Interactive Poll

Lorenzo has asked if I would be interested in starting the 2nd poll, so watch for that coming soon (hopefully tomorrow).  I'll post a link in this thread when it's up and running. 

Edited by TCat - May 23 2020 at 20:34

Gentle and Giant wrote: Lambchop - Up With People. One of my top ten songs of all time

Edited by jamesbaldwin - May 22 2020 at 18:47

kudos to all there was some really great stuff there.. very little of it I had heard..

moshkito wrote: Logan wrote: I listen to and mention Robert Wyatt very frequently. Admittedly he does'nt get much attention at PA for his "solo" work outside of Rock Bottom. I love lots of his albums. I also like the "not in PA" restriction. Was thinking about mentioning that you, Pedro, might like to do that when I saw your post. Hi, I kinda meant ... played as if in radio, not at home. Guy has consistently played his material since ROCK BOTTOM, and at the time he could not play RUTH IS ... because the import could not be found anywhere. To this day, RW's material gets played ... and sometimes the odd bits from other folk's albums as well. Too much of the "progressive" shows are about a sound and a style only ... they don't know what the word meant and are not interested in its meaning, because the top albums are already listed and set in some kind of paper mache stone!

I see, methinks I misread "when was the last time you EVER heard anyone playing RW?" as "when was the last time you EVER heard of anyone playing RW?

I actually heard Robert Wyatt playing, or at least singing, on the radio not that long ago. It was the Costello/Langer penned "Shipbuilding". I had the radio on in the car, and it played in full during a CBC radio music programme (Canada's national broadcaster). I had also heard Wyatt's "Sea Song" on the radio around the same time. I think I've also heard Wyatt's "Maryan" on the radio before (CBC again I think), but that was years ago. I don't listen to a lot of music radio. I used to hear interesting experimental music, including RIO-type music and Krautrock on the university radio. They played a lot of unusual music, especially late night. It depended on the hosts. We get some interesting music on the French language radio. Heard Harmonium many times over the years.

Edited by Logan - May 22 2020 at 08:31

Lewian wrote: Sorry for digressing but I'm just too interested in this discussion with Logan to let this go... Everyone just interested in music please don't read! Logan wrote: [/DIV...]He wrote in the OP: “When we have a definitive list of songs to vote for, each of us will vote for his three favourite songs (but first you have to listen to them! You don't vote at random! ;-))” I guess I’m just kind of old fashioned in that I tend to follow such directives. I like the idea of choosing three, but even if I didn’t I would still try to choose three as that was asked of me, and I like the idea of consistent expectations for the participants and that the participants try to follow the set guidelines/ expectations. If I set up a poll and ask people to do one thing, for instance, I appreciate it when people try to follow my guidelines by taking my poll question and OP into account. With others I might question their approach, but generally I try my best to meet their expectations rather than just doing things my way. While I like to consider myself to be an open-minded liberal, I’m quite conservative in some respects. I've got to say I tend to have the same attitude, so I get what you're saying. I tend to get annoyed with people who, if somebody sets up a game with some rules, come in to say "the rules should be different"... and then it's the typical thing where somebody gets annoyed with others doing the same thing they themselves tend to do... because I am very interested in rules and how to set them up and why, and I can well come in making such a comment myself. In any case there is always a limit to the range of rules and the authority of the person who set them up. If I don't find "three favourites", I can vote for three, but not for three favourites, so voting for just my two favourites in that case can be seen as no breach of the rules but rather interpretation of a case in which they don't apply. And then the other thing is, if we play games for fun, it's good to have good rules, but being too strict about them and putting too much effort into policing them takes the fun out of things... and that's meant as a a damn serious analytic statement.

When interpreting such a case, I think it's fair to discuss that with the judge before making your own own final verdict. The rules were set up from the beginning, and by participating we were asked to comply with them. That it wasn't perhaps as easy as we thought it might be doesn't negate the expectation.

If, despite giving it one's best shot, one could not find up to three favourites (say one had two stand out choices and all the others were completely equal), then one might ask Lorenzo if just two is fine. For another only one might stand out. If it were me, I'd find some excuse to choose a third, and might express that in my post even if I wasn't really satisfied with my choice. If the judge/OP didn't accept that reasoning, we couldn't come to a compromise and I was disqualified from voting, well, one adjusts in other ways. In the case you mentioned, if Lorenzo had a problem with it, then he could have said so. He didn't, so I don't care either way. At least by taking the posts into consideration, instead of just relying on the poll list, the dungeonmaster or gamesmaster can question the validity of the choices. And again that's one reason why I might favour write-in votes (casting ones votes in a post, and then having those tallied up) instead of relying on multiple-choice polls which can be misused.

Sometimes people are just in error as they misunderstood the expectations. Indeed, what bothers me particularly is that sometimes people blatantly disregard the expectations in an arrogant my-way-is-better-than-yours and follow their own rules, or tell you what the rules should be. I like to make suggestions when it comes to the process, but I try to respect the OPs wishes, and if the OP disagrees, well, that's fine. I can try it my own way for my own topic.

This kind of disregard and disrespect towards the topic starter's wishes happens in many different topics.   Someone might ask for something, and another tells them "You don't want that, this is much better" and "You should have done this or asked for this instead." It can be very patronising. I've played board games with people who don't want to play by the established rules, and it can be very frustrating. For instance, during a game of chess, "Didn't you hear that dog bark? In chess, the way it should be played, the white knight carries a magical lance that can obliterate the enemy within five minutes of the player hearing a dog bark if you are wearing a green shirt on the second Sunday in June provided your name is Gerald, so I win and you lose. Loser!" Okay, that absurd thing didn't happen, but incidents rather similar to it have happened. Back in my D&D days it could be really annoying when people would go really off-script.

In my case I had too many I really liked, but I bit the bullet and went with three. It wasn't easy and my mood at the time ultimately dictated the results, but I vacillated even as I posted those three. I didn't really have three clear favourites even then. Earlier I thought I'd likely end up going with various different choices. Lambchop was the only constant and had an advantage as I'd recently got into other music by the band (it's the kind of music I've been very into recently).   It was a challenge, and for me the challenge of choosing three was part of the fun.   On a tangential note, there have been various studies which have indicated that it is common for people to like less choice rather than more. For instance, it is commonly less stressful for people to be faced with choosing between three flavours of ice cream than 50 shades of Grey Poupon, or wait, it was 50 flavours of non-Poupon (a mustard) ice cream.

I get how being really dictatorial can take the fun out of such things, but as the rules/ expectations were set down for participation from the beginning, If I were to not follow those, I'd want to discuss that with the one who came up with the rules. People knew what they were getting into from the outset "if you want to join us....". Yes if one can't find three favourites then choosing one or two that isn't a favourite can be problem. I might have phrased it differently, in retrospect at least, to "Choose three favourites, or if you don't have three favourites, choose three anyway...". Or something better expressed than what I just wrote preferably.

Anyway, I expect that this is something of learning process and future ones might be done a little differently. Of course, that is up to Lorenzo. I know when I've done poll series I try to refine and change things as I go on in the hopes that it will work more satisfactorily not just for me but for others. I do think that this was a grand idea and hope that considerably more of the forum community ends up participating in various ways. It's quite time consuming, wouldn't be for everyone for various reasons, so not everyone would be up to or willing to partake in the process.

jamesbaldwin wrote: We are waiting for Micky! Hope to see his votes soon.

The Anders wrote: Is it still open? Then C.V. Jørgensen - "Amor & den sidste pil" (Cupid and the last arrow)

^ I must say that I’m impatient. I also want round two. To me the “winning” doesn’t matter, it’s the process we’ve had which is the fun part. By the way, I enjoyed that Luna Amara a lot, I’ve returned to it several times. Obviously others have too. I hope someone else votes for it and then we can move on. Please....

Edited by Logan - May 21 2020 at 15:45

Well I don’t mind the idea at all of only voting for two or one, just think that should then be specified. My major point was intended to be that I think perhaps only write-in votes should count, be it because of abuse or due to carelessness. One can make polls that are strictly write-in, and that’s how I would do it. But it is James topic and of course he can do it how he likes.

He wrote in the OP:

“When we have a definitive list of songs to vote for, each of us will vote for his three favourite songs (but first you have to listen to them! You don't vote at random! ;-))”

I guess I’m just kind of old fashioned in that I tend to follow such directives. I like the idea of choosing three, but even if I didn’t I would still try to choose three as that was asked of me, and I like the idea of consistent expectations for the participants and that the participants try to follow the set guidelines/ expectations. If I set up a poll and ask people to do one thing, for instance, I appreciate it when people try to follow my guidelines by taking my poll question and OP into account. With others I might question their approach, but generally I try my best to meet their expectations rather than just doing things my way. While I like to consider myself to be an open-minded liberal, I’m quite conservative in some respects.

Edit: it occurs to me that perhaps I wasn’t clear with what I mean by write-in votes. I mean that people post their choices (specified in a post) and those are then tallied, rather than basing it on the typical PA voting poll. I have found it a preferable way to conduct kinds of polls in the past.

Edited by Logan - May 21 2020 at 16:25