Amazing
What does "shows us the fans our own biases" even mean?
Do you not understand that point b) is why the p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll" won't lead to a)?
In your own analysis, you see, clearly, that the p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll" is simply a reflection of bias … yet you argue it'll somehow lead to a cleaner sport. No it won't … it'll simply show a bunch of people that some LRC visitors think their favorite athletes are clean and their least favorite ones were/are doping.
The IAAF don't care what a bunch of anonymous posters who voted repeatedly in your p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll" think. If you want to argue otherwise, show an example of someone from the IAAF responding to even one of the posts on your website.
An anonymous p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll" is the infection. You want sunlight? Make your own "research" transparent. As it is, it's nothing more valuable than a National Enquirer article about Prince Harry might be.
Looking at what people believe is no more useful than looking at whether people in the tooth fairy or Flash Gordon. 90% of the world's population at one time thought the earth was flat, and that didn't, ever, make the earth flat. Not a single athlete will EVER lost a medal or be DQ'ed because your website ran a p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll".
Get over your "Lance Armstrong argument" .. LA is the doping equivalent of Godwin's law.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwins_law- That's your argument, you lose. No caveats.
Your p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll" doesn't shed any light, whatsoever, on these questions. Nor are those questions particularly pertinent. What matters is whether athletes are doping; what doesn't matter is whether (or why) you, or I or any other person on this forum think that Jos Hermans group, or Canova's group, or the NOP, are doping. That's called gossip.
This is bullish**. And you know it.
So is this.
What you saw, clearly, was a reaction against the first poll. A number of posts complaining about this stupid p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll" were deleted, of course. Then, you went further and added a new p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll", for no more reason than you did the first time. And again a number of people complained about it. And a number of posts were deleted. I had a post (where I simply agreed with another person's comment) deleted 3 f***in' times. The backlash grew in part because you guys pushed your stupid p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll" further, and partly because the staff/mods deleted so many critiques of the whole debacle.
Why do people like myself react against this stuff? In my case, because I care about the site, and the sport. It's a great site, in so many ways, with so much to offer. But you hurt the community of people who visit here, and the sport itself with this kind of trash. It's simply an extension of the insistence on allowing racist, sexist, inflammatory and offensive irrelevant trolling on the site. You disrespect the athletes and the sport when you feign some kind of integrity with reference to this p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll". You call yourselves journalists and reporters, and you want to pretend an anonymous p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll" on the site that doesn't even disallow repeated voting bears some kind of weight? You suggest that if "if the IAAF sees that 90% of LetsRun poll participants think a slew of world records are drug induced, maybe they’ll consider being even more vigilant and perhaps starting anew with the world records"? Are you out of your mind? That's possibly the most ridiculous commentary I've ever read on anything to do with drugs in sport.
There is far, FAR more likelihood of this result
"if pro athlete XYZ sees that 90% of LetsRun poll participants think his/her PBs are drug induced, in a p̶o̶l̶l̶ "troll" that you guys created and promoted, maybe they’ll consider never answering any of your questions or talking to you folks again".
My 0.0187263547 cents