(am I allowed to say I touched some of the code involved? Because I did. And I'm really happy it launched.)

Does Google use this internally for their company-wide ask-Larry-and-Sergei meetings?

Yes, every Friday at TGIF people can submit questions using it, or they can just ask them in person at the event.

If anyone who is anyone happens to read this:

We need a search function / question 'checker'. For instance, there was a question, "When can I use Google Moderator for my site?" So I submitted: "When can I use Google Moderator?" It was accepted and put in the question queue. Instead, it should say, "Your question looks like this question, would you like to vote it up?" or something like that.

I'll let them know.

And in general, I'm sure there are enough Googlers wandering around on the internet that if you post something, someone will eventually pass it on if its good ;)

Interesting. Very simple but very effective too.

Is there an open source alternative for it out there? One we can install and theme on our sites?

wow those questions they have for McCain are awful, they might as well have been asked by Shepard Smith!

It's like... a meta-poll system?

It's not really a polling system. It's a system for ranking user submitted entries.

Google uses it internally every Friday at their TGIF to prioritize what questions Larry and Sergey should answer first (in addition to the ones asked in person). All week long people submit questions or concerns and Googlers vote on them to determine if they are relevant or not. It could be used for other things too though... really anything that needs ranking. Ideas could be ranked, or you could pose a question and have the answers ranked. I'm sure there are other novel uses as well. It's a pretty general system.

Ah, thanks. Anyway with meta-poll system I was meaning something similar to that (a poll on polls, but I see it's rather a ranking on questions).