Believe it or not, there is a method for soliciting abstract binary reader opinion on DU

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

The poll.

If you want to know how many people like Obama, despise republicans or are ready to give key-lime pie its day in court you post a poll.

Example:

Do you oppose Genocide?

Yes

No

This has obvious advantages over "K&R my thread if you oppose genocide" posts.

For one, the recommend feature exists here for no other (intended) purpose than to steer readers toward good posts... posts a lot of folks thought were worth the trouble to rec. No matter how much one agrees that genocide sucks there is zero reading-experience worth to a thread of 100 "yes!" replies to the proposition that genocide sucks.

Why rec such a post, no matter how much one abhors genocide? Is it a post full of valuable content that folks really need to read?

Why would users post threads soliciting readers' view on something in a form other than a poll?

Three reasons come to mind...

they want their name on the front page, they want the front page to be a content-free collection of slogan posts, and the biggest one...

the K&R format creates false concensus, discourages dissent and buries all trace of dissent should dissent be found.

Polls on DU are often embarrassing for those who pretend to speak for "most of" DU. They routinely evidence dissent... often majority dissent. But the "K&R my thread!" post doesn't have that problem because most Duers are just not particularly interested in rec'ing and unrec'ing threads. It seems a children's game.

And it is poor netiquette to barge into content-free posts of people patting each other on the back. When I see a post like "K&R if you think Obama's Afghanistan policy is correct" it doesn't cross my mind to open the thread an un-recommend it, regardless of my view. Why disrupt some group's consensus party?

Almost all rec based activity on DU seems to be dominated by a DU subset who are, for whatever reason, into recs, and that population is not very representative of the whole.

Evidence: It is routine to see polls where an overwhelming majority support a proposition yet the poll is net-unrec'd. A population of unreccers who are keenly interested in controlling the presentation of fact and opinion on DU take the step of unrecc'ing a poll. It doesn't occur to most people that a poll should be rec'd or unrec'd.

I am not talking about absurd polls one might sensibly unrecommended for being lame polls, like "Should Obama resign tomorrow?"

Try it yourself. Post a poll like "Should Geithner be fired?" or "Should the US get out of Afghanistan?" or "Has President Obama done enough about unemployment?" and you'll find a surprising consensus for the inconvenient answer and also find that the post with the poll will end up net-unrec'd.

If 80% say Geithner should be fired then that 80% are responding to a poll question to voice a somewhat controversial view. Do bunches of people take the trouble to open a poll, vote in the poll to say someone should be fired and then say "I also want to seek to minimize people's exposure to the opinion I just took the trouble to express."

Riddle me this Batman... who disapproves a question being asked? Those who do not like the answer. Those unrec'ing a poll that is not facially absurd are presumably mostly (not all, but disproportionately) people who don't like the answer.

It's an amusing phenomenon.

DU is a system, and like any system it can be gamed. Soliciting support for a position using a DU function that is not designed for or suitable to discovering actual DU opinion is a game... particularly when the powers that be took the trouble to have a function on DU that actually does solicit opinion, and reports the full results for all to see.

But it is a game that works.

Why does this honk me off if it's all so trivial? Because the dynamic is my least-favorite thing in the world, which is gaming people's decency. (Like when a hitch-hiker robs someone who picks them up.)

The only reason the "K&R me!" thread works to create false consensus is that it doesn't cross most DUers' minds to un-recommend threads.

It is a good thing about DUers that most are not motivated to play a cliquish, cowardly game of anonymously black-balling opinion. The decent reticence of the average Duer to jump into someone's thread to unrecommend it is not something to be gamed.

If one wishes to claim consensus then post a poll and demonstrate it.

PS: Please do not rec this thread. It obviously has no place on the front page. Thanks!

[Jackpine Radical]

1. Unrec this thread if you think K&H used the word "reticent" incorrectly.

Seriously, the "Rec this thread if…" threads have been a strong pet peeve of mine ever since people started doing them.

[Kurt_and_Hunter]

3. Gee, thanks... Now people will think I misused reticent and then edited it!

:hi:

[tekisui]

2. Yep.

That is the long and short of it. I don't know what the post count required to start reccong and unreccing, but it is not all that high. Anonymous readers could rec and unrec day in and day out without once posting a comment.

[TexasObserver]

4. Voting in a poll is not the same as recommending the thread.

Voting in polls is something many posters love to do, and will do if given a chance.

Voting in a poll is not the same as recommending the thread in which it is placed. I'll vote on a thread asking if I think the war in Afghanistan is dumb, but I won't recommend the thread unless it's more than just a poll someone slapped up this hour. Many of the threads you mention are posted daily here, if not more than once daily.

There's NOTHING special about most polls here, and if all someone does is offer a poll, I very likely unrecommend it. Even if it's one of the standards - such as asking if we should get out of Afghanistan - I unrecommend polls, because they're trite and they don't really mean anything.

If you want to talk about a topic, if you want to discuss something important, find an article from a good source, discuss it intelligently, and pose an interesting OP. I'll read it and recommend it. If you just want to slap up another poll about whether Bush is a bad man or Obama isn't doing as much as I'd like, that's going to catch a lot of unrecommends.

In summary, you - like all those who attempt to ascribe to "unrecommenders" a set of values that don't meet your lofty standards - miss the point of recommends and unrecommends. It's not a popularity contest. It's not an up or down vote on the poster who posted the thread. It's what it is, and nothing more. The problem is your wanting it to mean more than it does.