My Reasoning

[The Other Guy]

I've had a number of people ask me or complain about the Election poll with the strictly enforced rule that posts may only contain the person you voted for. Several of you have complained to me that it goes against what I preach about free speech, which I happen to agree with. However, knowing the way this board goes there is virtually no way a thread like that would avoid being locked before Election Day came without some sort of limit on posting.

I went to the mods since I did not know of a way to create a poll without a thread, which I discovered was impossible. Redleg suggested that I ask that there be no responses, and to report any that were made. I wanted to make it as open as possible, so I decided to make it an optional open ballot, where you could post who you voted for but nothing else.

Just wanted to come clean on that, and let everyone know why I did what I did.

 

[MontyB]

I think it was the only viable way to prevent it getting out of hand, I am a little surprised people have had any issue with it.

Basically what you have done has made it difficult for those who like derail threads not going their way, most reasonable people will not have an issue with it.

 

[Sevens]

^^ I agree. Things would've quickly become quite ugly in there without some sort of posting "rule."

 

[Team Infidel]

No issues here. It will be interesting to see if you put up another one in November.

 

[major liability]

I thought the whole point of free speech was that sometimes it NEEDS to get out of hand.

 

[MontyB]

True however we have people who deliberately push things out of hand in order to kill them if the argument isn't going their way and what he has done stops that and there is nothing at all stopping people creating a thread to discuss their answer.

Also I am unsure why people assume free speech applies on a message board.

If I was doing anything differently I would probably have created two polls one for US folk to respond to and another for non-US folk to see how views differ but I certainly would have kept the minimum responses caveat.

 

[major liability]

True however we have people who deliberately push things out of hand in order to kill them

That's why we have moderators.

 

[MontyB]

Indeed we do and this gives them a clear border line as well.

Like I said if you want to post your reasons why you selected the combination you did just start a new thread and let it go from there.