http://qs1969.pair.com?node_id=185423

Vote on this poll

42 votes
[bar] 20/5%
512 votes
[bar] 31/7%
666 votes
[bar] 48/11%
1024 votes
[bar] 91/22%
1337 votes
[bar] 81/19%
What?
[bar] 149/35%
420 total votes
Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Polls should be closed at
by Hanamaki (Chaplain) on Jul 26, 2002 at 10:12 UTC
    Polls should be closed after a specific time has passed. The specific time which must pass before the poll will be closed should be decided by some sworn Oracle, Federal Certified Prophet or if not available by a Tibetian or Sillicon Valley Lama. In cases of emergency the Lama can be substituted by a Camel.
      I agree. Polls should be closed when
      • a week passes
      • it becomes apparent what the outcome will be
      • when CowboyNeal gets sick of the CowboyNeal option in the poll
Re: Polls should be closed at
by NaSe77 (Monk) on Jul 26, 2002 at 08:08 UTC
    Polls should be closed when there is a new poll ;)

    ----
    NaSe
    :x

Re: Polls should be closed at
by belg4mit (Prior) on Jul 26, 2002 at 06:03 UTC
    What, no 640? I'd say 1024, or 10% of the active users, or less than n new votes in the last m hours?

    --
    perl -pew "s/\b;([mnst])/'$1/g"

      After all... 640 votes should be enough for anyone, right? ;)

      Seriously, the poll should be closed 1)when someone with the ability to set a poll has a kickin' new idea and the current poll has been up long enough (subjective) 2)the rate of votes per day approaches zero (assumes predictable vote pattern of type y=1/ax). Of course, you can't close a poll unless there is a new topic. If there are no new topics in the poll queue, then the topic default should be some sort of "Future poll topics I'd like to see are:" question, with options being some seed ideas like "Favorite foo", "Most frequent foo", "Perl foo", "General Programming foo", "Life, the Universe, and Foo".

Re: Polls should be closed at
by japhy (Canon) on Jul 26, 2002 at 17:33 UTC
    I think they should be closed when voting slows to a particular rate.

    _____________________________________________________
    Jeff[japhy]Pinyan: Perl, regex, and perl hacker, who'd like a job (NYC-area)
    s++=END;++y(;-P)}y js++=;shajsj<++y(p-q)}?print:??;

Re: Polls should be closed at
by danichka (Hermit) on Jul 26, 2002 at 05:22 UTC
    I was hoping for a 777 option to balance out the 666 option.

    use Your::Head;
      Personally, I think it would be safer to use 775 or 664, although if you're really paranoid you might consider 770, 660, or even 700 or 600.

      -- Mike

      --
      just,my${.02}

Re: Polls should be closed at
by Albannach (Monsignor) on Jul 26, 2002 at 14:50 UTC
    Well of course it depends on the desired confidence limits doesn't it? Underspecified terms of reference are the bane of consultants...

    I would also like to confirm that the bars will be open during polling hours, or else I'd say close the polls at 11am. I know that will be a sharp restriction on many people's consumption patterns, so I will leave the timezone unspecified.

    --
    I'd like to be able to assign to an luser

Re: Polls should be closed at
by thelenm (Vicar) on Jul 26, 2002 at 14:12 UTC
    To quote Bill and Ted: "69, dudes!"

    -- Mike

    --
    just,my${.02}

Re: Polls should be closed at
by agentv (Friar) on Jul 26, 2002 at 17:22 UTC
    ...I believe that the size of the responding population is important, so this is a relevant question. My guess is that 512 is a high enough number to plateau among this population.

    I've never understood this aspect of statistics, but certainly there is a point at which the answer will not change by gathering more responses.

    I like the practicality of the principle that a poll should close when a new one appears.

    But perhaps my favorite observation in this thread was that a poll could close when the number of responses per day tails off. This ignores the issue of changes to the poll. Above a certain point, there won't be any change to the outcome, so some might conclude that this is the only important factor. What I didn't consider in my first thoughts on this matter was that although a poll might have reached a stable point, that doesn't mean that someone here wouldn't want to put in their two-bits worth. (Of course it should be someone who either doesn't understand statistics, or isn't voting in the hope of affecting the outcome, but rather with the objective of communicating their opinion. Or both. :-))

    Is it structurally possible to leave polls open after they've been relegated to the archive? Someone's home node recently led me to the set of old polls. I was hoping to find more polls to vote on and discovered that they are read-only. I would like it if I could back-fill by voting on old polls and adding to their threads. But I'm funny that way. (And I probably qualify as a member of the "both" category described above.)

    ---v

Re: Polls should be closed at
by theorbtwo (Prior) on Jul 26, 2002 at 14:22 UTC
Re: Polls should be closed at
by smitz (Chaplain) on Jul 26, 2002 at 08:20 UTC
Re: Polls should be closed at
by rozallin (Curate) on Jul 28, 2002 at 13:54 UTC
    In my humble opinion, polls should be closed when the number of votes has reached above 10% of the number of registered users and the number of new votes per day is equal to or less than one. That way, you get a general indication of the feelings of the Monks and it leaves time for all the late stragglers or people who have been working too hard to vote before :) The exception to this should be when Something Important in the Perl World happens and a new poll regarding that has to be made. Just a thought.
Re: Polls should be closed at
by greenFox (Vicar) on Jul 27, 2002 at 03:08 UTC
    42? We miss you DNA :(

    --
    Until you've lost your reputation, you never realize what a burden it was or what freedom really is. -Margaret Mitchell

Re: Polls should be closed at
by blacksmith (Hermit) on Jul 26, 2002 at 19:14 UTC
    Why close them at all??? Just keep opening new polls and never close them.
    blacksmith
      Because that sounds suspiciously close to java programming...

      Matt
      ---
      Computer science is merely the post-Turing decline of formal systems theory.
      --???
        I'm sure that would be hilarious if i got it. Unfortunately, i dont. Care to explain?
Re: Polls should be closed at
by Popcorn Dave (Abbot) on Jul 26, 2002 at 19:58 UTC
    The 666 option should be reserved solely for those particularly devilish poll questions... (grinning, ducking and running)

    Some people fall from grace. I prefer a running start...

Re: Polls should be closed at
by krusty (Hermit) on Jul 27, 2002 at 03:26 UTC
    How about 101010, which is 42 in binary...

    Barring that, how about a new question every week or so at the capricious whim of whichever diety creates these polling questions?

    (perhaps this system sounds familiar to you)
Re: Polls should be closed at
by Dog and Pony (Priest) on Jul 29, 2002 at 11:09 UTC
    A web poll should (and might automatically) be closed as soon as the number 500, or possibly 404 is encountered. ;-)
    You have moved into a dark place.
    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Re: Polls should be closed at
by choeppner (Pilgrim) on Jul 26, 2002 at 15:53 UTC
    Close the poll when votes = number of monks
    or the next poll is created.
Re: Polls should be closed at
by hsmyers (Canon) on Jul 26, 2002 at 20:00 UTC

    I'm happy with the rule of AACW™ (Arbitrary And Capricious Whim) currently in force! Or not--how can you tell?

    --hsm

    "Never try to teach a pig to sing...it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."
Re: Polls should be closed at
by talexb (Chancellor) on Jul 27, 2002 at 19:12 UTC
    I agree to a time limit. Perhaps one week, to be closed early if votes trail off to less than 5% of daily visitors per day.

    --t. alex

    "Mud, mud, glorious mud. Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood!"
    --Michael Flanders and Donald Swann

Re: Polls should be closed at
by Phaysis (Pilgrim) on Jul 28, 2002 at 12:14 UTC
    Cowboyneal!

    Erg, um, I chose 666, b'cause it's a nice, round, happy number. Funny how the writer of Revelation picked that number: when you take the number values of each letter in the original language, you create a new number. It was only fitting that the writer, being forcefully exiled by his government, calculated this number and wrote about it. The name used to calculate that number? "Nero Caesar".

    I wonder what other names equate to 666 (heh, sounds like a project to me...must do more research!). Kinda also deflates all the heavy SatanMetal of the 80's and 90's, and makes all those "EvilKids" you went to school with, who had that number etched with a knife into their books and folders and whatever else, kinda look like misguided fools. Y'know? Ah, smalltown life.™

    Let he who has wisdom calculate the number of a man, for it is the number of the beast. That number is six-hundred and sixty six.
    Revelation 13:18 (one of the few scriptures I know)

    -Shawn
    (Ph) Phaysis
    If idle hands are the tools of the devil, are idol tools the hands of god?

Re: Polls should be closed at
by malaga (Pilgrim) on Jul 29, 2002 at 08:15 UTC
    Half the time I forget to check if there's a new poll because of the length of time in between polls. maybe a "New Poll" alert at the top of the screen would be cool. Or if we knew every Monday was a new poll - something like that.
Re: Polls should be closed at
by cybear (Monk) on Jul 29, 2002 at 10:18 UTC
    1024 would be my first choice. Scientific polls use a sample of 1000+,
    thus making our MonkPolls appear more reflective of reality, dispite reality.

    Although I think that a group of monks devoted to the betterment of humanity
    would have at lease offered a 777 to counter-balance the 666 (the number of The Bill).

    A set time would, of course, allow you to determine whether the Voting Booth question is stupid or not.

    In conclusion... what was the question again?

Re: Polls should be closed at
by mitd (Curate) on Jul 31, 2002 at 20:58 UTC

    Polls should be closed when the results are correct +or- 2.4% 19 times out 20.

    mitd-Made in the Dark
    I've always been astonished by the absurd turns
    rivers have to make to flow under every bridge.

Re: Polls should be closed at
by spacewarp (Pilgrim) on Jul 31, 2002 at 18:44 UTC
    1024 was actually my second choice. My first would be that a poll should be closed when Fnord.

    Spacewarp

    DISCLAIMER:
    Use of this advanced computing technology does not imply an endorsement
    of Western industrial civilization.

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