A: Mostly nothing. After the poll closes, I usually review the results, think about them, and then make a post giving my own answer, as well as addressing any topics that came up in the comments.
I don't do any quantitative tabulation, publishing, or anything like that.
That said, it's possible to find the results of the poll using the Mastodon API, so if you don't want people to know your answer, don't provide it.
A: Mastodon only gives me 4 potential answers for polls.
Rather than having 3 options (Yes, Neutral, No), I use all 4 options, but give strong and weak versions of each answer (Strong Yes, Weak Yes, Weak No, Strong No).
The cost is there's no true neutral. Try to pick a Weak Yes or No. If you really can't, leave a reply. Or just don't answer the question.
Thank you. I'm now getting a clearer sense of you (while also, fairly happily, remembering how upset I was with that poll "everybody should code"). The other, more common approaches to question setting always aim to push responses into 1-dimensional boxes. Almost as if the question setter only wanted shallow responses.
I used to run regular polls and my attitude was always to interpret the text in whatever way seems most natural to the individual voter because part of what the poll is measuring is how people define terms.
I do a lot of polls on my account at Mastodon. I get the same questions or requests multiple times, so I made this FAQ to make it easier to reply. Q: Why do you do so many polls? A: I like to think…
Evan Prodromou
•Q: Why do you do so many polls?
A: I like to think about topics big and small, from the things we wear and eat to our plans for life.
It helps me a lot to see how much I differ from other people in the way I do things or the way I think about things.
I often ask questions like this to friends and family in person.
Asking online lets me ask a lot of people at once and get some rough quantitative ideas.
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQWhy
Evan Prodromou
•Q: What are you going to do with this data?
A: Mostly nothing. After the poll closes, I usually review the results, think about them, and then make a post giving my own answer, as well as addressing any topics that came up in the comments.
I don't do any quantitative tabulation, publishing, or anything like that.
That said, it's possible to find the results of the poll using the Mastodon API, so if you don't want people to know your answer, don't provide it.
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQData
Evan Prodromou
•Q: Can you clarify the question?
Q: What do you mean by X?
Q: Define X.
A: I usually will not do this.
I try to use English idioms as clearly as possible.
Sometimes the questions I ask apply in multiple scenarios or in different ways.
Over-specifying the terms would leave out some of these connotations and make it harder for people to connect with the poll.
If you need to, add your personal definition in a reply, and then use it for your poll response.
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQDefine
Evan Prodromou
•Q: How do I follow you without seeing all these polls?
A: If you need to, you can filter out the EvanPoll hashtag. I try to be careful to tag every poll.
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQFilter
Samir Al-Battran
•Evan Prodromou
•Q: This poll is not scientific!
A: No, it's not intended to be scientific. I am not collecting data for publication nor trying to prove any points.
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQScience
Evan Prodromou
•Q: Where is the option for "neutral"?
A: Mastodon only gives me 4 potential answers for polls.
Rather than having 3 options (Yes, Neutral, No), I use all 4 options, but give strong and weak versions of each answer (Strong Yes, Weak Yes, Weak No, Strong No).
The cost is there's no true neutral. Try to pick a Weak Yes or No. If you really can't, leave a reply. Or just don't answer the question.
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQNeutral
MidgePhoto
•Yes | Neutral |No
__
Orthogonal
Evan Prodromou
•Evan Prodromou
•Q: Where is the option for "never"?
A: When asking about frequencies of seeing or doing something, i will usually give four options: X or more frequent, Y, Z, N or less frequent.
If you never do that thing, pick the "N or less frequent". Never is less frequent than yearly or monthly or whatever.
If it's important to you that you point out that you never do this thing, leave a reply.
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQNever
Evan Prodromou
•Q: What does "Strong No" or "Qualified Yes" mean?
A: "Strong" means you emphatically agree with few or no reservations.
"Qualified" means you have reservations. It's the "Yes, but..." option. If you're not sure you entirely agree, choose "qualified".
Note that this is a secondary definition of "qualified" and has nothing to do with your skills or abilities.
https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/qualified
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQQualified
qualified - Wiktionary
en.wiktionary.orgEvan Prodromou
•Q: This question is vague!
A: This is usually intentional.
I want to know about how people feel, think and behave.
The most interesting questions in those areas are often used with very high level language.
That language is usually vague.
This can be frustrating for some people, who get uncomfortable with vague questions.
I'm sorry if that's the case for you. You're more than welcome to do something with your time besides answering vague polls!
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQVague
Evan Prodromou
•Q: Your next poll should be...
A: I am not a wedding DJ and I do not take requests.
If you have an idea for a poll, post it.
I often boost polls I find interesting, so make sure to tag it as a poll, and if I follow you I might boost.
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQRequests
Basil
•8
•- Yes, and should take requests (0 votes)
- Yes, but should not take requests (0 votes)
- No, but should take requests anyway (0 votes)
- No, and should make song requests (0 votes)
Poll end: 1 year agoEvan Prodromou
•Q: I can't believe you said this!
A: I sometimes make polls by writing out a statement and then asking if you agree or disagree.
This can be infuriating if people strongly disagree.
I've gotten better about putting the statements in quotes so it's clear that it's not me saying them. Sometimes I do agree, though!
I will usually say how I'd answer the poll after it's over. That's a good time to tell me I'm wrong.
#EvanPollFAQ #EvanPollFAQStatement
Tony Meredith
•The other, more common approaches to question setting always aim to push responses into 1-dimensional boxes. Almost as if the question setter only wanted shallow responses.
jonny
•glitch exposes n poll options as an env variable, and so u can use that ( I haven't noticed any features lacking from base masto, just additions) or see how they use it to change it on yr own fork 😀
https://github.com/glitch-soc/mastodon/blob/6a4be4e96677eb3e1303ddcab8f8b4bea7298453/.env.production.sample#L267
mastodon/.env.production.sample at 6a4be4e96677eb3e1303ddcab8f8b4bea7298453 · glitch-soc/mastodon
GitHubmcc
•Peter Brown
•Evan Prodromou
•Peter Brown
•Jason Grigsby
•Guillaume Ross
•Filipe
•Evan Prodromou
•Camilo Bravo :drumset:
•Evan Prodromou
•https://evanp.me/pollfaq
Poll FAQ
Evan Prodromou's Blog