The Alpha Course in the UK are running a marketing campaign at the moment with posters asking the question "Does God exist?" followed by empty tick boxes for Yes/No/Probably. They've got the same thing on their homepage at http://uk.alpha.org/ set up as an online poll, complete with "see results so far" link.<p>Problem is..<p>clicking yes always returns 36-34-30.
clicking no always returns 35-34-30.
clicking probably always returns 35-34-31.<p>The votes are being posted to and the "results" returned by http://uk.alpha.org/?q=/alpha09/poll&vote=[yes|no|probably] - view source to see the html returned with the "results".<p>Amusingly you can get the stats as high as 40% "no" by adding lots of votes at once e.g. http://uk.alpha.org/?q=/alpha09/poll&vote=no&vote=no&vote=no&vote=no&vote=no etc. see here: http://bit.ly/somethingfishygoingon<p>Of course as soon as you vote anything else the numbers return to normal.<p>Regardless of your religious beliefs, surely this is pushing the line a bit far in terms of presenting it as a real poll when the results are fixed?
P.s. I don't mean this to be focused on religion. The interesting question to me is "is it legit to host an online poll backed by a significant ad campaign and present fake results?" If it helps, try imagining that this is a poll by some other brand asking "Do you think our product is the best?" and presenting you with what they make out to be what other people think.<p>Seems to me like this is deceiving the public. How do poll results (or not) relate to advertising standards laws?
Don't be ridiculous. Yes votes are currently 2%, Probably 1% and No 97%. I would say that they are being very open. I would also say that more militant atheists are trying to fix the numbers as this does not reflect official statistics. But hey - got you talking though didn't it? All publicity is good publicity and anything that inspires the debate is good.