Is "Community poll" a valid way of discussion in our meta?

Question

Recently I came across few questions in our meta which were "polling" in nature. I too asked my previous question of same type.

In a way such questions potentially could be close-able as "opinion based", because the answers would vary based on user's own experience. But due to their specific nature, I created a tag poll, to legitimize such posts.

A fellow user drew my attention to below posts which suggest that meta sites don't encourage polling.

• Are poll-style questions ever acceptable on meta sites?
• Close Reason for Poll Questions

Since the meta-s are community driven, every meta is somewhat different with common base rules.

Questions:

• Is polling accepted in our meta?
• Is it worth having a tag poll for it?

Answer 1

It's probably not a good idea, except for the occasional bit of amusement. Which is to say... It's fine, as long as you don't take the results seriously.

Meta sites tend to represent a somewhat skewed sample of the total membership of the site, so expecting voting on answers to a meta question to reflect the opinions is a bit dodgy at best.

On top of that... Most of us are pretty bad at constructing balanced polls; we'll usually pick options that subtly push readers toward the outcome we'd like to see.

For that reason more than any, anything even slightly serious should be posted as a discussion, with answers posted by those motivated to defend them.

See also: How is consensus determined on Meta sites?