Forum:Poll Rules

Here are the current rules we have about polls: One_Piece_Encyclopedia:Forum_Rules.

The problem is, they do not apply to non-forum polls—at least, not explicitly. It is important to be explicit in rules, to avoid disputes about their interpretation. It is especially important when these rules deal with polls!

In this forum, I'd like that we discuss whether these rules should apply to any "official" poll, and if not, how talk page polls should be different.

While we're at it, there are a few "loopholes" in the current rules that we should correct (both in forum and talk page polls). Here's what I think should be added: If you can think of anything else, of course, we're going to discuss it too.
 * the obvious fact that the poll shouldn't be modified after it has started (end date or questions—there are exceptions to this, that must be discussed here and formally stated in the rules);
 * implied by the previous point: the fact that a poll should be agreed upon before it is started;
 * the fact that anybody can change/withdraw their vote at any time (or not).

Discussion
Personally, I think the rules should be extended to talk pages. The only thing that should be changed is the duration. Sometimes two weeks is too long for a talk page poll (and even for a forum)…

A mandatory 2 weeks is kind of excessive. I presume you made this forum for the rather insignificant poll about the unreleased content stuff, which is a prime example of a poll that doesn't need to run for 2 weeks. Changing a poll after any votes have been cast should make them automatically invalid and the people that have voted already should be informed so that they may vote again. Sometimes changing a poll is necessary for better wording/clarification, it's just unacceptable to do it without prior discussion. Aside from that, the forum rules seem plenty applicable for talk pages as well. 13:29, January 19, 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, I feel that these rules should be nearly identical for all polls, and the only that that should change for different polls is the time for each since in some cases 2 weeks is a bit ridiculous. I think we should decide on the times for different scenarios now though, so that nobody makes shit up all the time. Here are a few of my timing suggestions:
 * Standard/most polls should be 2 weeks by default, and no poll should be less than a week (with one exception).
 * Two-part things like admin elections or ban forums should be 2 weeks total (1 week nominations, 1 week voting, or 1 week ban or not, 1 week how long the ban is.)
 * The exception being chat mod polls which run rather smoothly with a 6-day run time (3 days nominations, 3 days voting) because chatters are frequently on every day.
 * Any talk page poll about deletion of a page/category/whatever should be moved to a forum (copy/paste all the related talk page content to the forum, like I did with Forum:Fansub Page) where there should be a 2 week poll.
 * Any poll about different versions of a picture should just be one week, and the poll should take place on the talk page.

My rationale for these times is how likely a person is to notice and vote on a poll in its later days. We don't want to make every poll too short, otherwise semi-infrequent editors will never be able to vote on things.

There should be examples of the poll made before the poll starts, and we should generally standardize the format of them (we could possibly make a template or something so it's easier to make a poll as well). And I think minor changes to the poll such as minor phrasing alterations or formatting corrections that make the forum can be done without prior notification as long as it's done as a separate edit from someone's voting and the edit summary is used. Otherwise they should be discussed in the forum. Votes should only be invalidated though if the alterations would effect the outcome (ex another outcome is added/or one is removed).

As far as people changing their votes mid-poll, I think this is acceptable (as long as it doesn't happen in a way that breaks the rules here). I've changed my vote a few times because something that was said in the ongoing discussion has actually changed my mind. If people can't change their vote, then it makes any discussion that occurs after the poll starts completely useless, and lessens the chances of compromise or endings everyone could be happy with. 15:30, January 19, 2013 (UTC)

Like sff9 said, I think polls rules should be general and not limited to forums, though I prefer not to make rules too strict or we may regret them later. I quickly read the forum poll rules and, assuming we are extending them globally, there are some changes and additions I'd like to discuss: Ok these are mine suggestions.
 * Length: I rather avoid setting specific length times, instead we can simply say that a poll can last either one or two week. The length will be decided by consensus during the discussion or decided by an admin if that's not the case. This is just to make things easier.
 * Poll creation: this is something I think we should also discuss. I remember poll created hastily or with poor wording choice. Hence I think we should set some guidelines about this too, for example:
 * A poll should be created after an exhaustive discussion. Basically, "don't rush to make a poll, talk first".
 * A poll should be gone through a short trial period of a day before officially be opened to vote. This is to double-check with all user if the option's choices are fine and if there aren't any issue. I remember some polls where I disagreed with the wording choice, or other where the options were changed because there were some issue with them.
 * I propose that admins can cancel out a poll in the first week/3 days if there are some anomalies or irregularities, but only one time (or not?). This is to ensure a sort of "referee role". Note, that
 * Admins should add a notice to the site news about an ongoing poll. Sometimes I missed some poll because I wasn't even aware that they were started.
 * Other rules: I think any other specific one-time rule for a poll (don't know what they may be) can be decided upon poll creation, as long they don't go against the guidelines and they are approved by the admins.

Most polls should last 2 weeks and should only be on the forums. People don't notice talk page votes which is evidenced by the lack of votes that happened on the Unreleased content talk page until people were told to vote. SeaTerror (talk) 22:53, January 19, 2013 (UTC)

1 week is probably best. Waiting half a month for a poll to end when it's pretty one sided is stupid, or if all the votes possible are already cast. 22:54, January 19, 2013 (UTC)

@SeaTerror: most people won't notice any poll, regardless where it's placed, if it's not highlighted by admins in the site news.

@Galaxy: I disagree, or rather one week is fine for some polls but others require two weeks. This is why I suggested that it should be decided upon poll creation.

Polls should be allowed to take place on talk pages or forums, but I think that, as Levi said, they should be highlighted in the Wiki Activity. I personally think that in the case of admin votes, ban votes, or important forum decisions about wikia policy, then a two week vote should be used. In the deletion of pages, translation problems, or other issues, there can be a one-week poll. Other than that, I think we should go with Levi's proposed set of rules. A poll should not be started until the topic has been discussed in its entirety, and we definitely need some regulations on wording. I remember in Seaterror's forum where half of the discussion was over poll wording and not about the issue at hand. 23:36, January 19, 2013 (UTC)


 * I'd like to add some revisions to my response. To simplify things, how about one-week polls on talk pages and two-week polls on forums? In addition, the problem concerning "vote rigging", where people convince others to vote a certain way, needs to be addressed. I personally don't think that it matters, and that some people need to grow a spine, but we should discuss this. 02:35, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Sounds fine PX. 02:36, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Two weeks is already the voting rule anyway. We would need to revote on a whole new system if we try to do it that way. SeaTerror (talk) 02:54, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

^ For forums. Not all pages. 02:55, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Only you and Sewil believe that crap. SeaTerror (talk) 02:59, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

You keep assuming the wrong thing. Plenty of people believe it, because it's fact. 03:01, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

In fact, this forum wouldn't exist if Sff didn't believe it. Inb4 only you, sff, and sewil do. 03:02, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Not assuming at all. It isn't a fact either. You're making it up to meet your own agenda and trying to exploit a "loophole" that doesn't even exist but putting it on a talk page. The voting rules is for every single vote meaning that votes are two weeks long. The only vote that has a separate rule is for voting on bans. SeaTerror (talk) 03:03, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

The point of this forum is to make sure that this doesn't matter, so let's keep to the topic on hand. It's already been established that forum rules are two weeks long, so what's it going to be for talk pages? 03:04, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

ST. It's in the forum rules, not talk page rules. This forum obviously wouldn't exist if they mattered for talk pages. Px too now. Anyways, on topic, they definitely should be universal, so that the incident doesn't happen again, 03:05, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Alright, so is everyone is agreement with the two-week polls on the entire wiki? take into account chatmod elections, where the current rules say that the vote is only a single week long. Are those going to be changed, or should those be left as a special case? 03:07, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

No. Not 2 week polls. 2 weeks is way too long for the poll we had on that talk page. 1 week max for those. 03:08, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

If not noticing a poll being active is the problem, then just contact me or another admin to place it onto the site news. And 2 weeks for a simple poll is too lengthy. For something like a category talk, 1 week should suffice. 03:09, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Alright, so talk pages one week, forums two weeks, mod elections one week. And polls currently active are to be reported to an admin to be posted on the site news. Any problems? 03:10, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

I lkie that much. 03:13, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

I already told you what the problem was. The voting rules applied to every poll meaning every poll is supposed to be two weeks. We would need to vote on the rules again to decide what to do with votes on each thing so nobody can try to "exploit" the nonexistent "loophole" again. SeaTerror (talk) 03:15, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

I agree pretty much with what PX said, except for a few special cases. Talk page polls are actually fairly rare in the grand scheme of things. Most of the time talk page discussions get settled before things become polls. I think that cases of deletion discussions, we should move things to a forum if a poll needs to take place, making it two weeks. Most talk page issues are minor, except for deletion issues, which I think are too serious to be settled in a week. Also, people should use their heads, and if something on a talk page poll would affect more than just the page the talk pages is attached to, any poll should be in a forum, not on the talk.

And for what ST said, according to the forum rules, if we can get a clear majority to agree that we should apply the forum rules to talks, we may not need a poll in this forum, ironically enough. 03:20, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

How about we just rename the forum rules "Discussion Rules"? That way it covers everything without us having to get bogged down on specifics. 03:24, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Community consent seems to be that one week forums are acceptable on talk page issues. I don't think that deletion votes should be moved to forums, but I do agree with votes that affect more than the page itself. Merge votes, renaming votes, and simple deletion votes can be kept to talk pages, but policy votes must be on forums.

DP, I have no idea what you are talking about. 03:26, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

PX, this kind of thing is the reason we have the Candidates for Deletion forum. 03:29, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Why don't we use that, actually? According to the page, it hasn't been used for almost a year now. I don't really care either way, but let's just set one. 03:31, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Well, the suggestion to move it there was met with some hostilities. 03:44, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Because you tried to move it mid poll. 03:45, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

So was it the moving or the extending or both? 03:47, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Because you tried to extend it and move it on the day before it ended. That's why we should have a "poll start time" of 1 day after it's made so that people can object. Maybe longer, idk. 03:48, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

The rules were already listed as two weeks for everything, PX. That's why I said we would have to revote on new rules if people want talk page votes to be a week only. SeaTerror (talk) 03:48, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

There have been discrepancies. We should carry on with the assumption that those rules were only intended for forums, and that there are currently no written rules for talk pages, whether or not you think it's true. On that note, here's what we apparently have so far. Now, if we want to adapt the forum rules' policy on vote influence, that would be added to this too. 03:56, January 20, 2013 (UTC)
 * Forum polls are two weeks long. Talk page forums are one week long. Chat mod forums, as previously established, are one week long.
 * All polls are to be reported to an admin for placement in the wiki news.
 * Deletion polls are not allowed on talk pages. They are to be moved to the Candidates for Deletion forum and subjected to a discussion and two-week vote if necessary.
 * Before a poll takes place, a trial poll will be created to make sure that none of the wording is off. At this time, poll duration and voting options will be confirmed so that nothing will interfere with the votes mid-poll.

But only two people even assumed those rules only applied to talk pages. This is why we would need to revote on old rules and vote on new ones like you are suggesting. SeaTerror (talk) 04:03, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

So then why not just write something into the forum rules that say they apply to talk pages as well? 04:06, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Yeah, and plus JSD admitted that he forgot to mention that when writing the rules and I believe that he intended that it applied to all the pages. Or something similar to that. 04:10, January 20, 2013 (UTC)
 * Yeah, when I wrote up the rules, I didn't know it was actually possible to have a poll on a talk page because there hadn't been one (that I am aware of) since I became an editor. I had intended the rules to apply to all polls, but what I wrote down was in language that was for forums only. So, what I'm taking out of this is pretty much what PX just said, currently they don't really apply, even if I had intended them to, so let's just fix that right now. 04:30, January 20, 2013 (UTC)


 * Just for reference, polls on talk pages are usually to debate on its deletion or not. Unofficial One Piece Podcast is one that had a poll, and quite a few images have had polls on their talk pages as well. 05:24, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Ironically enough Yata set that poll for two weeks. SeaTerror (talk) 05:32, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

About the length, why do you want to set at all cost a length beforehand? Can we just decide that case by case? We can simply set the possible lengths, like one and two weeks. This because even a forum poll can be "not much important" hence two weeks can be too long, the same goes for talk pages.

The length, whether it should run one or two weeks, should be up to the discretion of the person who makes the poll. I agree with JSD, it would be easier to modify existing rules rather than create a whole new set. 18:56, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

The poll should never be less than a week then. I say we should redo the entire system and revote on each vote rule. I say all deletion votes should go for two weeks though. SeaTerror (talk) 20:05, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

I'm simply not seeing why we should redo any poll length votes. What we have right now is that all forum polls are two weeks, right? And all deletion polls must be on the Candidates for Deletion forums, right? (If they aren't they should be) Therefore, all deletion polls will be two weeks.

Concerning the variable length proposal, sure, it would be nice, but this could lead to more argument. I think it's better to have a set length for polls on talk pages and forums, instead of just determining it when the poll is created. 20:53, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

About the trial poll, I think its minimal duration should be stated explicitly in the rules (one day is OK, not less). Another idea: to avoid a poll going on unnoticed, it could be stated that the poll cannot start before an admin place it in the site news. About changing an ongoing poll: in some cases it could be allowed, to add examples and the like. See what happened for the manga/anime infobox switch. About variable poll length, I'm afraid PX is right. This could lead to a poll for deciding the poll length. *Shivers*

That is what I have been saying the entire time. SeaTerror (talk) 22:35, January 20, 2013 (UTC)

Polls can totally be edited if it's to clarify/correct the options, there's no reason to make a big fuss over that. Polls should be allowed to be edited if it's to make them in-line with the rules if the rules have been ignored. If the poll is very much against our rules, it should be void/null.

Regarding Sff's idea about admins having to place the poll in the messages before they start, this is pretty good. (my only concern is the timing of admin responses. What ever happened to that "Administrator Noticeboard" idea discussed in the recent election forum?) The admins should also actually start the poll when they place in the messages as well. 06:18, January 21, 2013 (UTC)

Polls should be edited only to make them in line with the rules we currently have which is the 2 week thing. We have to make poll lengths consistent or else just have everything on the forum so nobody can try to exploit a non-existent "loophole" again. If anything I do support the idea of revoting if people try to get people to vote for an option they want and banning the people from the next poll version. Banning accounts goes too far. SeaTerror (talk) 21:44, January 21, 2013 (UTC)

Bump. Remember that we have another poll riding on this forum. Can we say that forum/deletion polls are always two weeks, while other poll lengths can be established at the time of the poll's creation. However, this length must be between one and two weeks. Finally, the forum and poll must be posted to the site news before the poll can begin. 02:29, January 24, 2013 (UTC)

Everything sounds pretty much ok to me. I'm not sure why anyone would want a poll to be something between 1 and 2 weeks, and not one or the other. Seems kind of hard to keep track of to me, but I only really care about the minimum being too short. Also, chat mod elections should be 6 days, like I said above. 02:37, January 24, 2013 (UTC)


 * Well I don't like the variable rule thing either. I think that we should just set an ironclad rule for forums and talk pages (or one for each, but no more) so that this isn't as confusing. But people here seem to support it, so why not? 03:00, January 24, 2013 (UTC)