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Poll Creation Guidelines

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Giving Polls a Face-Lift We want to start by thanking all of you who have taken the time to create, vote, and participate in the discussion around polls. We love getting the community’s view and appreciate all of you for taking the time to share great products with us and others. However, as we’ve continued to grow, the poll section has become increasingly cluttered with duplicate polls, poorly organized options, and sometimes irrelevant polls. We realize the current poll system wasn’t built to support a community as large as we have now, so we’re working to revamp them in a meaningful way. We’ll be rolling out changes, both in the immediate future and over time, to make polls better at gathering information from our community. As the first major change, we’re rolling out new guidelines to better organize new polls and providing clear guidelines on when polls are closed or deleted. New Guidelines & the Bucket System We’ve introduced a new system that uses specific titles to tag posts and allows us to sort these posts into specific categories, or “buckets.” Below, we’ll explain and break down the use case of each bucket: Product, Best Of, New, and Community. With this new bucket system, it’s now required that you assign all new polls to their appropriate grouping by using the correct bucket title. Going forward, this will help with searches and overall navigation through polls.
Single Product Poll: [Product] A consistent pattern we’ve noticed in the polls is that a few highly desired products quickly dominate any polls they’re added to (e.g. the ATH-M50x). We’ll always continue to source these products if we haven’t already, and we can use a simple “yes or no” system to measure the interest in them. Removing the most common winners will help reduce duplicate polls with the same item in first place, and will also drum up interest for other, lesser-known products. Formatting:
  • Title: [Product] Insert name of product
  • Option 1:
  • Title: Yes
  • Image: Image of product
  • Option 2:
  • Title: No thanks
  • Image: For now go ahead and put any image here

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Comparison Poll: [Best Of] You know you want a new keyboard for gaming, but which model is best and with what kind of switches? Which one is most likely to succeed with a group? Let the community help you decide. We’ll try and source the most popular items in the poll, starting with the winner. This bucket of polls is probably the most common and familiar when compared to the old polling system. If something like the ATH-M50x shows up, that option will be disabled so that it doesn’t keep other options from getting a chance. Formatting:
  • Title: [Best Of] Insert title of poll
  • Option 1:
  • Title: Insert name of product #1
  • Image: Image of product #1
  • Option 2:
  • Title: Insert name of product #2
  • Image: Image of product #2


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New Product Poll: [New] These polls are for products that are pretty new on the scene, but are still very exciting. They might not have a ton of reviews yet, but they have great potential. Unfortunately, in our old poll system, new products often went unseen because the same item would overshadow everything else in the poll. Polls in this bucket should contain lesser-known or more recently released items. Formatting:
  • Title: [New] Insert title of poll
  • Option 1:
  • Title: Insert name of product #1
  • Image: Image of product #1
  • Option 2:
  • Title: Insert name of product #2
  • Image: Image of product #2

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Community Poll: [Community] Sometimes you just want to talk about the headphones you use most or your favorite pair of selvage denim jeans. Or maybe you want to get the community’s opinion on the best brand of sewing machine for quilting. These types of polls might have a much broader scope and encourage submissions from other members. Show off your new setup or something you made yourself to get the conversation going. “Share your _______” conversations would also go here. For Option 1, insert a picture and title for your own setup or favorite item. For Option 2, get creative. You can put something like “Post your own!” or you can add pictures of cool setups you’ve seen online. Formatting:
  • Title: [Community] Insert title of poll/discussion
  • Option 1:
  • Title: Insert name of your ______
  • Image: Image of your _____
  • Option 2:
  • Title: Post your own
  • Image: Insert a picture

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Poll Closure or Deletion Guidelines In the past it’s been unclear what justifies the closure or deletion of a poll. For part of the reboot we want to help clarify how we decide what to do with polls after they’ve been made or reach the required vote count. Polls can be closed for a small handful of reasons and they are as follows:
  • The poll was successful! The top product is up on the site and the poll gets linked to the page with an email being sent out to everyone who voted. The poll’s voting section is closed, but the poll remains visible and discussion can continue.
  • Sometimes the top product is unattainable, but #2 and #3 are a go. The poll will again be linked to the active drop and an email sent out to those who voted. The poll will close down for voting, but discussion will remain. Just because we couldn’t get the top product this time around however, doesn’t mean we stop trying to get it. We’ll record the #1 winner of the poll and periodically check in with the vendor about running a drop. If it ever becomes successful the people who voted will receive an email. If the same item continually shows up we’ll create a Product poll for it so that interest in the item can be measured on a running basis.
  • The poll is impossible. Sometimes a poll gets created with a list of amazing items, but none of them are possible. Some of the most commonly voted on items that we can’t run include things like Apple products, video game consoles, and PC components. Some day these might be possible, but they are currently not feasible so these polls are simply closed.
  • The poll is inappropriate. With power comes great responsibility, and also a huge risk of abuse. Often times a poll will be created simply for laughs or to offend. While we appreciate your sense of humor, they are simply not appropriate for the site and will never be a source of new products. These kinds of polls will simply be deleted and removed from the site.
  • Stagnation. Sometimes the poll is filled with great products and some of them are even feasible, but for one reason or another the poll just stops getting voted on. Often times it will stall out and then get buried. Hopefully the new system will help prevent this, but it will still happen. To help maintain a fresh cycle of polls we will begin clearing out polls that have not received at least 50 votes in the past 30 days. These polls will be closed down, but the discussion left open, and you’re always encouraged to try again if this happens.

(Edited)
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