Makes a little more sense now.

Is the poll still not working? because it is showing on lite mode as a poll of tick boxes for multiple selections.

But what Drew said.

I've signed a few petitions, but only on the official government petition site because I'd hope if there was a chance a petition might have even a slightly positive effect it would be on there.

Though I think the only one I can think of right now that had some sort of positive outcome was the petition to have an enquiry of some sort into the Hillsborough disaster/cover-up. There's probably been others but none that stick in my mind.

With social media and the ease of signing online petitions it's become increasingly easy to get many thousands of signatures. Whip up a storm on twitter, get it trending and you'll get many thousands of signatures like the Iain Duncan Smith living on benefits one did relatively quickly.

Nope, still same message/link, but yep - it shows correctly on lite mode for me too, and actual voting seems to work there, so seems it's some full mode display quirk.

Working here at a cheap motel in the boondocks with crap WiFi.

Not working here.  And I went through a phase where I signed some, then realized that they don't give a fuck anyway so I stopped.

not working right for me either

also, I think petitions are mostly a waste of time, I will sign any I support, but I kinda feel they get ignored

Hahahaha! I thought you had really blown a circuit!
I don't sign petitions either.

What's with the spelling? It disturbs me coming from you :D

I agree though!

Disturbance is good. :)

p.s. Matt's straightened my poll, for anyone that wants to use it now.

YJ? I used it this morning. That is I had a fiddle but didn't finish off.

I think it really depends on the situation and the subject.

I know you specifically set about big national stuff, but from my experience organising workers they can be very successful in achieving a goal, but also in /increasing/ engagement. Although some people do sign and forget, others sign and then are more concious of the issue - pay more attention to announcements, actively seek updates etc. In that situation the end result is more dependent how you capitalise on that initial interest than it is on number of signatures.

Sign and forget is also a bit of an issue when recruiting new members into a Union (which, essentially, is a very convoluted petition with a changeable message...........). One technique used to stop people forgetting why they signed up is to run campaigns /without/ signing people up, but then organise a specific day a month or two in where you have a mass sign up. You make a big deal of the whole thing and people (in theory) remember the reason why the decided to join, rather than just that they did join. My brain is tired and I hope that makes sense.


As for government petitions, I quite like that the Number 10 petitions thing has to be discussed if it gets enough signatures, but after a million people marched on London in 2003 in protest of Blair's illegal invasion of Iraq I have little faith in a government paying attention to a signature.