General Election snap polls on boards?

clln

Just an idea but one that i would find interesting.
how about random snap polls in the politics forum and also in after hours.
what i mean is without warning a poll be started and locked after a given amount of time,that would not allow for organised voting.

It would be interesting to see how the politics forum compares to after hours in terms of how in touch those who are well up on politics and those members who do not follow every nuance of political debate agree/diverge reflect the actual result.

on top of that General election polls of any type are always interesting!

when the actual GE results come in it would also be a great demonstration of how boards actually reflects Ireland and its people.
it would also demonstrate if boards appeals to just certain sections of society or all of Irish society,
go on Boards, go for it and demonstrate that the site belongs to all not just the chattering class's but also the plain people of Ireland!

Rabidlamb

Hear hear.
I wish to press the FF buton everytime with my 24 alt logins.

No, good idea, go for it.

sceptre

There's a pretty sophisticated general election poll almost ready to go live - details will be pimped heavily as soon as it's ready to be available to the general public. It'll be interesting and hopefully will give a good idea of voting intentions both nationally and on a constituency-by-constituency basis. That's the main reason we've not gone near a Politics forum general election poll - this will be bigger and significantly better than anything that can be done with a regular vbulletin-powered poll.

Apart from that, what sort of issues do you reckon would be well-served by a few snap polls? The Politics forum has at its core discussion rather than anything else but I'm not personally necessarily against the idea if it's useful and has a good point behind it. There are issues with people potentially gaming the system though, regardless of whether a regular poll lasts 24 hours or 24 days (and we're a bit wary of people pointing to a regular poll in Politics to support whatever their view on the point of discussion is).

clln

sceptre wrote: »

There's a pretty sophisticated general election poll almost ready to go live - details will be pimped heavily as soon as it's ready to be available to the general public. It'll be interesting and hopefully will give a good idea of voting intentions both nationally and on a constituency-by-constituency basis. That's the main reason we've not gone near a Politics forum general election poll - this will be bigger and significantly better than anything that can be done with a regular vbulletin-powered poll.

That sounds great and thanks for the reply sceptre!.

Apart from that, what sort of issues do you reckon would be well-served by a few snap polls?

i did not know about the sophisticated poll coming up.
why i would like some snap polls is to see how they compare to the snap polls that will come out on an almost daily basis i am sure over the coming weeks in all media.
It would track what parties are going up and down as seen by boards members,then a poll of boards polls after the election would help to show how representitive of Ireland Inc boards is.

i have a notion which could be nonsense and not the fault of boards as it cannot control who joins the site, that there is more people of a right wing nature who post here than reflects the reality of Ireland,i would be interested to see after the dust settles if there is any truth in that.

i realise the dangers of abuse of online polls that is why snap polls and a quick close of the thread would help to minimise that abuse.

All the best.

Wolfe Tone

What about the amount of people who arent old enough to vote who will vote on the polls?

seamus

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

What about the amount of people who arent old enough to vote who will vote on the polls?

And not registered and not Irish, and so forth. The vast majority of boards.ie users are over 18.

There will always be outliers. I would expect the bulk of the people voting to be those interested enough to do so. Non-citizens, unregistered and underage people in general don't have a whole pile of interest in Irish politics and the aim is that the sample size should be large enough that such people who are "invalid" voters will have a negligible effect on the overall result.

After all, the likes of MRBI take polls too but they cannot be guaranteed that the 1,000 people they've polled are eligible to do so on the day.

The necessity for a registered account is particularly useful to catch anyone attempting to tamper with the system as sudden surges in sign-ups from particular areas can be stamped on and voided.

{edit: Some of that is not information that you've already known, I forgot . I've probably said a bit too much already. Rest assured your questions will be answered when it goes live.

clln

seamus wrote: »

Rest assured your questions will be answered when it goes live.

Tell me what time and day it will go live exactly?;)

Wolfe Tone

Super stuff lads.... quality.

Had a problem with the "undecided" icon not showing up though

Dravokivich

clln wrote: »

It would be interesting to see how the politics forum compares to after hours in terms of how in touch those who are well up on politics and those members who do not follow every nuance of political debate agree/diverge reflect the actual result.

Thanks for that...

TheZohanS

Where should we report an error with Candidates being listed in the wrong constituency?

Steve

TheZohan wrote: »

Where should we report an error with Candidates being listed in the wrong constituency?

There's a thread in the election forum.
http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056169599

The constituencies / candidates are being updated on a regular basis afaik.

Amhran Nua

sceptre wrote: »

There's a pretty sophisticated general election poll almost ready to go live

Good thinking all round on that one and a great implementation, the boards team really outdid themselves with that. It certainly helps bring the idea of voting to people who might not otherwise vote.

DeVore

you ask, we deliver ... heheh

4000 votes already, thats beyond our wildest expectations at this point. (the team have decided we'll be happy when we have over 9000 (dragonball-Z styleeee... j/k)

I dunno how many we will get now but certainly with those numbers that fast, this cant be seriously gamed at a national level and through the evening and night the numbers have remained steady.

I'm a very happy man today, this is 12 years of hard work being realised in another milestone.

DeV.

parsi

The Polling page is handy - it shows that two of the candidates in my constituency haven't bothered their barney to canvass in any form so far. They possibly hope to be voted in by virtue of not being members of FF.

sceptre

DeVore wrote: »

4000 votes already, thats beyond our wildest expectations at this point. (the team have decided we'll be happy when we have over 9000 (dragonball-Z styleeee... j/k)

I dunno how many we will get now but certainly with those numbers that fast, this cant be seriously gamed at a national level and through the evening and night the numbers have remained steady.

9000 would be fantastic.

But the optimist in me expects rather more than that. The little part of me that's a bouncing dancing idiotic optimist expects significantly more.

My name is URL

This is a brilliant initiative. Fair play and thank you to those who brought it about. The little tick box thing to acknowledge that you have participated is great too.. hopefully it will go towards engaging some of those who otherwise would have little or no interest in voting. Any way to make it more visible though? Perhaps add it automatically to people's sigs once they place a vote..

Zaph

My name is URL wrote: »

Perhaps add it automatically to people's sigs once they place a vote..

I think it really has to be optional. Some people are very private when it comes to voting, and for whatever reason they may not want it to be public knowledge that they've voted in the poll.

Wolfe Tone

The Small Print: The above figures are generated based on first preference votes. Once we have built up a sufficient number of votes for each constituency, full STV calculations will be used.

When will this be?

Zaph

I think the guys in the office are hoping to have the STV tallies live from Monday.

Nehaxak

Pimp it some more across the range of Distilled Media sites you're involved with, would be nice to see it hit a figure above 10,000 votes cast.

Brilliant idea though, well implemented and pretty nifty to look at and use.
Think Boards have hit the mark with this one spot on and ahead of the game from anyone else.
In fact, I'd reckon it would be the only poll out there that could be relied on at the moment because any ordinary users get the chance to have their say if they so wish to do so.

AckwelFoley

Great job to all involved.

Something like that takes a good bit of time to make i assume.

epgc3fyqirnbsx

It's very well put together. I'd imagine that it should get quite a few media mentions whch will be good for the site

clln

DeVore wrote: »

you ask, we deliver ... heheh

4000 votes already, thats beyond our wildest expectations at this point. (the team have decided we'll be happy when we have over 9000 (dragonball-Z styleeee... j/k)

I dunno how many we will get now but certainly with those numbers that fast, this cant be seriously gamed at a national level and through the evening and night the numbers have remained steady.

I'm a very happy man today, this is 12 years of hard work being realised in another milestone.

DeV.

Devore you are such a thanks whore!:D
I have just watched Storyville on BBC4 which was all about ex President of US R Reagan,it included a clip of JFKs Inauguration speech which i would like to paraphrase.

Boards asks not what it can do for its members,but what they can do for boards!:pac:

seriously this is terrific work by all involved in setting it up and twelve years well spent,yup Dev it was all worth that effort!
Congrats!

clln

sceptre wrote: »

. The little part of me that's a bouncing dancing idiotic optimist expects significantly more.

What do you mean the little part that's a bouncing dancing idiotic optimist sceptre?
surely being an idiot is a large part of you?:p
i would be surprised also if as you say there is not significantly more.
great work and thank you's!:)

sceptre

clln wrote: »

surely being an idiot is a large part of you?:p

Only after a hot date. I can't use my brain and my idiot at the same time.

Wolfe Tone

Zaph wrote: »

I think the guys in the office are hoping to have the STV tallies live from Monday.

no sign yet

clln

sceptre wrote: »

Only after a hot date. I can't use my brain and my idiot at the same time.

Lol, i will wear some protection the next time i take you on!

Zaph

Wolfe Tone wrote: »

no sign yet

Apparently they're now aiming for tomorrow afternoon. It seems that there are still some candidates missing and a couple of updates need to be run. Sorry for the delay.