Why not make the "Best of" nominations proper polls?

[Algernon Sydney is Dead]

Why not make the "Best of" nominations proper polls? The choices are all discreet and known in advance.

The current method is not scalable due to the whacky plethora of ways people express their choices. (Although writing scripts to parse last year's nominations was more fun than doing the crossword that day).

Polls can be multiple choice.

The one hiccup is that currently, the forum only allows 20 poll items at a time. But that is easily remedied by the instructions here...

I have prolly skipped over this in the ACP, but is there some way to increase the number of poll options from 20 to X?

admin panel ->
general ->
post settings ->
Maximum number of poll options

[Algernon Sydney is Dead]

I guess one reason, to require a post to nominate, is it makes it easier for mods to suss out possible account shenanigans. But this hasn't been a problem in the past, right?

Of course, the site admin can always do this (and better) by divining the server logs.

[StalinSays]

When the devil demands an advocate, ASID is there. Fair question though.

When we have refined the lists down to 5 finalists, and the actual vote is taken, we will use polls, no questions there.

Nominations to my mind are better loose/wacky. People sharing their reasoning is nice, in that it could possibly influence others, or encourage others to selectively re-listen. Traditionally this phase is more conversational. It's a celebration of the diversity of opinion that exists. Every story is someone's favorite (etc etc).

It could be argued that the nomination method is a bit confusing. I would counter that it is no more confusing that picking from a poll with 35 options. Or close to 60, if we're talking art.

Being that authors haunt the forums, empathize with a desire for discretion. I don't have a counter there.

[StalinSays]

I guess one reason, to require a post to nominate, is it makes it easier for mods to suss out possible account shenanigans. But this hasn't been a problem in the past, right?

2011 is our first year for conspicuous people's choice shenanigans, yes.

A poll doesn't entirely fix that though. Unless I'm missing something, we're shackled to the honor system either way.

Secondary question - facebook polls, we fine with those? We have almost 800 facebook fans, which isn't too far off the forums' grand total. Despite the discrepancy in sum total, I would assume a matching total of 'active' users, as facebook'er are more recently gained, by and large. Unless there is an objection, I think it would be nice/inclusive to have an official tally taken in both spots. Relying on the honors system that folks aren't doubling up.

[Algernon Sydney is Dead]

A poll would make it to where only the site admin (whoever has access to the hosting account) could investigate account shenanigans. Ordinary mods need a post from each person (not just poll votes) to compare forensic information on "hinky" users.

The poll is for convenience, not security (but a savvy admin can more than make up for that).

~~~
I'm against all things Facebook. If it were up to me, each FB vote would count -1. But, alas, if DC fans use that infernal site, then you gotta do what ya gotta do.