EPTAccording to Hot_Bid in the discussion located here, no more non-Starcraft voting threads will be allowed regardless of who starts them. This includes a ban of them in the blogs section, includes external poll votes even when a request to vote for someone is not included, and also mentions some other thread types it joins as being banned discussions (homework help topics, tech support stuff, or (just recently) donation requests). Furthermore, he gives three made-up examples to help with "gray areas" on the rule in response to someone's questions on what isn't allowed:
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1. "Hi guys, my friend won this round of Miss America! She is going onto the next round of the competition. I am doing her PR and I am worried she won't have enough votes, but she's a great girl and hopefully it'll work out. Here is a picture of Incontrol in a bathing suit, I believe he looks quite dashing. What did Captain Jean-Luc Picard find in his toilet? The Captain's Log."
2. "Hi guys, my friend won this round of Miss America! She is going onto the next round of the competition. I am doing her PR and I am worried she won't have enough votes, but she's a great girl and hopefully it'll work out. She needs your help, vote here."
3. "Hello Good Users of the TeamLiquid Forums, Im am Mrs. Uncontrolable of the MIss America USA. I'm writing this message to you as I am assured by our good mutual friend mr. incontorling that you are of the most trustworthy character. I come to you with a very urgent and handsome proposition for you. Today I was alerted today that my friend, the deposed queen of Oregon shall soon lose her crown. My solicitor, mr. Incontroling assures me that I can acquire assistance from you during this time of crisis. For your help i Can generously give you 25% of all my Miss America pictures. To initiate the transaction you must first Send to Me a small portion of your votes to hold in escrow so as Queen Oregon can retain her title until a future date whenstforth you shall recieve all yoru pics back ten fold. Please kindly initiate the transaction so I can make you a very picture-rich users please.
Sincerely You'res in Jesus,
mrs uncontrolable"
Sincerely You'res in Jesus,
mrs uncontrolable"
HotBid's words from the post: "Now the first one is a legitimate blog post that accomplishes everything you want except for the voting solicitation. It will likely stay open if you posted it. The other two however, would probably be closed."
Mainly starting this thread for three reasons.
1. To inform people of the change (I wouldn't have known about it except for the posts in uNcontrollable's thread).
2. To find out any additional situational information that people might propose.
3. To discuss it a bit. I personally do not like the rule change. I do agree that most voting threads should be disallowed - but personally enjoyed the few "case by case" exceptions for very highly respected / known forum members. I didn't even vote in uNcontrollable's poll, yet still was interested in reading the entire thread to see how things were going, what people thought of the poll, etc. It is true that a hard rule as to what is allowed and what is not is difficult, if not impossible, but I've always been happy with the few threads the mods have allowed and never thought negatively on it. I'd prefer if it remained as it was before, but could understand some type of stricter enforcement to help prevent people from constantly attempting to do polls (ie. making the exceptions much more rare).
Thanks.
