decorator syntax polling suggestion

[Erik Max Francis]

Steven Bethard wrote:

> The poll, as stated, asked voters to vote for the syntax suggestion
> they liked the /most/.  Some of the conclusions people are trying to
> draw from it are what syntaxes people liked the /least/.  This is
> probably not the right conclusion to be drawing from the poll that was
> given.

That's certainly true (after all, the one with the fewest votes could
actually be everyone's _second_ favorite choice!), but I don't think
it's the most serious problem with the accuracy of the poll.  The
problem is that since it's an unofficial poll, and it's not clear that
Guido will give much credence to it at all, there is really no incentive
for people who are happy, or at least satisfied, with the current
decorator syntax to vote in order to express their approval.  Now,
that's probably true in an official vote as well, but it's probably much
more strongly the case here, where there's not even any good indication
that the poll will be paid attention to, and it hasn't been commissioned
by any entity actually in charge of making the final decision.

So only people who are dissastisfied with the proposal are likely to
vote, and indeed that seems to be the case.  Furthermore, perhaps the
only case where the results of the poll might raise eyebrows would be if
there were a landslide, so to speak, but a landslide is going to be far
more indicative of the poll being horribly biased, rather than it
showing any real intentions of the community (and I'd certainly claim
that based on the initial reactions of people to the decorator syntax --
lots of people expressed their support; they've just been drowned out by
proposal after proposal after proposal).

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