You might think "what the...Im sure theres loads of these kind of topics' but if you think about it they're all different.I've voted for trigger happy t.v and the simpsons because they're really, really, really funny.

Little twit, please stop with the esoteric polls. There are a plethora of other topics just like this and one more isn't really going to tell us anything we didn't know. If you want to make a topic about a show that you like, go ahead, but I'm getting rather tired of this.

You're assuming he knows what "esoteric" means, which I'm assuming from his skills in basic English, he doesn't.

^A bit harsh, but true. (The same goes for plethora.)
There are plenty of topics like this already. All you've done is broaden a topic about funny animated shows that you posted a few weeks ago. These shows are from wildly different genres, so people may like two shows equally and not want to vote. Stop making all the polls on a list of favorite shows. We've seen enough of these topics. One topic about favorite animated shows and one about favorite shows overall would have been fine. (DO NOT take that as a suggestion to start yet another topic.) The first one or two topics were fine, but now they're just cluttering Media and will probably be redundant. Try posting in other topics before you go crazy with starting your own, okay?

Actually I think his English is pretty good for his age. I don't have books around from back then to compare with, but I suspect he's not bad at all, also his writing style has improved significantly since he joined.

This said, the favourite program thing has several other threads in Media that can be used for it and this poll doesn't really add anything. As is often the way with these things, the polls don't give answers that people would like to give. I love Lost, but it doesn't make me laugh like Q.I., and while I feel like I've seen The Simpsons more times than I have breathed fresh air this year it probably does count as 'the best' for its broad appeal. Then again, should we be counting broad appeal as a criteria? If not then maybe Stargate should win due to its dedicated following and long-term commercial success in a highly competitive genre.

So, lessons to be learnt:

when making a topic like this give the subject in the thread title, such as 'which is the best quiz show'. If you can't summarise your choices by genre then the answers will be meaningless because no-one wants to watch a documentary when they are in the mood for sci-fi!

don't make polls, make discussion threads. Polls are mainly only useful for things that have a limited range of options, such as approval for a political decision, not comparison of things from a broad range of others such as television shows or music. I like some heavy metal and I like some classical, so a poll to make me choose between them would not represent my tastes... You yourself demonstrate that this poll forces people to split their answers by having to create a combined option for your own choice of two radically different programs.

which brings me to my next point, a topic in a forum is usually about discussion of tastes/opinions and very rarely about finding a definitive answer to anything, so instead of making a poll about something instead start a conversation.

To give an example of what would be a better way of approaching a similar topic, you could start a thread (not a poll!) asking what people think is the funniest program on television. This gives people the choice of saying what they think and explaining why they think their choice is the best.

Often 'what's the best' threads aren't great because they are so subjective (everyone treats the things being discussed as subjects of study, rather than in a more scientific manner as objects, which would be 'objective'). Personal tastes are always subjective, for example I usually find Q.I. to be the funniest program on telelvision, that's my subjective opinion, but an objective one might say that The Simpsons is actually better.

Come to think of it, I laugh a lot at Top Gear too...

But that's my point, there's no simple poll answer to 'what's the best'.

In summary:

if you make a poll, give a good one-line title that describes the topic

if you can't give an accurate one-line title then that's a clue that you should start a discussion, not a poll

think about the way things are grouped together, it's pointless to compare Mozart to Meatloaf because they are completely different, so if you want to get people's opinions on things then set up a useful limitation on the field, such as '1980s rock music' or 'greatest classical composers'

'Hope that helps.