Bitcoin Forum

1. When is a topic said to be self moderated and for what purpose?
2. Who is eligible to create an opinion poll in the forum?
3. Is there a mechanism to select who sees or not see your post in any board?

A Self-moderated topic is where the topic starter has privileges to delete any reply into the topic especially if the find that they are off-topic or spam. The option can also be activated when one is creating a thread.

Anyone, so long as you know what you are doing

There's no way to avoiding other people from seeing your post. If you want to communicate to specific people. send a PM

On the first question, I think you make a self-moderated topic with or without reason but only make a self-moderated topic if you do not want spam and want to make your thread healthy.
Take note there are some sections that you can't make self-moderated like here in the meta section.
Try to make a thread on service discussion click the new topic and look for an "advanced options" and check this

https://i.imgur.com/lrUUvzJ.png


For your 2nd question, anyone I think can make a poll if you don't know how to make a poll you can easily make a pool by clicking this below
https://i.imgur.com/xZLm1p8.png

And then this is what you will see on poll creation.
https://i.imgur.com/Ueecayw.png

About your 3rd question, you can't block them to see your thread or post but you can block users if you don't want to see their thread or posts.

Its usually done when users want to take moderation into their own hands, and want to deviate from the rules slightly, not maliciously necessarily, but may want to remove content they don't feel fits in the thread, but otherwise wouldn't be removed as per the forums guidelines. Note that, moderators will still take action on posts in a self moderated thread in they infringe the guidelines, regardless of it being self moderated or not.

Its generally not recommended unless you have a specific reasons to do so. Note that self moderated threads can be looked down on, if its regarding a sensitive topic i.e other users might be wary of posting in a thread, where their posts could be unfairly deleted, and may opt to make their own moderated thread about the topic.  

We have a feature called ignore which allows you to ignore a certain user. Note, that its called ignore, because you can only ignore other users. You cannot block other users. The difference is, usually when you block someone on a social media site for example, it blocks any interaction both ways, they can't see your posts, and you can't see theirs, unless you unblock them. The ignore feature on this forum, only works the one way i.e if you ignore a user on the forum, you won't see any of theirs posts (except for the notice that you are ignoring this user), but they will still be able to see your posts.

As welsh said it is frowned upon in some places to make a self moderated thread. It is also possible to create a local rule for a thread though that's stated in the thread start post and have a moderator enforce that rule if you're trying to maintain a good image - for example if you're announcing a service.

Thank you very much @all that provided answers to my questions, esp. @Welsh and Bitcoin_Arena for the prompt response. @Bitmaxz and @Jackg thanks for the further explanation. Learning is continuous in this forum and am happy as there's always willing to respond anytime.