Anime polls and the rules

[Ryllharu]

As much as I'd still be for it, this is becoming a logistical nightmare.

To avoid spoilers in the titles, you have to just go with episode numbers, and while that doesn't spoil people who avoid it, there's really no telling what spoiler lurks beneath. Without diligent moderation, there could be huge spoilers underneath a thread title that was intentionally misleading.

---------------------------
Title: Rei or Asuka? Evangelion [episode 1-14]
Post: Shinji [spanks it to Asuka's unconscious body ] in one of the movies
[ spoiler removed just in case ]

So...Rei or Asuka?
-----------------------------

It also somewhat defeats the purpose of knowing what the poll is even about. The latter is a minor point, but it kind of defeats the purpose I think.

[shinta|hikari]

What I meant by vague is not putting in details, like "Which is your favorite death in Naruto, I****, J****, K*** or O****"

Instead, you can simply put in, "Most awesome death in Naruto"

The episode numbers were my idea in the first place. I just used "1st season" as a limiter since that seems to be a more realistic division when it comes to the actual practice.

[Kraco]

Are these genuine concerns for the hypothetical poll system, or are you just unsatisfied with the current anime discussion spoiler rules? By default this would mean nothing but auxiliary threads in addition to the main series discussion threads, with the purpose of allowing polls, which aren't technically possible with only one discussion thread per series. It's not like it would be General Anime v2 with only the Law of the Jungle in effect.

Few people break our current spoiler rules, and I rather think it's mostly due to the people themselves wanting to preserve our current excellently smooth system than any fear of repercussions. So, I don't see why the poll subforum would suddenly become such a huge nightmare.

Besides, Narutos and Gundams make poor examples here, because they have their own forums. This poll subforum would only serve the short anime present in the General Anime.

[shinta|hikari]

It is in fact the fear that the rules might be broken that people are discussing such concerns.

The problem with polls is, the title is generally quite descriptive of what the content will be (ie "Who is the better swordsman?" rather than simply being "Rurouni Kenshin"). This being the case, there is quite a high chance of people being spoiled as they simply browse through the (still hypothetical) poll section.

There is also the issue of combining content from different shows, which might spoil people who have not seen a series involved in the poll.

Even if people are generally good as you believe them to be, many will probably make unintentional errors if there are no clear-cut rules in place.

As for the Naruto and Gundam examples, just replace the "Naruto" with any other anime title, and the problem remains the same.

In short, there are factors involved that are simply not there in the general anime sub forum.

I am not saying that it is going to be a big problem, but for the sake of this idea (which I very much support) to come into being, it would be best to minimize the risk involved. A sudden outburst of spoilers in the poll section right after it is created will certainly doom its existence from the get go, so I say what I do to convince those who are hesitant (like Bud) to go ahead with it.

[Kraco]

I think most of these concerns could be handled by having a sticky rules thread in the poll subforum, containing the stuff already mentioned in this thread:


1) Poll threads may not contain information from manga/novel/game sources not yet introduced in the translated anime.

2) Poll thread titles may not contain explicit information that could be considered a spoiler by a person not watching the series, for example:

1. Which one had the best death scene in show X: Character A, B, or C?
   - Implicates those characters will die.
2. Which one of character X's 4 mechas was really the best in show Y?
   - Implicates the character X will switch/lose his mecha several times.
3. Which girlfriend of character X was the most tsundere in show Y?
   - Implicates the character X will break up a number of times with his various gfs.
4. Should character X have paired with character B or C rather than A in show Y?
   - Already specifically tells with whom the character ended up with.

3) A poll thread will by default allow discussion on all the subbed episodes, same as the main series thread, unless explicitly limited in the poll thread title, for example:

1. Best mecha in show Y?
   - All seasons and episodes subbed so far. Everything if show is finished.
2. The most tsundere girl in show Y season 1?
   - Only season 1 discussion allowed, no matter how many eps of season 2 subbed.

- - - - - - -

Looking at the point 2, it would indeed need careful consideration to name a poll thread and avoid spoilers of any kind, that's true. However, it should also be noted that something written in the series description (AniDB, ANN) isn't really a spoiler most of the time. I guess most people will want to know something about a show before starting to watch it, so not everything explicit is a spoiler.

[gos27]

polls would be really good ! we could find out which are the most popular anime among people !

[Archangel]

And Archangel, shut the fuck up. Most, if not all of your suggestions are a piece of shit.

Cranky are we?

/pats Munsu in the head

So how is this idea going? It seems to have had quite a positive reaction from the forum so what are we waiting for?

[Kraco]

So how is this idea going? It seems to have had quite a positive reaction from the forum so what are we waiting for?

This isn't a democracy so regardless of what the members desire, the top brass does what the top brass wants. And secondly Complich is a busy man with places to visit and visits to place, so it's better not to be impatient or hasty here, even if something had chances to happen. Besides, with Bud, the other person who could do it, against the idea, I wouldn't be holding my breath. Like I said in the beginning, this idea had no groundwork done.

[complich8]

busy like a fox! (seriously, I bet they're pretty busy what with the rodent-hunting and all. But I'm too busy to research that, which in turn disappoints me a bit).

Anyway, yes, I can see a decent reason to rearrange that rule set a bit, but I'm not confident that polls are a good driver of discussion. I mean ... if someone asks you a question with three choices, there's only maybe 8 or 9 posts that can reasonably follow that before the thread contents get absurdly redundant. "Well, I like Horo better because she's a freaky wolf-chick!" "Well, I like Kallen better because she's Kallen goddammit!".

Poll structure is also pretty limiting. You've basically got a short list of questions, when a lot of things you'd want to ask are pretty open-ended. Like, the horo/kallen topic could be better expressed in terms of favorite voice actors and their ranges.... for example talking about how some voice actors end up typecast as exactly the same damned character across 15 different series (eg: secondary love interest in a romantic comedy) where others get cast as different roles and different characters. Or how some voice actors are so easily-identifiable that they can't help but be typecast (eg: Norio Wakamoto), where others have dozens of voices and make up a new persona for every role they play. But asking "Which voice is better: Cell or Onsokomaru" in a poll leaves no real room for anything but a stilted discussion, where "Who's the most versatile voice actor" or "who's the most recognizable voice actor" or any of a dozen other similar questions leave the whole question open.

So yeah... I think that asking cross-series questions doesn't really fall into the "one thread per series" rule, but I'm not really in favor of the constraints that the "poll and thread" format place on the discussion.