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Only registered users should be able to vote in polls.

Maybe only allowing members to vote would be a good idea. I saw a link on a conservative only board last night to a poll here - the one about 'Should Obama be impeached'. A member there was asking people to come to this board and vote because 'No' was winning.
 
Phys251 said:
http://www.debatepolitics.com/polls/108220-government-cant-create-jobs-4.html#post1059834381

Otherwise, stuff like that will happen. I really hate that, because I like forum polls. They can show a lot of info at just a glance. But if they're spam-able, they can be rendered meaningless.
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I tend to agree with you. I actually just found out today that guests can vote. The only way to know for sure, then, is to count the names of the voters. Too bad that when I vote it says MaggieD voted one way or another; but when a guest (sock puppet) votes, it doesn't say anything.

Why couldn't it at least say "Guest" multiple times?

I understand that the reasoning is that a guest may get interested by being able to vote before signing up. I don't think that "advantage" outweighs the disadvantage to members. Not at all. But, then, I'm not in charge.

Grow up, Sock Puppets!!!!!!!!! :spank:
 
Why would I care what the rest of you answer in a poll? :mrgreen:
 
Here's the deal. The only place where guests can vote is in the Polls section. This is a directive that has been decided by vauge. Allowing guests to vote in the Polls Forum allows participation and might encourage them to join DP. This has been discussed before and I do not see it changing. You do have a way to get a good read on forum thoughts on a poll question. When you create the poll, make it so who votes is visible... don't make it anonymous. That way, even if some socks or spammers "game" the poll, we can still get a good read on how the forum sees the issue.
 
Actually Phys251, a better option is just make all polls public automatically.

The great thing about public votes is that we can see who's gaming the system. It's pretty obvious who's spamming that poll. So in a way that is a real disservice to their own side. Who are we to stop people from shooting themselves in the foot?

Besides, outside of the mods posting who's doing the spamming via IP trace, it's really not that hard to figure out which users are the likely culprits. This stuff tends to happen in hyperpartisan issues where one side has the maturity of a 3 year old. Considering that the poll flat up stated it was public, it's not too difficult to figure out by posting history who the stupid/careless spammers are likely to be.

Polls I care somewhat about are always made public. Polls like my Amazon Kindle I don't bother to make public.
 
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Frolicking Dinosaurs said:
Maybe only allowing members to vote would be a good idea. I saw a link on a conservative only board last night to a poll here - the one about 'Should Obama be impeached'. A member there was asking people to come to this board and vote because 'No' was winning.
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That is really pathetic. It's quite sad how immature so many people are.
 
Frolicking Dinosaurs said:
Maybe only allowing members to vote would be a good idea. I saw a link on a conservative only board last night to a poll here - the one about 'Should Obama be impeached'. A member there was asking people to come to this board and vote because 'No' was winning.
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Do you have a link to that site?
 
obvious Child said:
Do you have a link to that site?
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It is a private forum for extremely conservative people. My cousin (very, very Tea Party) is a member there and asked me to look at thread describing a situation he felt might be child abuse and give him my thoughts. (I'm a retired child protection investigator). This happened while we were both visiting his mother who is in a nursing home with WiFi near Cookeville, TN. I used his account and lap top to see it. The cousin has flown back to the Bay area in CA and I'm near Knoxville.

The name of the site was something like 'Conservatives United Against Obama' I think. The thread name was something like 'Need help at Debate Politics' so I checked it after reading the thread my cousin wanted me to read.
 
Frolicking Dinosaurs said:
It is a private forum for extremely conservative people. My cousin (very, very Tea Party) is a member there and asked me to look at thread describing a situation he felt might be child abuse and give him my thoughts. (I'm a retired child protection investigator). This happened while we were both visiting his mother who is in a nursing home with WiFi near Cookeville, TN. I used his account and lap top to see it. The cousin has flown back to the Bay area in CA and I'm near Knoxville.

The name of the site was something like 'Conservatives United Against Obama' I think. The thread name was something like 'Need help at Debate Politics' so I checked it after reading the thread my cousin wanted me to read.
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Too bad you didn't get the user's nick. Darth Courteous can be devious in sniffing out poll spammers who used to be DP members. :lol:
 
DiAnna said:
Too bad you didn't get the user's nick. Darth Courteous can be devious in sniffing out poll spammers who used to be DP members. :lol:
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That would be more of a Vauge's role. Unless CC has access to the IP logs. Generally hyperpartisans who are too stupid to figure out a poll is public are too stupid to cover their digital tracks.
 
The way to ensure that only DP members vote in a Poll is to locate it in any forum other than the Polls Forum. Make it public (transparant) also.
 
obvious Child said:
That would be more of a Vauge's role. Unless CC has access to the IP logs. Generally hyperpartisans who are too stupid to figure out a poll is public are too stupid to cover their digital tracks.
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I have ways that are somewhat "unconventional". Think "stake out".
 
Tashah said:
The way to ensure that only DP members vote in a Poll is to locate it in any forum other than the Polls Forum. Make it public (transparant) also.
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Wait, guests can only vote on polls located there?
 
Is that why the polls always have one crazy answer that has a ton of votes but no names under it? That way people can sign out and vote for their crazy ideas but not have to be known for it?
 
Phys251 said:
Wait, guests can only vote on polls located there?
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Members and guests can vote in polls in the Polls Forum.

Only members can vote in polls in all other DP forums.
 
Phys251 said:
http://www.debatepolitics.com/polls/108220-government-cant-create-jobs-4.html#post1059834381

Otherwise, stuff like that will happen. I really hate that, because I like forum polls. They can show a lot of info at just a glance. But if they're spam-able, they can be rendered meaningless.
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Thats why when I make a poll I make it to where I can see who voted and only count those votes.

obvious Child did that with his poll so we can see whether or not someone actually voted or the if the polls were just ****ed with.Government can't create jobs - View Poll Results
Looking at the poll results as of right now it shows that 52 voted for "Disagree, it can", 17 for "Agree, it cannot" and 1 for "Don't Know". So obviously most of the extra 84 votes for Disagree are fake. A few of those might be actual guests and some of those might be members who forgot to log in. As far as I know this site does not have enough lurkers of one single political slant to create such a disproportionate number of votes. If it did then I think the site's membership would reflect that.
 
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agreed. i always make my polls visible.
 
jamesrage said:
As far as I know this site does not have enough lurkers of one single political slant to create such a disproportionate number of votes. If it did then I think the site's membership would reflect that.
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Furthermore, most of the lurkers are likely to be Google/Yahoo web spiders.

The fact that this generally happens to issues that turn exceptionally partisan tells me a handful of very immature users here are spamming the polls. The sad thing is, polls straight up tell you that it's public. They aren't smart enough to figure out we know they are spamming.
 
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