NJ's Helpful Guide to Polls!

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Welcome to NJ's Helpful Guide to Polls! This guide will give you a solid idea of how to create engaging and thought-provoking polls, as well as how to set them up and properly advertise them! Of course, I will also be making available some of my tips and tricks from my extended time as a Surveyor in Conch Kingdom, as well as other regions. As always, if you have questions about this guide, please let me know by telegraming New Jaedonstan or messaging me on Discord at Lies Kryos#1734.

POLL CREATION

Purpose: First, you will need to determine the purpose of your poll. Some regions have dedicated polling officers to help increase regional activity and interaction between citizens. Others use polls for "Choose Your Own Adventure" stories, which are always fun. Others only make use of their polls to hold elections and referendums, which is a monumental waste of the polling function. Your polls should be used to engage and interact with the local citizens of your region. How you decide to do that, however, is up to you.

Method and Content: Once you have decided the purpose of your poll, you'll want to decide how you'll pull off your poll and what you're going to put into it. To start with, you will have a few options and steps to set up your poll. First, we will start with the practical setup of a poll. Obviously, we will presume that you are a regional officer and have the polls authority.

1. First, go into your regional administration page and scroll all the way to the bottom to the "Polls" section of the page. You will need to hit "New Poll", which will drop down into an interface for the creation of your next poll.

2. The interface will have five slots. These slots are "Title", "Text", "Duration", "Voter Elegibility", and "Options". We will cover each in the next steps below.

3. Title: The title is one of the most important aspects of the poll. It will be the first thing that your readers will see and will leave a lasting impression. Depending on the poll, the title may be several things. It might introduce the question of the poll: Should All Firearms be Registered. It might give a simple overview of the topic: El Crisis de North Korea. It might just be a boring government poll: Should The Conch Code be legally amended to remove the Court System? However, the wording of the Title is important. Your title should both engage and inform the audience. It should be something witty or catching, but also relate to the "Text" portion of the poll.

4. Text: Here is the first meaty part of your poll. This part should be sizeable enough, nor more than a paragraph, no less than a sentence or two. It should introduce the purpose and question of the poll. If your poll is about the Relativity of Pony Unicorns to the Modern Economy, then your text should explain the issue and also ask the question. If your poll is something like a "Choose Your Own Adventure" story, then you should have a short synopsis of the story so far in the text. Your text should also encourage discussion and debate on the RMB, as a way of drawing out the opinions of the people in your region. Remember, the purpose of your poll should be to engage and interest, as well as create activity.

5. Duration: Your duration is also important, especially depending on the activity of your region. Duration can range from three days to two weeks and anywhere in between. If your region is a highly active region, I would suggest that you keep your polls short, 3-4 days max. This will allow your citizens to be actively debating and discussing your poll topic without them becoming bored with the topic. Keep in mind that some topics will spark more discussion than others. If you have a less active region or citizens that log on less frequently, I would suggest a longer duration so that many have the opportunity to discuss the topic. Non-official polls should never last more than a week, except in extremely rare cases.

6. Voter Eligibility: This part of the poll is only important if you want to restrict or open your poll up more. The default setting is "Resident", which means all current residents of your region will be able to submit an answer to your poll. This is usual for regional discussions and official polls. Unclicking the resident box will open the poll to the entire world (aka, "Open Poll"), meaning that all nations of all regions will be able to submit answers. This may be helpful for interregional events. The other four categories are unimportant for the purposes of this guide, but I will cover them at the end of this guide in a Pro Tip.

7. Options: Finally, we have reached the most important part of your poll: the voting options. There are a maximum of twelve voting options and a minimum of two. The text boxes can hold up to 128 characters each, including spaces, so try and keep your voting options short. Try to have as many voting options as possible for opinion polls, especially if you want a good discussion. Opinion polls should always have a final "Other" option, where those other opinions are encouraged to post on the RMB. "Choose Your Own Story" polls should usually have a decent chunk of space for each option, but not too much. Official polls will vary, but usually encompass a "Yes" or "No" answer. Remember, with all unofficial polls, engaging and entertaining your citizens is most important, so try to make your poll options in line with that mentality.

Advertising: This point will be short, but it is important. Your poll will usually not be noticed of its own accord immediately or even for a day or two. I strongly suggest that you heavily PROMOTE your poll, especially in smaller or less active communities. This promotion can consist of a simple RMB post or something on your regional Discord. However, SOME promotion is better than NONE. I would especially encourage, for opinion polls, that you also explain your choice and begin the discussion on the poll yourself. Lead by example, my fine fellows!

Pro Tip: I told you that I would further explain voter eligibility to you. This is somewhat technical, so put on your nerd glasses. Obviously, we have discussed the "Resident" setting and the Open Poll setting. The other four settings are "Natives", "WA Members", "Large Nations", and "Influential nations". Natives are nations that have more influence in your region than in any other region. Since regional influence decays at a set rate, nations that are recent immigrants will have more influence in their former region for a time. This, of course, will change as their influence in your region grows and lessens in their former region. This setting can be useful if you want to limit your poll to long-standing members of your region; keep in mind that this can be circumvented by brand new nations within your region. WA Members is a self-explanatory setting; only WA members are allowed to vote in the poll. This might be useful for determining the regional opinion on a WA proposal or conducting WA-related elections. Large Nations limits your poll to nations having a population of at least 1 billion. This might be another way to limit your poll to experienced members of your region. Influencial Nations limits the voting to nations who have an equivalent influence to that of spending 1000 unendorsed days in your region. This means that nations must a) have spent one thousand days in a region (almost three years) or b) have enough endorsements and time to have reached that threshold. This would be useful if you are attempting to severely restrict your poll to only the most elite and experienced (or loyal) of your region.