I fully agree with you. Polling would only be interesting if in addition to answering the poll the users would post comments. I like the overview of the different votes at the top of the thread that the polling feature provides but I think there should only be 2 ways of voting:
1. vote only when you add a comment by specifying your vote in addition to the comment
2. upmodding someone's vote/comment automatically adds a vote from you for the same choice
We need to keep in mind that a benefit of polls is that the folks answering can answer without worrying about loosing karma if they vote for the least popular choice. But we need to balance this with the fact that readers of the site don't gain much from just reading the numbers of a poll.
Comments
I fully agree with you. Polling would only be interesting if in addition to answering the poll the users would post comments. I like the overview of the different votes at the top of the thread that the polling feature provides but I think there should only be 2 ways of voting:
1. vote only when you add a comment by specifying your vote in addition to the comment
2. upmodding someone's vote/comment automatically adds a vote from you for the same choice
We need to keep in mind that a benefit of polls is that the folks answering can answer without worrying about loosing karma if they vote for the least popular choice. But we need to balance this with the fact that readers of the site don't gain much from just reading the numbers of a poll.