Authored by: KelBrown on Thursday, September 9 2004 @ 11:24 AM CDT

This poll, like most of your polls is a lot like an American election; You want to participate but the choices are limited.

The choices in the most recent poll are like choice between having gruel or nothing at all to eat. The question is not just whether or not we like the new iMac but whether or not we like it more than the old one.

Next time give me some alternatives. Perhaps:

Do you like the new iMac?

Yes
No
The G4 iMac will always be the best thing Apple ever did.
Give me Bondi Blue or give me death.

Authored by: Aaron on Saturday, September 11 2004 @ 12:22 PM CDT

Like an American election? That's a pretty ironic statement, considering
Shawn is a Canadian. There are so many differences between an opinion
poll on a website and the American election process that your analogy is
worthless. Please, save your politics for the proper forum and don't inject
them into topics that are in no way related.

Any poll such as this one that has a self-selecting sample and a (usually)
open-ended question with a choice of answers that doesn't exhaustively
cover every possible response isn't meant to be an accurate, scientific
representation of the thoughts of a group. It's meant to stimulate
discussion about a topic, and possibly be fun, and you've missed the
entire point.

Authored by: KelBrown on Tuesday, September 21 2004 @ 12:56 PM CDT

Listen Aaron. I could on about the falicy of the American elections all day but that's more fun that one person should have in a lifetime and I have laundry to do so time is short.

The polls on YML don't offer enough choice to spur conversations. If I like the new iMac but not more than the G4 then I choose a. but it's a specious result. I'm not asking for the uncoutable number of possible answers just more than yes or no. The slashdot polls, while often silly, at least offer some room for discourse. The only time a yes or no poll offers the possibility for debate is when the result is 50/50 and with a question reguarding new hardware answered by Mac enthusiasts it's either going strongly one way or the other.

Authored by: Shawn on Tuesday, September 21 2004 @ 02:10 PM CDT

"The polls on YML don't offer enough choice to spur conversations." Dude...you are reading *way* too much into the polls. They are just a question. A simple yes or no will suffice. No one is forcing you to answer either way and, if you want to "spur conversation", there are forum threads already doing that.

Authored by: KelBrown on Wednesday, September 22 2004 @ 12:32 PM CDT

I don't bother to click on polls because I like the sound the mouse makes. I'm a stats whore and I wanna know what the concensus is and I want to participate but without an answer that means anything you might as well be guessing the mass of Steve Job's belly button lint (which, while silly, is actually a funny poll whose answer doesn't matter but is worth answering anyway).

Actually these few posts are inane and I've become more than just a little sad that I both precipitated and participated in them.

Better polls in 2004, please. Too much to ask?

Authored by: Shawn on Wednesday, September 22 2004 @ 02:03 PM CDT

"Better polls in 2004, please."

Better....how?

Authored by: KelBrown on Wednesday, September 22 2004 @ 03:49 PM CDT

This sounds like a make work project but I'll bite anyway.

If this was the first iMac, then "Do you like the new iMac?" would be a great question. There was no precedent for the iMac so the question would have given you some real information.

Now that we've seen several versions and revisions of the iMac we have a lot to compare it too so the question is about as revealing as asking "Do you like original iMac?"

What I want to know is where the current iMac sits as compared to the others. It's a nice small set (original iMac, Flat Panel G4, G5) so you survey hasn't grown out of control but now you've got some real information.

Questions I'd like to see:

What Office Software are you using:

MS Office for Mac
OpenOffice
StarOffice
Emacs is all anyone ever needs

Audiophile or Easy Listener? How are you encoding your music?

Apple Loseless (If I can't hear the wind flapping in Steve Tyler's lips, it's not music)
AAC 128
AAC 192
ACC 256 or >
MP3 128
MP3 192
MP3 256 or >
...

The state of Mac Gaming?

Doom3, Warcraft3, Unreal Tournament 2004, do I need to say any more. Mac gaming is alive and well.
There's games for the Mac?
I bought an xbox/ps2/nintendo rather than wait for games to come out on the Mac.
Don't tell Steve, but I have a PC just to play games.

Where do you go for Mac News?

Apple
MacCentral
MacMinute
MacSlash
AppleInsider
Slashdot
I RSS feed everything.

Authored by: Shawn on Wednesday, September 22 2004 @ 06:09 PM CDT

"This sounds like a make work project but I'll bite anyway."

And did you ever.

I think you miss the point of our polls. They are just for minor bits and
pieces of information. They are not the end all, be all of information
sources you seem to want them to be.

Authored by: OurBill on Sunday, September 12 2004 @ 09:41 AM CDT

The "stimulate discussion" motivation for a poll is a reasonable
proposition. That said I often wish there was an other category. The first
with it's 5 choices had it covered. The "Do you like the iMac? poll might
have had a "have not decided" category. It's a small thing.

Well I decided and the poll is still up. I like it.

Other than the original iMac which I liked from the get go. (Apple had not
created a "wow" in quite a while at the time.) I have always been a little
circumspect when Apple introduces a new product which emphasizes
design as much as (maybe even more then) functionality.

Perhaps the test of really pushy design must knock us all back on our
haunches initially. Maybe that is the difference between nice and wow.

---
Gak!