#but apparently the polls team didn't get the memo

[porcupine-girl]

Thanks for responding!

The thing is, you couldn't have predicted beforehand what users would do with this new feature. But now you can look around and see how people are actually using the polls. And you'll see that most polls (bracket tournaments being the main exception) DO have a "don't vote" option and it is NOT leading to nobody taking or interacting with the poll. It is not ruining the fun.

Not all polls have it, but when they do, it's often for a reason - for example, I only want people in X population to vote, but I know other people will want to see the results. And, crucially, those other people are unlikely to reblog the poll onto their own blogs if they can't even see the results. Allowing people who don't want to/can't vote on a poll to see the results increases engagement.

And... I know this sounds silly when you guys, y'know, make Tumblr, but #2 kind of makes it sound like you don't know how Tumblr works. Like, really, you think people will come back to a random post a week later? One that I couldn't even participate in at the time? That's not how most people use Tumblr. And again, even if people are willing to do that, they're way less likely to reblog it themselves when they can't vote or see the results before reblogging, which reduces the reach and the number of people participating.

Yes, people can "find a workaround" - that's exactly what we're talking about here. BUT the downside to that workaround is that it screws up the percentages on the actual poll. Why make people keep using a workaround with this downside when that very workaround has basically proven that your worry that it will "ruin the fun" is not actually happening?

I don't care deeply enough about polls specifically to bother writing this whole mini-essay, but I do find this general attitude frustrating enough to bother with. Seeing you roll out a cool new feature and then months later go "this is how people should use it!" instead of looking around and going "oh hey, look how people are using it!" feels like we're going backward. This is the kind of attitude that, for example, prevented Tumblr from having DMs for years, and (I think most annoyingly for me) is just bad design practice.

Is there any chance we could get a “don’t vote, just see results” button on polls, separate from the actual options, so that we don’t have to mess up the percentages to give people that option? Obviously hitting it would mean you are no longer eligible to vote in that poll.

Answer: Hey there, @porcupine-girl!

Here is a shorter, and longer, answer to your request.

Nooooo!!! We want you to vote!!! Seeing results without voting ruins the fun!!

Let us explain that one important point from Polls (which, may we say, it delights us to see how enthusiastically you have taken to) is to let you “interact” with others in another fun way! So users can either vote for it or just wait for the poll to end and come back to see the results, or you can always figure out some workaround in an interesting way (and folk on Tumblr always surprise us.)

So, in the meantime, we are afraid we will not be adding this feature. But we can hope that you can understand why.

Thanks for your feedback, and have a good day!

Best,

—The Tumblr Polls Team