Is it possible to add a poll to each of the episode comments?

[Dex]

I see it is possible to start a poll in the "About the Pod" section.

Is it possible to add a poll for each of the Episode threads as they are started?

I would suggest something simple such as:

+3 - Strong Like
+2 - Moderate Like
+1 - Like
0 - Neutral
-1 - dislike
-2 - Moderate dislike
-3 - strong dislike

[eytanz]

Why?

I certainly understand (and very much appreciate) the ability to discuss the stories - that includes discussing our opinions of them. But I don't see why there is any need to grade the stories.

[SFEley]

I considered adding some sort of star rating system to the Wordpress blog early on.  After a lot of thought, I decided against it.  The experience of a story is too individual; knowing that one story was rated 4.5 stars on average and another was rated 2 stars doesn't mean that a given person flipping through the site wouldn't love the 2-star story and hate the 4.5-star one.

I like it when stories spur discussion or debate (as long as it's well-tempered), and hearing individual opinions about what elements of a story worked or didn't work has some value to me in future story selections.  A simple numerical score without context is far less valuable, and one worry I have is that enabling it would be an "easy out" for fast feedback and may inhibit some of the comment volume we have now.

[Dex]

Why?
I certainly understand (and very much appreciate) the ability to discuss the stories - that includes discussing our opinions of them. But I don't see why there is any need to grade the stories.

Basically the feedback could help with story selection. it would give the editors and idea about what kind of stories are of interest to their listeners - what works and what doesn't.  The does not preclude comments being made.

[SFEley]

Just to be clear: you're welcome to post polls on the stories if you want to.  As you said, anyone can do so; it doesn't hurt anything, and if people find it interesting and want to cast their votes, that's great.

But I can't promise you that it will have much -- if any -- influence on my story selection.  I'm interested in people's expressed opinions, but I'm not running Escape Pod as a popularity contest.  I expect that most listeners enjoy the stories more often than not, or they wouldn't keep listening, but I don't consider it essential to get a thumbs-up from every listener every week.  It's nice when everyone loves a story, but it's not my only goal.

[Russell Nash]

I think if you read reviews on Amazon or IMDB you'll see what I have against the idea.  Some people givve these incredibly well thought out reviews and give the movie 7 stars (or something somewhere near the middle).  Then some moron comes and just says, "Angelina is hot." and gives it 10 stars.  The morons always have more sway, because they always vote 1 or 10.

Oh yeah, also a second on everything Steve said.  I#m brown-nosing for that raise for the moderators.