[Lynx-lynx]

On the matter of whether the poll is public thereby showing the avatar names of those who voted (at the completion of the poll), or concealing the avatar names (at the completion of the poll), I add the following comments.

Book nominations for each decade are public, and those who didn't want to publicly nominate at all or for a particular decade didn't. (For reasons that may or may not have concerned 'privacy' or 'openness')

On 9 May, Paul advised that 'Voting totals will be hidden until the poll ends on 15th June 2015 (so that no-one is influenced by previously recorded votes), but voting will NOT be anonymous.'

No comments were posted about the public display of 'voting preference until 15 or 16 May (depending on one's country).

If someone wants to vote who didn't contribute a book in a particular decade, or at all, then the poll is open to them to vote. If someone doesn't want to vote in a particular decade then that option is open to them.

Each voter can choose what 'best' means to them for each decade of the poll, and this may change from decade to decade. As a result a person who nominated a book for a particular decade may not vote for the book because after looking through the list of nominees they identify a different understanding of what 'best' is for them.

If someone doesn't want their vote to be seen by others then that raises issues relating to internet privacy as well as MR privacy, because irrespective that the poll becomes anonymous that doesn't mean that it won't be hacked by whomever at some point. As with anything posted on the internet, there always seem to be ways and means for data to be 'got at' and revealed. (And no, I don't know how people break into data or do whatever they do - but they seem to succeed with some mighty powerfully 'secured' data eg Adobe, Sony etc. So what hope MR, eh?)

I respectfully suggest that those who don't want their avatar's publicly associated with their vote, don't vote in the Best Book poll given some remote (?) likelihood that that information could become known at some point in the near or not so near future.