Polls, or polling, is when SCG collects community feedback about a particular issue or set of issues. These can be scenarios like policy changes, map additions or removals, and so on. In 2022, SCG began using a custom built voting system, previously, we used Google Forms.
You can view all current and former polls at the community poll page!
The inspiration for an in-house polling system came from a member of a different community Rowdy moderated for a time. The member passionately claimed that the community needs to be able to trust that the results on their poll came from active participants of that community and that they not be tampered with by trolls. The member also argued that it was impossible to tell if a person was submitting multiple votes to help push the results in a particular direction.
While a community like SCG may not be targets of any trolls who would try and force a map be added or something, the community that inspired this was much smaller, and it was still felt that this security was important. Additionally, this allows us to "degoogle" ourselves even further.
SCG polls are anonymous, meaning results submitted to a poll cannot be associated with a particular person or account. This is so that members of the community may speak freely with their feedback without fear.
When a poll requires a member to be logged in or to verify they have played on an SCG server before, a hash is generated for that particular poll/member that disallows them from voting an additional time. The hash generated can only be accessed by Rowdy, and he is still unable to tie it with any particular account.