>sighs<

In general I agree with robin orton that it doesn't make sense to have a new poll until we have some further information. I can also totally see why robin orton has amended them - it does look simpler (but see below for why it may actually not be)

However, if people feel that it has to go ahead ASAP, then I'm okay with that, if nevermodern also is (was nevermodern's poll in the first place after all!)

But in that case, I would be happier if there was some sort of 'honourable agreement' not to aggregate the categories at all when quoting results (not that I would hold my breath!)

This is because my one concern vis-a-vis robin orton's amendments is that those against the cookout might feel that having 2 'yes' options (one hard 'yes' and one soft 'yes') as against only 1 'no' option automatically biases the result against them, as it allows the 'pro'-camp to combine the two types of 'yes' result and claim a majority in favour, when it is possible that some voters may not have wanted their qualified support to be interpreted in that way. This would of course work in the opposite direction if that 'soft' option were to begin with 'no...' and I have already pointed out the problem with a question which doesn't have 'yes' or 'no' at the beginning. Which is why I put 2 'no' and 2 'yes' options to start with. It does come out a bit messy, but then questions which will produce fair, unambiguous results are, as Nevermodern, LBL and I have all discovered, not quick or easy!

There: now that I have that on record as a concern, feel free to use the amendments, but don't say I didn't warn you when the discussion of results goes off on methodological tangents and misses whatever the point of the results turns out to be.

robinorton: None of that meant as a criticism - as I said, I can see exactly where you're coming from. I am at a loss myself as to how to balance neutrality and simplicity here, so maybe between us we can work out something which works

perhaps the 5 option question would look simpler if the words 'in principle' were dropped from options 3 and 4?