The following suggestions/comments are in regard to the practice of polling, especially in the fashion of which is conducted on forums, and specifically on GWO.
1. Bias
If your goal in creating a poll is to try to extract an accurate representation of the views of the audience of the poll, it's important to try to make the poll itself as non-influential in the expression of those views as possible.
This is most easily examined on poll issues that have a single range of concern, i.e. "how strongly do you agree or disagree with X". When posting polls of this nature, it's best to carefully consider the wording of each poll option and the poll question itself so as to not predispose the audience towards selecting one option or another. For instance, asking the question "What do you think of Y?" and having the 3 options "Perfect, Needs Improvement, Other" leaves a noticeable gap of those who do not think Y is perfect, but don't think it necessarily needs improvement, either. Better would be "Needs no change, Could use some change, Could use a lot of change, Should be scrapped entirely, Other", covering a smoother range of choices. An ideal poll wouldn't need an Other option, but it's generally best to put one in since pollsters are generally not perfect, and it's often hard to anticipate every response.
In addition, the phrasing of a question can affect the bias of a poll as well. A question such as "How should Z be fixed?" with options "A", "B", "C", and "Z does not need to be fixed" is inherently biased, because the question itself has a tone that assumes one of the first three options is "right". Better would be simply "Should Z be fixed?" with options "Yes, by A", "Yes, by B", "Yes, by C" or "No".
Furthermore, extra "fluff" beyond the basic description of a poll option is generally a bad idea, as it tends to convey an additional tone which will often convey the opinion of the creator of the poll, thus biasing the results.
2. Public versus Non-Public Polls
There are two options for polls on GWO, they can be either public or non-public.
Public polls encourage people to back up their opinions, while non-public polls allow people to select more freely what their opinion is even if they don't wish to be known for believing it. Each has its relative benefits and disadvantages, just be mindful of which you choose when creating a poll.
3. Is a poll necessary?
Occasionally, threads will come along with some various discussion or other, and then an attached poll along the lines of "Do you agree? Yes, No". Polls of this nature really aren't necessary, as the point of the forum in the first place is for discussion of the topic. In addition, due to the simple fact that many people will read only the first post in the thread before voting on the poll, it may introduce an element of bias (as discussed above) into the polling if the poll's poster expresses their personal views in their original post.
Another element to consider is whether a poll will really provide any meaningful results - is the poll broad enough that it's not simply something that the vast majority can look at and come to the same immediate conclusion. A poll about whether the Prime Minister of England is an extraterrestrial is not very useful because it's a fairly simple and common agreement that no, the Prime Minister is not an extraterrestrial.
4. Referencing Polls
A poll is only as good as the data it represents, and is only as certain as its error is known. In general, the error margin for polls on GWO isn't very well known in regards to the general Guild Wars population, so it's difficult to assume any facts or figures about the general GW population in regards to the GWO-poll-voting one. Keep this in mind when referencing poll results, for whatever purpose. That doesn't mean polls are useless, but it's essential to keep data in context in order for it to be meaningful at all.
This is but a short commentary and should not be taken as an exhaustive source of policy for polls or anything of that nature. If you have suggestions or comments on these concepts, feel free to PM me or any such.|||Absolutely awesome alliteration, Aiiane!
And a fine post as well -- I agree completely that many polls are extremely biased.|||Nice reference guide. but you seem to be missing an important factor in polls... Pudding!
(Seriously, adding the pudding option screws up everything! 
)|||Hit it spot on,especially since lately there have been too many biased polls that really riled people.|||Don't forget the freaking polls without the options you want!|||I was just about to post a "Remove Polls!" rant in the Suggestions forum. This will suffice. Thanks, Aiiane. |||/cheers Aiianenow force everyone to read it before they make a poll! ::cough::: cough::
|||Very nice, there are far too many polls going around.|||I LOVE IT this really needed a post |||Very nicely done !
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