Originally Posted by Malorn
Whether something is a good idea or not should stand on its merits and the quality of the idea, not what random forum idiots think of it.
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I am not disagreeing with the idea that rules could promote better quality polls. As you said, "Polls often force people to make decisions before they even read the posts...", and I agree with that. The idea of discussing an issue for a few days and THEN adding a poll makes perfect sense. But the idea of avoiding polls altogether does not, because numbers do matter. So, if you want only moderators to be able to make polls that sounds reasonable to me, as long as there is not a secret policy in place in favor of rejecting requests to add polls for fear that the majority might vote in a way that's considered undesirable to the powers that be. As long as the thread goes on long enough for varying viewpoints to have been presented and rebutted, that's what matters.
And so, I would say, that a procedure for requesting a poll be added is needed. I.E., thread must have at least 50(or 100 or whatever) posts, and/or have run for at least 5 days, and so forth.