December 05, 2004
Wondering Monkey: I run part of a small
website devoted to information useful to students attending my (northeast art) school. Specifically, I have been charged with the task of writing new and entertaining polls to draw people into the site. To give you an idea of what I mean, look here. I was just wondering if any helpful apes had any ideas for an entertaining or interesting poll I could use.
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My suggestion for a holiday poll: the weather outside is (a) frightful, (b) delightful, (c) putting me in the Festivus spirit. I think the best poll you've run so far is this one. It's the results that amazed me. I would have voted for "this one".
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I'd recommend a mix of silly/humorous and serious. If you are at a school, then there may be lots of issues in which students would like a voice (a poll can provide an underground way of communicating peeves with the power of numbers). Questions can be multiple-choice such as "What do you like best about [insert your institution]?" Think about questions that reflect the FLIP side of earlier questions: "What do you like least about [insert your institution]?" You might also simply scan the news for question topics (Do you agree/think this is right/think the sentence was too lenient?) Searching Google for "poll archive" will turn up a long list of questions that various web sites have asked. They may trigger some fresh ideas for you.