Can anyone tell me what good "DUing" an unscientific internet poll does?

[RB TexLa]

[Harper_is_Bush]

1. What good does scratching your nose do me?

[RB TexLa]

2. I have seen no one post "scrach this nose"

[me b zola]

5. How 'bout "scatch your ass"?

:shrug:

[Harper_is_Bush]

26. Let me explain....

The intention is to demonstrate that regardless of how YOU feel about it, it has value.

You are a member of the choir, so perhaps you don't preceive any benifit. To the masses it could affect perceptions.

[nam78_two]

3. symbolic zing for our team?

:shrug:
Thats why I take part in internet polls unscientific or not. If I come across a poll and I have strong views on it, why not put in my lefty vote :shrug:?
It takes like a second...

Besides most internet polls I come across seem so skewed right and I find it annoying :)

[longship]

29. I like this answer. Don't discount the "symbolic zing" factor.

What really is important about DUing these polls is that media people are trumpetting their results, in spite of the fact that they are near rubbish. Thus public perceptions can be affected by them, albeit not very significantly.

We'll take all the help we can get.


Ahnold for Boosh (video)

[shraby]

4. Two words....public perception. n/t

[me b zola]

Bingo. n/t

[spacelady]

7. Absolutely. That's how most get their opinions. n/t

[nam78_two]

12. sad but true :-/

[grytpype]

15. Yep.

It shows we're here and it shows we rule the Internet.

[DocSavage]

34. I work

with a bunch of republicans, and they live for "DU this poll" threads. There is a message tree of lots and lots of people that go to the polls and vote as we would. They take great enjoyment in reading the follow on threads on how "America supports us" We Mean somthing".

The the big picture, they are meaningless, fun for some and life blood for others.

[charlie]

6. Not much

Except that media bobbleheads cite those polls on air, which would allow wingnuts the cover of having popular opinion on their side if we didn't weigh in.

[existentialist]

8. well, at least it might help persuade

the American public that such as we are not just a lunatic fringe element, and thus to help us continue to move beyond being just a lunatic fringe element (that happens to be much closer to being informed, knowledgeable, and basically correct on a wide range of issues than the administration, the beltway based pundits, and the mainstream media.)

[Random_Australian]

9. Influence sheeple.

Sheeple sometimes vote.

[NNN0LHI]

10. Moral booster? I dunno? You tell me

Is this a trick question?

Don

[RB TexLa]

23. not a trick question, I just have never seen any value in it

Just wondering if others did.

[karlrschneider]

11. None whatsoever, but it gives us a small sense of validation.

The illusion of "winning" has, I believe, at least the effect of keeping us 'in the loop', as it were.
Whatever practical utility as might obtain is probably less consequential than the fact it adds one more small voice to the cause. I always think that 'something', no matter how small, is better than nothing at all. :-)

[soothsayer]

13. It's an attempt to counteract 'freeping' (they stuff the ballot boxes)

[babylonsister]

17. Bingo! And some are fun! It's easy to do, and why not?

If we ignore them, only freepers vote, what good is that?

[OwnedByFerrets]

21. And that is precisely why

they are absolutely useless. They freep them, we DU them. These polls mean NOTHING. But I still vote in them.....sick, isnt it. :evilgrin:

[conflictgirl]

33. But if we didn't DU them

It might lead some people who actually do pay attention to them to think that the freep POV goes unchallenged. Since the freep view is already the dominant one in the media, the last thing I think we need to do is let them think they speak for all of us.

[Jackpine Radical]

14. None that I know of.

[Bjornsdotter]

16. We like to click? n/t

[Ghost in the Machine]

18. yeah, what karl said in post #11......

I couldn't agree more and couldn't have said it better... except maybe.. pure self-satisfaction

[lynne]

19. Absolutely ZIP -

- the ability to easily manipulate online polls has made them a joke. Anyone who is online enough to bump into one of these polls has certainly been online enough to know they are worthless so their value for public perception is pretty much nil.

Entertainment is the only value I see and that's a big stretch.

[gulliver]

20. It's a win-win.

Sometimes they actually report the results of these polls on the air. Sometimes they say the pools are "unscientific," meaning Junior's supporters will be more likely to believe them.

[charlie]

24. "more likely to believe them" LOL

*applause* *whistle* :D

[AlamoDemoc]

22. I can never understand Lou Dobbs' CNN poll either...hmmm! polls, polls!

[orwell]

25. Nothing...

...other than feel-good pseudo activism...

[Warren DeMontague]

27. At least as much good as ignoring it does. nt

[Gman]

28. It all goes back to 2000 when

during the FL debacle, a CNN poll was freeped by FR and others. That poll asked if Gore should concede. Overwhelmingly the results were yes because of the freeping. Bob Novak on CNN used the poll as solid evidence that America wanted Gore to concede.

DU came about in early 2001, but DU'ing polls was one of the first things we started doing.

[mikelewis]

30. These polls let the media know we exist...

aside from that, it's meaningless fun.

[lapfog_1]

31. Very often, the MSM reports the results of these polls

and the sheeple don't make the distinction between an internet poll and a scientific poll.

a poll is a poll.

If we contribute to "DU" some poll or other and our side is the majority, then when the MSM reports it,
it MIGHT cause one or two people to rethink their positions (as it is natural to want to be on the
"winning" side or with the majority).

If we get one or two middle of the roaders to lean our way come election day... it's worth the 5
seconds of my time to put my thumb on the scale of an "unscientific" poll.

Plus it's fun to tweak the noses of the right wingers (every day in ways great and small).

[ProfessorGAC]

35. And, Even Though They're Not Scientific. . .

. . . and they say so (like on MSNBC), the sentiment gets out over the airwaves. So, it's strong PR if nothing else.
The Professor

[conflictgirl]

32. People just like answering polls?

I think mostly it's just to counteract the freeps doing the same thing to the polls. I don't think anyone really takes these polls seriously, but I do think some people pay attention to them. The freeper point of view already dominates the media. If we DU a poll, it at least gets our voice out there in some small symbolic sense.

[Catchawave]

36. Shows the media

that we are out here and care about certain topics.