Re: I wish we could do away with the 5-star poll

In article <W6udnf6hv8-wyoLVnZ2dnUVZ_uudnZ2d@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>,
PV <pv+usenet@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
>btm@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
 (Brad Templeton) writes:
>>Newsgroups are quite easy to similarly bombard.
>
>Figure this out - the poll is actually a conversation starter. For a long
>time in the tv newsgroups, the poll thread is the major conversation
point
>for the specific episode, and we like it that way!

But that, alas, is the problem with the poll.   In fact, I phrased
things imperfectly.   The speckling of boring vote posts is the lesser
of the problems I see as caused by the poll.    The real problem is it
concentrates a large part of the discussion that we come to the
newsgroup for into one massive thread, with the same non-informative
subject.   The stupid threads mixed in with the interesting ones, and
the annoying vote post mixed in with all that.

We could do better, or we could at least not _deliberately_ set it
up this way.

As noted, I think you would get both conversations started and do a
poll by a post which:

a) Points to a web site where one can vote
b) Encourages people to post their commentary on the show and
episdoe, but tells them to be sure to change the subject line to
match what they want to talk about, possibly putting an episode code
into it, and to erase the References header if they started up with 
a follow-up post.  (This varies from reader to reader.)

Then we get what I think we all want -- discussion encouraged, but
in identified threads, and a vote where you can see the results at any
time.

Now I personally don't think there is all that much need to stimulate
discussion, but I am willing to bow to those who want to do it, but
ask them to do it in a way that doesn't put it all into one thread
with a non-informative title.
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