On Polls and Voting...

[tamingmods.livejournal.com]

Ok...so I've felt this way for a long time. I kind of let it go as this was one of the main features of the comm, but seeing as now that we're having trouble keeping up with the polls (not to mention how time consuming they are to assemble) I wanted to do some research.

I've gone back and checked the last 10 weeks, and my feeling is that the polls don't do much.

Here are the numbers. For the dates listed, I logged the max number of votes that any single story got and here they are: 

24-Aug	2
31-Aug	2
7-Sep	2
14-Sep	1
22-Sep	2
28-Sep	2
6-Oct	2
13-Oct	2
21-Oct	3
26-Oct	3
2-Nov	1

Every week there are quite a few stories (sometimes more than half) that don't get votes at all.

Based upon that, I don't feel that the polls are being that useful to our authors. I think, if this is a feature the members would like to keep, we should probably redefine their purpose.

Are we trying to help authors improve?
Are they for identifying writers that don't meet the minimum threshold?
Something else?

As members what would you like to get out of the polls? And what would make you vote?


~tamingmods (calypso)

Comments

[jans-intentions.livejournal.com]

Well, I feel that taming is most useful in helping us post every week. I do believe that the wide world of readers can accept or reject our work.

So I vote to carry on as we are but nix the voting. J xx

[alexfoster451.livejournal.com]

Maybe if we go to just comments, a weekly template could be posted for people to copy and use to help encourage commenting? Like the current weekly post explaining the voting system. Just a thought.

~ Alex

[thismaz.livejournal.com]

That's a neat idea. If people thought it was workable.
The problem I perceive is that people don't like saying things that could be taken as negative, for fear of hurting a writer's feelings. Anyone writing in a com like this probably hopes for con crit (although generally, I think more people say they want it than actually do *g*).
A template that prompted for both things well done and enjoyed, and things that caused questions, might work? But it is asking the commenters to be quite brave.
Sorry, not much help here.