@Atlas D. Aeradon It means that, for a comment to say something like, "Morgoth for sure!", or, "I choose Elrond", and nothing more, as an answer to the prompt, is equivalent to one simply voting "Morgoth" or "Elrond". But, when someone's comment is also answering why they voted as they did, that's where we begin to encounter "discussion" as defined above, because to state one's reason for a vote is to address / verbally consider the topic. And those are the comment that are most often replied to by others, brewing discussion Understand? This is all the mentality behind the Guidelines policy that began this thread. The likelihood of discussion is raised by adding a prompt for giving a reason. As FH2104 already said, this is a matter of adding words that more likely invite discussion. Or, as WizardWarrior put it, provoke discussion.

I mentioned punctuation since you'd left it out of that question I was answering. I know you use it, though.

@HiddenVale if someone simply commented “I chose Elrond” and add nothing else, then that’s on THEM, not because of my post/poll. They decided to comment that. As I said earlier, I can’t control what they comment or if they decide to comment at all. Even if I add “and why” to the subject line, there’s no guarantee that people add anything else.

@HiddenVale and NOW you decided to delete the Melkor-my little pony post. You’re something else 😂. What about the Song of Thorin post? That’s been up for four days with no comments on that. Are you going to delete that too? If so, it seems to me like you’re picking and choosing when to do your job as an admin unless you have something against me personally 😂.

@Atlas D. Aeradon This Guideline policy has nothing to do with free will or guarantees. Of course commenters are choosing what to comment. Did I "force" any of your comments on this thread? The area of adding words to invite or provoke discussion is a matter of likelihoods. The one who's overseen these discussion posts for four years knows the general patterns of post-responses. Understand?

And yes, it's indeed reached four days. Good eye!

@HiddenVale 🤦🏾‍♂️ I’m not implying guidelines have control over free will. What kind of dumb comment is that? I’m saying that it seems like you have a problem with what people are commenting instead of my posts/polls.

So, you deleted the Song of Thorin post too? I guess you really are nitpicking when to do your job. How hypocritical and pathetic. You might not want to be so easily manipulated. Someone could use that against you in the future.

@Atlas D. Aeradon I'm not sure you're endearing yourself hugely.

@Atlas D. Aeradon You're stumbling into Policy #2 now. The relation between comments and your polls/posts has been the topic of this whole thread. Take a deep breath, cool down, and review all that was explained before now, connecting the dots. The most important points are those on how extra words are more effective in inviting discussion, specifically for A vs B and What's-your-favorite, as known through the last years' patterns- a different layer of the situation than one's own decision-making.

All this morning, I've been engaging on this thread by accessing it through the notifications on the Fandom app, as opposed to through the DP feed, which I always peruse later in the day- for which reason I hadn't marked the Song of Thorin's expiration yet, till you pointed it out. Commendable job, beating me to it!

All HiddenVale is trying to say is that a poll title that helps provoke discussion increases the likelihood of a good discussion. Of course you can have a good discussion and still have a boring title, but that's not the point. The point is that the guidelines are there to try and increase the likelihood of having as good of a discussion as possible. You may think it's silly, but the rules still remain.

@HiddenVale that’s kind of my point. You didn’t see the Song of Thorin post for four whole days until I said something about it and all you or any of the other admins had to do was just scroll down a little bit to see it. I didn’t care about any of the three or four posts you deleted, I just wanted to see that you’re easily goaded and you proved to be just so. The fact that you did delete them, which were up for no less than 17 hours only after I said something only proves that you nitpick and choose which posts to delete at whim which also means you don’t care about the guidelines at all. If I hadn’t mentioned them, they would still be up because you don’t do your job.

@WizardWarrior1 click on my name or profile, scroll down to my polls, click on them, and you’ll see that there’s discussions on all of them. That’s what I’ve been saying. It doesn’t necessarily matter what I put in the subject line. People will comment and comments breed discussions. My first vs. poll had a discussion and my second one which was my most recent would’ve had one too, but both of them were deleted. I don’t even have an issue with the guideline itself, my main issue is that my polls have discussions regardless of what’s in the subject line and three of them were still deleted.