconded.

Where can I see the minutes of the previous meeting?

 

[stoke]

Create poll = moderator only.
ReDefine Blind Poll :: you only see the results once you have voted ?

 

[Razer0]

Blind Poll : you only see the total results once the time period for casting a vote has expired.

oh and I agree with both hArTh and VQuest. If they wish to quote polls they must state a reason for what its intended use is and RPM or Mods must decide if it is best for the Broadband situation.

If not already in effect, I would also suggest limiting voting to registered users.

Especially this, also users must have a minimum amount of posts before being allowed to vote. (5-10 is a fair number?)

 

[ic]

<my_personal_opinion>

I have been concerned about the manipulation aspect since the last time WBS pointed the press towards that particular december poll, which incidentally is not the poll that was referred to in the MoneyWeb article.

[post=183069]I have commented on all that here...[/post]

About concealing the results, I know that vBulletin does not have such an option that I have access to, however there might be such a thing that RPM can set in the forum s/w...

However, I doubt that hiding the results until the poll is over would do anything to discourage anyone determined enough from trying to throw the results. The main thing is to ensure that there is only 1 vote per registered forumite. I think we should also link to the polling threads themselves from where the polls are at the moment on the main site.

So, for instance this would be the sort of link we could use (with the #top appended):

Survey: Local Bandwidth, what can WBS do to improve the iBurst experience?

//shameless pimping of iBurst poll ​

</my_personal_opinion>

 

[fergus]

I wrote about problems with the polls before:

MyADSL has got to protect its integrity by ensuring polls can't be manipulated by various companies. 2 things I can think:

- After a poll has stopped being the current poll disallow further voting. As it currently is anyone can visit any previous poll and add votes to it, skewing the poll in their favour long after everyone else has lost interest in it.

- Allow only registered users to vote. Currently anyone can vote which means the system is open to manipulation by users deleting cookies, spoofing ips, etc.

A possible solution to this is to only use vBulletins voting engine in future as nephp's one seems a bit flimsy. Or perhaps we could roll our own. Anyway I think it should be looked into.

Right now I can manipulate any poll I wanted by pumping in repititive votes. The point about blind polling is also a valid one. Thats the way most polls are done.

The thing about web polls is that they're not intended for any serious use. Its a totally unscientific process. For instance Slashdot states:

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.

Thats just the nature of web polls. The problem is that companies are using the polls as the authoritave opinion of myadsl, which its not, for the above reasons. Thats not the purpose of the polls. Its very informal. If we were going to do official polls it should only be aloud to registered forumites and they should only be allowed to vote once. I think a disclaimer should be put up with the current polls to stop companies trying to use them for marketing purposes.

 

[ic]

...I think a disclaimer should be put up with the current polls to stop companies trying to use them for marketing purposes.

I second that .

Luckily there is no advantage to anyone trying to throw the current iBurst polling thread - it is purely market research & does not have any iBurst is better than the rest factor to it...

This whole thing does make me think twice about the wisdom of a [monthly] Customer Service & Support type polling thread - I personally don't think I want to associate myself with such a poll if it will only be abused .