Can someone explain to me the point of Unofficial Polls?

[Frozzy]

If the government can't use them, then why do we post them? Surely they are just farms for spam?

[Gilgamensch]

(b) They may only exist to debate or gather information. Their outcome should not be used by the president to make choices during game play, but may be taken into account by the ministers when providing instructions for the president.

As you can see: They could be used for information gathering, like IIRC Zaphod did.

And no, they are not for spam

[Frozzy]

But I could post an unofficial poll about the German question and get a quick 2+...

[Tamerlin]

Gilgamensch is right, they are information gathering polls and a tool the active citizens could use to call the attention of the ministers on a specific subject and thus encourage the said ministers to act according to the result of these polls.

[child of Thor]

I agree with Tamerlin and Gilg, although i see what your getting at Frozzy. Surely if the post is game related and thus useful to gather opinion/ideas for a minister then it isn't really spam? Unlike a post completely off topic?

[Martin Gühmann]

Originally posted by Frozzy
But I could post an unofficial poll about the German question and get a quick 2+...

Yes, if an official does not do his job or overlooked something in your opinion then you can post a poll about it. Also a minister is free to post a poll about a topic that is not covered by his expertise. If he wants to gather opinions. In this way he acts as normal citizien.

On the other hand I don't understand why it would give you two quick posts. You need only one post to present the poll and to express your opinion about the topic in the same post in a seperate part of this post.

And by the way the idea of DG games is to get also some quick n+. Actual that is why these games are alive it is a way to play civ.

-Martin