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A Poll About Polls

Is the option "other" necessary on every poll?

  • Yes (explain)

    Votes: 4 28.6%
  • No (explain)

    Votes: 5 35.7%
  • Other (explain)

    Votes: 3 21.4%
  • THIS is a bad poll (explain)

    Votes: 2 14.3%

  • Total voters
    14
However, you still claim that every poll must have "other."

I've never made such a claim. Some other poster may have... but not me.

Ok so now that I realize I made a mistake, let's say the question were different. What if the question were:

Do you have a right hand?

Also, what about my object being yellow question?

If you're going to insist on a choice between two options, you need to make very clear that there are ONLY two options.

'Do you have a right hand?' is a fairly open ended question. There may be people who have a partial stump or deformed appendage that may or may not be considered a hand. The color of an object is also a fairly open ended question.

I'm not trying to be argumentative. I'm not even sure what your goal in this thread is. I understand several people criticized a poll you put up recently. You'll rarely create a poll that isn't criticized by someone.

:2wave:
 
a man without a right hand shouldn't be voting on that poll.

If a poll is going to include or exclude certain groups, then those groups should be identified up front.

For instance, if you were conducting a poll to determine how often Catholics go to Mass, you'd preface it with a (For Catholics Only). If you simply asked an open question 'How often to you go to Mass?', then the poll would be biased by responses from different denominations.

Similarly, if you were to create a poll to determine how many men on the board are circumcised, you'd want to exclude the women. If you simply put up a poll asking 'Are you circumcised?', then women could within reason answer 'no.'

None of this is particularly relevant on silly message board polls. But these kinds of questions need to be considered very carefully when doing research. Sloppy questions lead to sloppy results and misleading conclusions.

;)
 
Ok this is just going nowhere.

Nevermind.
 
If a poll is going to include or exclude certain groups, then those groups should be identified up front.

For instance, if you were conducting a poll to determine how often Catholics go to Mass, you'd preface it with a (For Catholics Only). If you simply asked an open question 'How often to you go to Mass?', then the poll would be biased by responses from different denominations.

Similarly, if you were to create a poll to determine how many men on the board are circumcised, you'd want to exclude the women. If you simply put up a poll asking 'Are you circumcised?', then women could within reason answer 'no.'

None of this is particularly relevant on silly message board polls. But these kinds of questions need to be considered very carefully when doing research. Sloppy questions lead to sloppy results and misleading conclusions.

;)

if the poll obviously doesn't apply to you, don't take it. what's with people these days that they have to force themselves where they obviously don't belong and then complain that they're being discriminated against?
 
if the poll obviously doesn't apply to you, don't take it. what's with people these days that they have to force themselves where they obviously don't belong and then complain that they're being discriminated against?

I think you're taking this a bit too seriously. I tossed out a couple of hypothetical examples because the OP was using hypothetical polls that he thought could have only two answers. He was incorrect.

In scientific polling, it's up to the pollster, not the individual person being polled, to ensure that they are part of the proper 'demographic' for the survey. We also assume that the respondent is answering honestly. For instance, a political pollster may be looking for 'likely voters' or 'registered voters' and asks questions up front to weed out those who don't qualify.

None of this has anything to do with silly message board polls which are completely unscientific and only put here to generate debate. I would suggest, however, that if someone plans on posting a poll on a public message board, they should anticipate that ALL readers will want to participate. It's not as if we have that many participants around here anyway... it seems we'd want to be encouraging activity, not inventing ways to discourage it.

In any event, there are plenty of polls around here I've ignored. Not because they don't apply to me. But because I'm simply not interested in them

:2wave:
 
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I think you're taking this a bit too seriously. I tossed out a couple of hypothetical examples because the OP was using hypothetical polls that he thought could have only two answers. He was incorrect.

In scientific polling, it's up to the pollster, not the individual person being polled, to ensure that they are part of the proper 'demographic' for the survey. We also assume that the respondent is answering honestly. For instance, a political pollster may be looking for 'likely voters' or 'registered voters' and asks questions up front to weed out those who don't qualify.

None of this has anything to do with silly message board polls which are completely unscientific and only put here to generate debate. I would suggest, however, that if someone plans on posting a poll on a public message board, they should anticipate that ALL readers will want to participate. It's not as if we have that many participants around here anyway... it seems we'd want to be encouraging activity, not inventing ways to discourage it.

In any event, there are plenty of polls around here I've ignored. Not because they don't apply to me. But because I'm simply not interested in them

:2wave:

I was not incorrect about the yellow object question.
 
I was not incorrect about the yellow object question.

Really? Then you should have little problem pointing out the exact positions on this chart where orange becomes yellow and yellow becomes green...

spectrum.jpg


:2wave:
 
Suppose I ask you if something like:

Is this object yellow?

You cannot select other because it makes no sense. If you do it means you are undecided and using "other" as an excuse for answering the question without putting enough effort into making decision. The fact that something is yellow or not is a FACT, there is no other.

I have given you two examples, the yellow example and the fingers example.
Please explain a reason why someone would select "other" on those questions.

I'm colorblind so I would absolutely need an "other" option. Also, color is not intrinsic to the object itself, it is actually the color of the light NOT absorbed by said object, so to answer the question accurately, I would need an "other" option. ;)



For the fingers on the right hand question:

If I was born with a genetic defect and I have two right arms and two right hands, but one right hand has 5 fingers while the other has three, I would have to say "Other"

If I have six fingers on my right hand, I would obviously then have 5 fingers on it, so technically I could say "Yes" but it is an inadequate response while saying "no" would be totally wrong and thus is not an option.

EDIT: Example of having extra left arm:

arms4vw.jpg
 
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Like I said, its going nowhere.
 
The biggest question I have is why is it that some people are so opposed to posting an "other" option in their polls?


Did an "other" option rape their horses, burn their women and ride off on their village -or something like that- when they were kids permanently scarring them emotionally to such a degree that they now have made it their life's work to seek out ways to eradicate the option off of the face of the planet?

Or are they just averse to allowing for the possibility that their black and white view of things just may not be the reality?

I think it absolutely has to be the former, as the latter just seems far too unlikely. Like a unicorn ridden by a leprechaun battling a dragon for the virtue of a 25-year-old hot blond virgin kind of unlikely.
 
Ok then I give up my arguments.

I learned something then. I guess I'll add other to every poll I make.
 
Ok then I give up my arguments.

I learned something then. I guess I'll add other to every poll I make.

I hope that's not what you believed the point of my posts were. My point all along is that it's silly to worry so much about these polls.

Just make the poll any darn way you feel like and don't worry about it.

;)
 
I hope that's not what you believed the point of my posts were. My point all along is that it's silly to worry so much about these polls.

Just make the poll any darn way you feel like and don't worry about it.

;)

Well yeah I guess I understood that too.
 
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