- Pronouns
- He/Him, They/them
Europeia Loves Polls
A Brief Overview of Europeians' Preferences about Polling
Average age of the region (active poll-respondents) skewing older
One interesting thing to note is that, compared to the time right after the Drew Boom, where respondents were a slight majority of citizens who joined within the last 2 years, now the respondents are a slight majority toward those older than 2 years. Not a major difference, but could be showing that our trend of returning citizens has been overtaking the retention of newer citizens. With citizens like Lime, Monkey, McEntire, CSP, Cool Spring, Ervald, Vert, and others, we may have hit a sweet spot of returned citizens (due to COVID, school schedules, summer, or whatever the cause may be).
Europeia loves polls
The second and third graphs show the obvious top line of this poll: Europeia loves polls.
Required responses can be problematic
One interesting question from this survey, that had been burning in my mind occasionally, showed that a significant portion of our respondents have refused to finish taking a poll before if some questions mark themselves as required. I think this could help inform poll creators to be careful about which questions they require to be filled out before being able to submit or move to the next page. Required questions could decrease submission rates; use them sparingly.
Always include comment boxes
These questions about comment boxes seem to show that, while citizens do not always use them, most do think they should be available. Half of the region wanted them always available, and the other half said it would depend. Around 75% of respondents comment on polls at least some of the time, which shows that, when offered, many people willingly add nuanced thoughts. Poll creators should consider comment sections to be very important and, at least on important questions, should always offer them.
Polling Burnout is possible, but probably uncommon
Around half of the respondents claim they do not have any burnout on polls, presumably willing to take as many polls as are offered. The other half of the region is a little mixed, with a third of respondents saying their burnout would depend on circumstances.
Political polling has high support, especially polling regarding Executive or Senate positions
A strong majority like Pre-Election polls, Executive and Cabinet Satisfaction polls, and current "hot-button" issue polls. Slightly lower than those were long-term demographic and trend polls, and coming in last, with only about 40% support, meta-polling about polling itself. I guess we'll see if anyone makes it this far into the article!
There were a few custom responses that received one vote each:
-- "I will be able to answer this properly when I have experienced more of these polls."
-- "I like a poll that has a combination of approvals, issues, and head-to-heads of potential elections. The best polls have all three."
-- "I even enjoy silly polls about Coke v. Pepsi, etc"
-- "Polls are for opinions. Opinions should be based on facts, and those facts take time to come to light. Mid-terms are for discussion, End-of-term is for polls."
48-hour polling seen as a standard, Set time-frames broadly supported
A slight majority favors 48-hour polls, with around 20% supporting a 24-hour standard, and 12% supporting a 72-hour standard.
Notably, 6 of the 7 respondents who prefer 24-hour polls responded within the first six hours. The final 24-hour respondent submitted the poll around 36 hours into the poll, the last respondent to submit.
30 of the 33 responses to the poll were received within the first 24 hours of the poll. The final 24 hours only received 3 additional responses, all received between 24 and 36 hours after opening.
On the second duration question, the vast majority supported setting a minimum length of time, but then keeping the poll open longer if it hasn't met some threshold of responses. Almost 90% of respondents want to see a set time-frame for polling and have that as the minimum time the poll will be open.
Many in the region miss polling due to lack of notification
One of the more important questions here shows that a significant number of people have experienced missing a poll due to a missed ping or post. Work could definitely be done to ensure better coverage for poll announcements. More notifications -- this poll had an original post, notified again about 6 hours in, and then again at 24 hours in, for a total of three messages on discord and three posts on the forum thread. My notifications on discord were posted in #Eurochat, but also posted in less turnover-prone channels like #Spam. Notifications like these can reach the immediate viewing audience in #Eurochat, as well as others who join discord hours later to see the lingering message in #Spam as well.
Objective commentary and analysis appreciated by wide majority
Overall, Europeia does enjoy seeing commentary and analysis on poll results, with a couple comments noting that the analysis could use a little deepening and that the need for commentary is dependent on the type of poll.
Comments
- Keep it to one a day please Euro
- I think we need another poll about polling to deduce that
- There's no such thing
- When the polls per year are close to equating the number of weeks in that year.
- Never too much polling
- I don't think I've ever seen too much polling.
- No polling is too much polling
- ... there is no such thing!
- When we get poll day after day on the same topic.
- When the polling is on the same or closely related subject. If the EBC and a private media outlet both runs approval or something about the election, doing both seems pointless.
- No such thing. You can have too much bad polling, as we often have, but never too much good polling. It's how we learn stuff! Learning is dope.
- This. This is too much. Right here.
- Well this poll about polls is weird. We have a problem with polls? I don't recall any questions on it.
- We don’t need competing polls on the same topic at the same time, ever.
- 5 polls in one day
- No more than two polls on the same subject at the same time unless they are significantly different
- If there is too much polling, I just don't respond to the polls I don't care about. You can have as many polls as you want.
- For me, it's mostly a matter of how polls vary. Some of the questions will remain the same, but I'd like to have a few questions on current issues or recurring special questions, such as the one we had with reform satisfaction.
- When I've already been polled about it. My opinion doesn't change from one day to the next.
- Pretty colors
- Ping the shit out of people
- N/A
- @everyone take this poll if you’re @here. Also @Citizen
- I guess by advertising it everywhere possible. And increasing the number of active citizens obviously
- I guess there's not much you can do other than GOTV for your poll
- Not really - polls are advertised, people either see them and participate or don't. I don't think there's a good way to incentivize it.
- More pings.
- Maybe we can give a hand to those who put out bad polling/analysis so they're not contributing to fatigue.
- Dming works.
- why not have some polls for other regions?
- No.
- Maybe a more dedicated space, so the announcements don't drown? Honestly, no idea.
- Maybe making a profile post with a poll link through an official forum account would help respondents easily see it since it's more easily seen than only in a thread.
- Polls are a good indicator of how many people are engaged with the region. Raise the number of people active in the region, you raise your polling response count. Good luck.
LeLibertie adds a non-anonymous comment here well worth noting --
- This poll is too long.
- Poll pot
- Keep on polling
- Not really no, I've said my piece at the appropriate junctures.
- I've never seen the word "poll" and its variations so often in my life
- Nothing related to this subject!
- Sopo is daddy, change my mind
- No.
- This is a poll I enjoyed very much!
- I'm not sure if we've had a recent conversation about standardizing polls when it comes to approval ratings and the terminology used for approval, disapproval, and neutrality, but I think it is important. I am especially thinking about the 'neutral' option and how it is factored into approval ratings. Most times I don't think it is clearly established what the neutral option means. Overall, I think that an 'intentional rating of mediocrity' as opposed to an expression that 'the respondent lacks enough knowledge to rate' needs to be separated in poll options rather than merged. As it currently stands, it seems that it is possible that officials where respondents lack knowledge have their approval negatively impacted. - LL
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