Folding Forum

The sample size from a couple dozen active posters, a couple hundred active readers, out of 20,000 registerd forum users, and 400,000 active folders, is too small to be meaningful. And Pande Group sets policy, not some poll with 20 voters.

Polling should be disabled. There are better was to express an opinion, and this is not an opinion forum. This is a support forum.

Perhaps is doesn't really matter, 7im. Does anyone take the polls seriously? (not a rhetorical question)

Read the Forum. I do believe that Dr. Pande put the question to the Users. Jesse_v merely moved to provide some organized feedback. There seem to be lots of pro/con responses being entered along with the poll. Let the Poll Roll.

Like I said, the sample size is too small to be predictive. No one should take the results seriously. As such, we don't need them. Which leads to the second point, that is still taken seriously.

Lots of Pros and Cons appear in the original thread as well, so the Poll is an unnecessary duplication. Feedback is welcomed, just not in a way that can lead to polarizing postings (Polling).

I think 7im has hit on my reason for keeping them. Dr. Pande asked for feedback, not a poll. If asking for a poll generates useful comments, then it does serve a purpose. When people have already voted, they don't feel obligated to argue but they are more likely to state their reasons clearly and unemotionally.

I ignore the poll but pay attention to the comments.

I am aware of the sampling problems with such a poll. I apologize for any offense it may have created. If there was a way to sample the opinions of hundreds of thousands of folders, it may have been better to look into it.

Dr. Pande asked if there was support for a stand-alone client for all OSs. Who would answer that? Only the people who are actively on this forum in the last several days, which also is a flawed representation. It is far easier to simply choose a poll option than it is to type out a long drawn-out comment, so I felt that it was quite likely that there would be more feedback in the poll than in a thread. Like you said, there are pros and cons to each approach. By making a mix of the two, especially with the question "is there support for this", I felt that it may have been useful and a more direct answer, despite it's disadvantages. Obviously the comments provide reasons behind the opinion, whereas the poll by itself does not. The poll is a thread, so the two approaches are not entirely exclusive.

Shall we vote on whether to allow polling or not?

If Jesse_V didn't open his poll, I wouldn't have seen this discussion ... so I guess it was useful

Polls might be better for occasional readers.