Is it helpful to have "don't care" options in polls?

[Alzrius]

A recurring thing on a lot of the polls I see here will be the "lemon curry" options; that is, options to vote that you don't care about the question being asked. My query is, why include those options at all? If you're trying to take a sampling of people's opinions on a topic, shouldn't the people who don't have an opinion just, you know, not vote?

It seems to me that including these "I don't care" options skews the data (even moreso than an internet poll is already skewed), and aren't really helpful at all. What do you think?

 

[Morrus]

It's presumably what the poll-creator wants. I'm not about to second-guess peoples' poll-creating choices any more than I'm going to correct their spelling errors for them!

 

[Umbran]

Why do you think that option is only for those who do not care?

What about those who care, but whose thoughts don't fit in the other options given?

 

[Alzrius]

Why do you think that option is only for those who do not care?

What about those who care, but whose thoughts don't fit in the other options given?

Ostensibly they'd have a choice for "Other," or at the very least post but not vote to express an option that they weren't given in the poll choices.

 

[Deset Gled]

Online polls always have at least one person complaining that his opinion isn't covered by the options given. Choices like "Don't Care", "I like pie", or "None of the Above" at the end of the list are generally necessary to minimize these complaints. It doesn't matter so much what the alternate option is, as long as it catches all the voters who don't (want to) fit into the options you've given.

Whenever the throw away option gets a significant percentage of votes, it means generally means that something got screwed up in the poll. Maybe the wording and terminology got screwed up, maybe the poll failed to cover all possible situations, or maybe the audience just wasn't well suited to the question.

 

[Umbran]

Ostensibly they'd have a choice for "Other," or at the very least post but not vote to express an option that they weren't given in the poll choices.

And you figure the meme-filled, creativity-loaded RPG community would be expected to stick with plain old, "Other", and not come up with other variants intended to be more interesting, funny, or specific to the group in question?

 

[Alzrius]

And you figure the meme-filled, creativity-loaded RPG community would be expected to stick with plain old, "Other", and not come up with other variants intended to be more interesting, funny, or specific to the group in question?

Lemon curry.

 

[Umbran]

Now you understand. Or at least will pass a Turing Test, which is close enough for government work. Go forth, and joyously partake of a hot dog or something.