Davis Square Area Presidential Poll

[cemeterygates.livejournal.com]

The moderator has approved this poll. Please confine discussion of the primary to the comments of this post, and note that individual votes are private unless you chose to comment openly. Thank you!

[Poll #1118346]

Comments

[cutieperson]

who gets into the White House is relevant to the US as a whole, not Davis Square specifically. if you want to get cynical about it, our little liberal haven probably has little bearing on it.

[thetathx1138.livejournal.com]

True, but our little liberal haven is also going to be talking about it A LOT, so better to actually discuss it and limit that discussion to here than have the mods running around like chickens.

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

Davis Sq will in fact be participating in the election, no?

I think a discussion of what the community's political views are is very on topic.

[cutieperson]

yes, and so will the rest of the country. it's been suggested before that more general things be posted to more general communities. i'm just interested in the discrepancy between what general things are Blessed By The Mods and what are not.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

I agree with you. I'm very interested in the political leans of this specific community. There's actually nowhere else you could post this poll to get that data. It's not like you could post it in b0st0n but say "Only people in Davis Square answer."

[clevernonsense.livejournal.com]

Exactly, it's the differtence between an online information resource and an online community. I'd prefer the latter myself.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. It's human nature for people to want to talk to their neighbors about important issues, and now and then those issues are on a national or international level. Life and work prevents most of us from knowing each other in person, but we still care. I very much want to know what my neighbors' views are on an issue as important as who our next president will be. I I shake my head in stunned disgust at the idea that this election "has nothing to do with Davis Square." Of course it does, and its effects on my neighborhood/community are important to me.

I guess what the people protesting this poll just can't grok is that the OP is interested in data specifically from people in this community, and not from some random general political community. I appreciate the poll and am enjoying watching as more numbers come in. It's of a lot more community-knowledge value to me to me than "OH NOES, ANOTHER BURRITO PLACE."

[cutieperson]

there are lots of people, including at least one i know personally who has commented on this post, who read davis_square but do not live here. it's not like everyone who reads b0st0n couldn't come here and click away.

[pushupstairs.livejournal.com]

even people who work in Davis Square or even just spend a fair amount of time there are part of its community.

[plumtreeblossom.livejournal.com]

If they read this community, they have some vested interest in Davis Square and are part of the community, even if their home address doesn't happen to be in Davis Square. They are Davis workers, friends of residents, frequent visitors to Davis, and they have influence and input into how the community is shaped. The OP is interested in hearing the opinions of the people who belong to the LiveJournal davis_square community. She doesn't want data from "nationalOMFGpoliticz" or whatever other "general" community you suggest. She wants this one community's voice, and she's getting it.

You assert not being interested in this post or it's contents, and that's fine, but nobody has put more energy into this thread than you. If this data was boring to you, you could have scrolled past it hours ago and never looked at it again. But over 100 members have weighed in with their vote as I type this. So someone is reading and participating.

[komos.livejournal.com]

I get that folks want a space to be able to talk about things they find of interest, but honestly, I think "stunned disgust" over questions about a general election post may be a bit of an overreaction, especially when our most active mod has acknowledged this as a compromise measure (http://community.livejournal.com/davis_square/1111090.html?thread=10822450#t10822450) in an attempt to limit the number of political posts in the coming months, which as he puts it, the mods "can now freely delete." This may simply be Ron being politic, but it does at least suggest an acknowledgment that this is potentially a bit afield for this comm.

I'm not personally protesting the poll. Assuming that moderation actions regarding general election posts will conform to Ron's statements, I can certainly appreciate the reasoning behind it. That said, I don't know that I'd agree with the contention that seeking the thoughts of the comm's readership on items of national politics makes a post topical. As I see it, the concern isn't whether this is of interest to everyone or even a one, but rather that this is an exception, and that it could be the beginning of additional polls and posts based around feeling out the opinions of the readership on matters of national or international interest. This is a poll concerning the primaries and is justified as topical because the OP is seeking the opinion of her neighbors on this matter. This justification is just as easily applied to a poll seeking our neighbors opinions on the state of the US action in Iraq, the value of the US dollar on the world currency market, or the apparently crashing housing market. All of these potentially affect us as residents and visitors to DS. Many of us have opinions about them. A few of us have questions as to whether this is the most appropriate space for that kind of discussion.

[ron_newman]

I considered it topical because the Mass. primary is coming up locally in four weeks, and the just-finished New Hampshire primary probably puts people in the mood of talking about it.

Someone in davis_meta suggested the poll. I said it sounded like a reasonable idea but should be held off until after I made my post about the registration deadline. I consider this to be an one-time experiment in seeing whether something like Blue Mass. Group's "Open Thread" can work here.

[komos.livejournal.com]

Like I said, I'm not disagreeing with your decision to give the go ahead. What I do disagree with is the assumption that because someone is seeking the opinion of her neighbors on a broad issue, it necessarily that belongs here.

[ron_newman]

I don't assume that either. Although if you click on the "poll" tag, you'll see that the only other such post was by a moderator, on a rather light topic.

[komos.livejournal.com]

One day, I will learn to edit. :P