Comments on: Best practices for online polls

By: Robert Niles

Robert Niles — Thu, 13 Dec 2007 11:13:51 +0000

I agree, Barry. Any question that you would ask in a “real” random-sample p.o. survey should not be asked on a Web widget poll.

(But I would append a comment section to a report on the real poll, asking people to add their personal experiences to the report.)

By: Barry Parr

Barry Parr — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 09:56:58 +0000

It’s a very bad idea to ask polarizing questions in online polls. If you’re treating as entertainment, then you should stick to light topics.

Our local weekly asked a question about a proposed park that was on the political faultline in our community. It’s common knowledge how to cheat on online polls. It was very clear from the flow of results that both sides were cheating and voting more than once because they knew that the results would show up in a tidy graph in Wednesday’s paper with all disclaimers in mousetype that no one would read. And sure enough, there it was.

What a perfectly awful idea.

By: Joe Murphy

Joe Murphy — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 00:42:24 +0000

I’m a big fan of giving readers plenty of choices in online polls. Those “yes / no” ones turn my stomach. Almost all the polls I write I add an “I don’t know” option for those people who don’t know but still want to participate. When the hometown baseball team was down 3 games to none in the World Series I put up a poll asking “What percent chance of winning the World Series do we have?” and gave poll options at 5% intervals. I’ve got no illusions about science here, I was just curious if people would vote on all 22 options (“I don’t know” included). People did — I’m going out on a limb here, but I think people like choice.