Yesterday blogger Erik Bako posted a critique of the daily reader's poll that appears at the bottom of the Bakersfield.com homepage.  His main criticism was of the often tongue-in-cheekish text that accompanies the “yes,” “no,” and “maybe” choices, and he was concerned that poll participants could be forced to make a false choice, or not participate at all.  Why, he wondered, couldn’t readers supply their own rationales behind their answers?

I spoke with our web editors in the newsroom here, who choose a poll topic at their daily news meeting and are charged with writing a poll question for the following day.  The daily reader’s poll has been on the Californian’s website for years, and was one of our first interactive features to solicit reader feedback.  In a world of blogs and other internet-based venues for the expression of personal opinion, today’s reader’s poll is produced purely for entertainment value.

As such, the wording that follows your affirmative or negative answer choices is chosen with that in mind.  The web editors have gone back and forth between concise and wordy, and seeing no effect on the level of participation either way, have decided to err on the side of fun and lively versus dry and boring.  The occasional complaint comes in from a reader whose opinion wasn’t included, but such is the nature of this kind of polling, which collects data from a limited number of diametrically opposed choices.  Again, we could reduce the answer choices to a straight “yes,” “no,” and “maybe,” thus avoiding the issue, but the web editors take the risk in the name of producing an interesting poll question that more readers will stop to answer.

The nature of the polling software again precludes “write-in” answers—but that’s the beauty of the Bakersfield.com blogging community.  Anyone can write their mind on the topics s/he cares about, and anyone can comment, respond, agree, disagree.  Multiple venues for multiple ways of participating in this community and contributing to civil discourse and debate—that’s what Bakersfield.com is all about.

So, what do you think about the homepage polls?  Here, you don’t have to stick with “good,” “bad,” or “indifferent”—tell me what you think, and why, and I’ll make sure your thoughts get read by the people who want to know what you’re thinking.