User: Mister Poll

We will definitely be putting some new rules into place regarding adult content, but I'm not sure even the new rules will be so strict as to prevent teenagers from discussing nudity. Again, we're not aiming to be Disney, but we're going to do our best to give both teens and adults appropriate forums to conduct polls and discuss the matters that are on their minds.

========== In Reply To ========== Adult content belongs in the adult section. I just caught my teen cousin on a poll that she shouldn't have been on talking to a total stranger about being naked. Part of it is my fault for allowing her to use my computer while hers is being repaired. But she had already found this poll in question last year at home. In reading posts here, I see MP has changes in the works. They will be none to soon.

Debbie

Warning... long ramble ahead. :)

Judging what content is appropriate for public viewing has been a topic of great debate since Mister Poll's inception. No matter where we draw the line, we offend somebody. If we are too restrictive on what we let through, we get volumes of complaints about censorship and freedom of speech. If we are too liberal in our reviews, the more conservative take offense and others point out that children use our web site. Try as we might, it's obvious that we can't please everybody.

That being said, we do still want the best solution possible. We realize that a large number of teenagers use our web site. We are all parents here, so believe me, we know where you are coming from. However, it is unreasonable to force the entire web to be kid-appropriate simply because kids may drop by. We aren't Disney, and we don't pretend to be. There must be a responsible solution that lets adults be adults (not necessarily sexual and pornographic adults) without significant hindrance and still makes reasonable attempts not to parade such content in front of our younger audience.

The adult subscription setup was our first attempt at this, and it has worked in setting aside the most explicit adult content while still making it available to the audience that wants it. There is still a good deal of content that may not be suitable for teens but really doesn't fit into an "adult" subscription model. We are entertaining other ideas, such as requiring a free account to get at any content that may not be suitable for teens. While that wouldn't prevent teens from accessing it, it would mean they would have to want access to get it, while those who would prefer not to see such content never would.

From what I'm reading, there may be a certain number of polls getting through that should simply be marked as private and not shown to the public at all. These polls would only be seen by people who have the direct poll URL, presumably because the poll creator gave it to them. We will revisit this situation as well.

Message areas are a different story altogether. We simply are not able to police every message posted in every area on the site. The solution for this one is to give poll creators the ability to manage their own message areas, including the ability to delete and/or review messages before they are displayed to the public. This enhancement will be a part of the upcoming upgrades.

We are very open to your suggestions on how to solve these issues, so please, anybody with an opinion on the matter feel free to chime in.

Thanks for all of the good suggestions so far! We're taking notes, so please keep the ideas flowing.

I definitely agree that we need to allow poll creators to police their own message areas. That enhancement is near the top of our list.

I know that some of you have been concerned about content that is too adult making it into our public pages. While we still have much work to do along these lines, we hope you'll be glad to see that the ads for Naked News and adult books from Amazon have been removed from the Behind Closed Doors category.

It's not a complete solution, but it is a first step.

More to come...

Hi everybody. I was finally able to make it back to the message area this morning, and I was surprised to see just how long it had been since I'd been in here. It's time for some news again at last.

As many of you have noticed, things have not been operating quite as smoothly around here for the last several months. Our organization was going through some changes that were tough on the site, but had to be worked through anyway. I'm glad to say that we have made some tough decisions, reorganized ourselves, and have come out the other side. A few of us who originally helped to create MisterPoll back in 1998 have purchased the site and will be rebuilding it from the ground up over the next few months.

So... now is the time when we need to hear from you the most. We are going through old messages too, but new comments would be most welcomed. Let us know what changes and new features you'd like to see.

Times have changed. We're listening.