Just so that the discussion gains more interlingual dimension..

Just so that the discussion gains more dimension as well :-)

I have recently faced the issue of decisions being taken by poll versus by vote. This is really confusing to me.

Some editors think that the difference between a poll and a vote is that the second is binding, while the first rather lead to a guideline, a recommandation. Usually, the first one does not have a deadline, and rather reflect the general opinion of the community at a given point. The second one has a starting date and an ending date, and once it is binding, infringing it may drive you in problems.

While this is true most of the time, the distinction between vote and poll as binding and non binding is not always true.

Another interpretation is that the vote is something where those voting are the ones deciding (the result of the vote generate the decision). This is more of a direct democracy.

While in the case of a poll, the results of the poll are just a general indication of a community opinion, helping another smaller group to decide instead of the community. The decision might go against the community opinion, though this is unfrequent. This is more an indirect democracy. A recent example might be the wikinews poll.

I increasingly observe confusion between these two words, poll and vote. Difficulty to define what is supposed to be a binding policy and what is a guideline. And agressivity when an action is done after a poll, which some interpret as being not as valuable and acceptable as a vote.

More and more people are not accepting simple polls to evaluate community opinion as acceptable method for decision making. And complaints or accusation of power abuse which occur over and over and over finally result in making good old heavy and boring voting sessions for every single tiny decisions.

This is ridiculous.

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