The ‘Poll’ facility on the Fool discussion boards can be a source of great fun and, we hope, sometimes even a little insight. When you decide to create a poll, think of yourself as MORI about to commit resources to advancing human knowledge through an opinion survey. You are not just investing your time in designing the poll, you are asking everyone else in the Fool community to invest a little of their time in the hope of generating a little collective knowledge. As with any other investment decision, especially one involving the resources of others, please make it with care.
All of our other guidelines can also be applied to polls. In addition, when setting up a poll please also bear in mind the following recommendations:
- Use it for a serious rather than frivolous purpose
- Be constructive
- Don’t use a poll to try to insult another member
- Provide a balanced set of choices – don’t engineer the options to get the answer you want
- Always include a catch-all or opt-out choice, such as “None of the above”, “Not Applicable to Me”, or simply “I don’t know”
