Ask America Yahoo News

Yahoo's attempt to poll the people for the 2010 midterm elections should have been a winning concept, but sadly, it's flawed in a way that you just know Google wouldn't have done it. What you get is a huge Adobe Flash applet which is so big it won't even fit on the screen of my laptop and which clearly uses streaming data that relies on a decent connection too. It does work, but clumsily, and in Web 2.0, it's old technology. It looks wonderful, though. The Flash creators here had a field day designing things that pop up and slide and spin impressively, and look really cool. The idea is straightforward enough. Give people a range of hot political topics from around the country, and give them a two-way choice to answer each question, then allow them to comment if they want, and show them the current voting percentages for each question so that they can see whether the majority agree with them or not. To begin with, Yahoo! Has chosen to reveal the current voting percentages before you vote, rather than after. So you already know the way the wind's blowing, and can vote tactically rather than honestly. Then, they have a design - which you'll have to try out to understand - that offers you a question in only very limited terms; for example you might be asked whether you think the courts ought to have the power to override the opinion of the majority of the people, but you aren't given the context that prompts the question, which in this case is one very specific issue. You do have the option to research further and read news articles surrounding a topic, if any are available, but the graphical links to these are not immediately apparent and in my case, and that of anyone with a regular netbook, they're most likely to be off the bottom of the screen anyway. The resulting pop-up text balloon is not smart enough to detect that it's even further off screen, which isn't impossible to cope with, but given the humungous size of the applet and the amount of wasted space in it, things could have been a lot tidier. The external "top news sources" are represented by icons, for which there are no tooltips, so you have to know what the symbols mean or take pot luck. I chose to click on a magnifying glass, which opened up a new browser window on Yahoo! Search, using their selection of words taken from the question as a key phrase. The search had returned only one result, unlikely for the importance of this particular question, and it was a month out of date and not entirely relevant. Next question asked me if I thought states should increase the threshold for women to get an abortion. I dunno, which states? They all have different laws, don't they? And if I say yes, am I voting for the same extension in all states? I moved on to the next question, hoping for something a bit more definite. Well, this was much more definite. The question was, should a judge's identity affect which cases he or she can rule on? And it relates to one specific situation, with one specific judge, Judge Vaughn Walker, whose sexual orientation is being used to question his suitability to make a judgment. It's quite big news, since the whole gay marriage thing is affected by whether the judge recuses himself. So I clicked on the magnifying glass, and up came Yahoo Search: "We did not find results for: Judge Vaughn Walker recusal." Now look, guys, you already know exactly what terms the searches are going to use, because you set them up. Was it beyond the budget to check and see whether these searches actually returned any relevant results? I mean, before you went live with this? So much for the "Top News Source". I so wish Yahoo! Wouldn't put its foot in its mouth like this. Hundreds of thousands of people are going to answer these questions, but at the end of it all, the results will be meaningless. Many questions, in my opinion, are poorly framed or force voting options I don't agree with. We can't possibly tell how many voters actually researched the questions, or even found useful research material here; we have no demographics; we have to assume tactical voting, since the figures are given away ahead of time, and I was able to vote both ways on the same question and post comments in both the "for" and "against" sections. I presume if I clear my cookies or move to another address, I can vote again. As a tool to increase awareness of some of the issues, it isn't a total disaster. As a measure of opinion, frankly, it's hopeless, and I can't imagine what Yahoo! Is intending other than to provide some light entertainment to casual surfers with a coffee break to spare. Meh.