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Web polls aren't scientific, but they're fun
By ANNA JOLLY
Assistant News Editor
I simply cannot resist an online poll. It’s kind of a strange fascination, but I know I’m not alone.
Just look at those fellow addicts voting at the cnn.com poll.
There are tens of thousands of people just like me.
Or maybe there are thousands of people like me who vote repeatedly throughout the day.
Writing the polls for the pressrepublican.com site has shown me how random and truly untrustworthy Web-poll results can be.
Friends have told me they skew results for fun. I vote on my own question — but just once a day — and I can picture people on two sides of an issue clicking every hour to hammer home their point.
For example, the typical poll that runs on our site for two days gets about 200 to 300 responses.
When I get 800 responses to one question, I figure either our site has had a banner day or someone in cyberspace is pretty upset.
Even though I have first-hand experience with the unruly nature of expressing anonymous opinion by clicking a box, I still find myself falling for those meaningless questions every time.
Trust me, the polls are certainly not scientific, but they sure are fun.
