Hi Stacey, thanks for your response and your interest. Here's my take on the situation:

I actually don't think the poll should be buried inside the annual survey, but should be a stand-alone poll...and here's why. I think there's a really BIG disconnect between what the members feel and what the PTB's say the members feel. I'm not saying the members are being intentionally misled, maybe it's just a case of selective listening by PTB's...hearing more of what they want to hear or what coincides with their own feeling. And I'm not directing that at anyone in particular, please understand...but I think we've seen time and again a stark contrast between what members say in forums & shared PM's versus the PTB's statements that "most members are very happy..." and "we know that because people write us privately because they're reluctant to write positive things in the foums."

A front page poll would provide transparency (and anonymity, too), and transparency would provide believability. People could see the current results right after they've voted and could  go back later to see the updated results. There wouldn't be any filtering or summarization by the PTB's that we get when the results of the annual survey are announced.

A template to run a poll already exists...it's used every month for AOM...and I've already provided some verbage (which of course you are welcome to use). How hard would it really be to do this and settle the debate.

There is precedence for this...a separate poll was run sometime last year regarding the navigation links used at the top of the site's pages.

If this important question is just buried in the annual survey, it won't get the type of visibility it warrants, and the results won't be as transparent.

So my first choice by far would be to run a separate poll with a high visibility so the level of input by members is strong. But if all I can convince you to do is to include it in the annual survey, well that's alot better than where things stood yesterday...but I do think it's an inferior choice.

That's my pitch...thank you again for your interest, Stacey. I REALLY do appreciate your willingness to listen!

Check out my full gallery at Cliff-Dweller Artworks