This is something I've been thinking about off and on for a little while now. There are threads on this forum that have devolved into, essentially, some members taking shots at others due to polls suggesting that people on the forum don't care about a particular issue, or worse, think differently about it. The polls themselves are so often undercooked to the point of being unreliable indicators of much of anything, but let that slide for a moment. These posters then argue that the forum sucks, or that the moderation sucks, because such people are clearly allowed to *exist* on the forum, but don't get their deserved ban because they don't post about their opinions. To make things more confusing, it's usually suggested that we simply *must* have conversations about these things, but then the people who would have the opposing viewpoints don't post. They don't post for the obvious reason that is, more often than not, their opinion isn't 1) welcome, or 2) wanted. The lack of these people posting is then interpreted, I think incorrectly, as a lack of people caring about an issue. Sadly, I think it does mean that they care about the issue, but that they totally disagree with a premise.
In other words, does it seem to you that polls and Era's reaction to certain kinds of opinions have produced a chilling effect in which posters with gross opinions are allowed to continue being on the forum so long as they do not produce gross opinions in any form that isn't via a poll? If so, is that -- and I say this with all due respect to how serious these problems can be -- as problematic as we want to believe? Like, I'd personally rather have a forum where there are nasty opinions that people don't feel comfortable sharing but those people are present on the forum, than one where people do feel comfortable sharing their nasty opinions (and are summarily banned). The later seems like it is far more debilitating in terms of outcome, though I could be wrong.
Either way, it would maybe be a good idea to retire polls on the forum for these reasons. They are used very often to be indicative of a problem in Era's user base, or as a way to circumvent rules about having shitty opinions, but without context I don't see how the polls can be healthy or useful. But I'm curious about your take on it, since you seem to have put some thought into this as well.
