Demography Polls?

Summary:

Might be something useful.

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Demography Polls?

SoullessSingularity 22 Apr 2014 16:34

Anaxagoras and I was talking and it was brought up that there is oftentimes discussion of what users want or don't want without much demographical information. We have a tumblr, a facebook, a twitter, and the site itself. It doesn't seem unreasonable we could set up a poll of some sort to get some basic info about who browses the site and their opinion on things like classes, guides, potential commercialization, etc. We could figure out who came here from where, general impressions (are we still thought of as a creepy site? Not so?), etc.

What do folk think?

EDIT: Sorry to clarify, it's not that the site should be run as a democracy as much as it might be a good idea to just get an idea of the kinds of users we have on the site. Suggestions beginning questions would be simple things like "how often do you check the site", "have you ever written an SCP or tale", "how did you find the site", "Do you read/know about O5 command", basic demographics like age/gender etc.

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Living the dream, or dreaming the life?

Last edited on 22 Apr 2014 17:13 by SoullessSingularity Show more

Re: Demography Polls?

Communism will win 22 Apr 2014 16:39

I'm very much in favor of this idea. I see no reason for us to go about operating without something with a semblance of solid information.

I'd previously had the idea of, at a given time, sending a PM to the last X members to join to get an idea of the general experience for new folk. I think that a general survey of the site's audience is a good idea as well.

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if your reading this your gay

Re: Demography Polls?

(account deleted) 22 Apr 2014 16:55

Yeah, this seems like a good idea. I know nothing about surveys or other forms of statistical sorcery, but would it be possible to somehow… I dunno, link it with a WikiDot name? It runs counter to the idea of anonymous surveys, but having people who aren't members of/don't contribute to the site skewing the results makes me uneasy. Possibly some sort of thing where the "enter your wikidot name here" is the first question that they see. If they're a member of the site, the answer is deleted and thrown into the general pile of survey results, if that makes sense. Like I said, I'm talking out my ass here, but I would like to make sure that the people responding have at least some connection to the site.

Also, lots of space for commenting would be a good thing, I think.

Re: Demography Polls?

Eskobar 22 Apr 2014 17:05

I'm all for more data. However, I would like it to be kept in mind that we should by no means feel bound to operate in any particular way based on the information; we don't want the site to be run democratically. Just that it wouldn't hurt to have base user input in several of these areas.

Re: Demography Polls?

Drewbear 22 Apr 2014 17:19

I could get behind that. Start with some basic demography like

Gender: Male, Female, Other, Prefer Not to Say
Country: [pull down list]
Primary Language: [Pull down list, including "not listed"]
Age: [pull down list of 5-year age ranges, including below site requirements so we can catch off-site fans]

Then move on to some of those like/dislike 5-button questions for things like

• "How do you feel about the Staff creating a formal business or non-profit organization to handle administrative and behind-the-scenes details & maintenance for the wiki?"
• "If such an organization were created, would you like to see it offer official merchandise such as shirts, buttons, posters, etc.?"
• "Generally speaking, would you like the wiki Staff to give official permission to media companies to produce things such as comic books, TV shows, or movies based on the SCP Foundation?"

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Giving bearhugs to the unsuspecting since 1872.

Re: Demography Polls?

Aelanna 22 Apr 2014 17:22

As someone who works with survey data every day, I'm not sure what kind of information this would actually tell us, nor do I see any way of actually getting a good cross-section or good accountability since we can't interface directly with Wikidot. This is even discounting my belief that a lot of people would outright lie anyways; you can't really believe that everyone who's a site member is actually 15, can you?

Last edited on 22 Apr 2014 17:28 by Aelanna Show more

Re: Demography Polls?

Drewbear 22 Apr 2014 17:34

If we do this, I'd actually prefer it to be off-site so that non-wiki people could respond. Same as how we set up the poll for the Heritage Collection, so that we could get a broader response base.

As for basic demography, I think we all assume that our audience skews young and male, but I'd like to see exactly what that breakdown is. Are there age/gender differences correlated with country? How many people use the main wiki vs using one of the translation sites? IF we set up a business/non-profit, it could be useful to have some baseline data about our audience for making decisions about possible expansions or monetization efforts.

And I definitely think that the like/dislike questions would be useful.

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Giving bearhugs to the unsuspecting since 1872.

Re: Demography Polls?

SoullessSingularity 22 Apr 2014 17:42

I don't know, I personally find at least vague polls on our userbase better than assuming we know what is or isn't confusing to newbies or what kind of people read/join the site. I mean, if we just assume everyone just going to lie (why would they? I'm fairly confused on this) then why are we assuming guides are even helpful or non-confusing to newbies or that people have concerns for organization or anything in the first place? I don't feel we can really make policies and (for example) set up things like the Heritage project if we don't even know if it's even even a useful addition to the site in terms of influence on community. Maybe I'm just ignorant and we should do nothing in this vein and continue how we are?

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Living the dream, or dreaming the life?

Last edited on 22 Apr 2014 17:43 by SoullessSingularity Show more

Re: Demography Polls?

Communism will win 22 Apr 2014 20:14

I'm not sure what kind of information this would actually tell us

What is the most confusing part of the required reading? How thoroughly do people read the guides, and which ones do they read? How do most people coming into the site start on the content? Is one thing that links back to us disproportionately likely to produce site members? Why do readers become members? What native languages pop up in the userbase? How do users feel about alt object classes and other format screws? How does the average user feel about staff/the community? Do new writers feel that they can ask for help?

Or, rather, whatever we feel is important for us to know. Yes, people will lie, but only on certain questions, and we can guarantee that responses will not affect the user's standing on the site or remain attached to them. And it's not like imperfect data can't be useful for getting ballpark estimates.

And as Esko said above, considering that we're note obligated to do anything with the data once we have it, there's probably no harm in collecting it, other than the fact that it would take some of our time.

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if your reading this your gay

Re: Demography Polls?

Aelanna 22 Apr 2014 22:26

Data is good, I'm just advocating that we focus on specific things while doing this, and to take everything that comes in with a grain of salt. It's just innately hard to take any of this at face value, even if we get a really good survey turnout.

Re: Demography Polls?

Communism will win 23 Apr 2014 15:50

That seems wise.

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if your reading this your gay

Re: Demography Polls?

Wogglebug 22 Apr 2014 22:32

I think it might be a good idea to at least take some sort of poll, regardless of whether we can count on its accuracy or not. Polls are good for morale. Plus, they're fun to look at. We can make graphs and things. With, like, excel. It'll be fun.

Re: Demography Polls?

AdminBright 23 Apr 2014 00:52

Sounds useful. Do it.

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Admin, SCP Wiki

Re: Demography Polls?

RJB_R 23 Apr 2014 01:08

I can easily send such a poll out through facebook, twitter, tumblr, and reddit, or any other sites administration desires data from. I'd be more than willing to decide what data to collect internally within the team, but does anyone have specific questions they'd like asked? I can include any suggestions. I'm willing to hear suggestions from anyone, even you people who read 05 but don't have the ability to post. If you're not a wikidot member, feel free to get in touch through one of our social media pages.

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Whether you like it or not, history is on our side. We will bury you!

Re: Demography Polls?

Aelanna 23 Apr 2014 16:21

I would recommend using something like surveymonkey or some other survey aggregation site. It would save a lot of people a lot of trouble.

Possible Questions

Drewbear 23 Apr 2014 19:08

questions w/ responses. long

What is your gender? [pull down list]

• Male
• Female
• Other
• Prefer not to say

What is your primary language?

• text field OR pull down list of languages
• anything more than 0.5% on these lists, plus "other"?

What country do you live in?

• text field OR pull down list of countries

How old are you? [pull down list]

• Under 15
• 15-19
• 20-24
• 25-29
• 30-34
• 35-39
• 40-44
• 45-49
• 50-54
• 55-59
• 60 or older

How did you first discover the SCP Foundation? [pull down list]

• /x/
• Reddit
• One of the SCP games
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Saw some fanart or fanfic on another site
• Referred by a friend
• TVTropes
• Tumblr
• Other

If you selected "Other", please tell us here: [text field]

Which of the following do you read or use? [checkboxes]

• Main wiki
• One of the translation sites
• Official SCP Facebook page
• SCP Reddit subforum
• Official SCP Twitter account
• Official SCP Tumblr account

Which of the following do you do? [checkboxes]

• Read articles on the wiki
• Vote and/or write comments on the wiki
• Write for the wiki
• Translate articles
• Draw fanart
• Write fanfic that is not posted on the wiki
• Create other fan work (games, videos, music, etc.)
• Participate on one of the roleplay sites
• Roleplay on another site (Twitter, Tumblr, etc.)

If you could change ONE thing about the wiki, what would it be? [text field?]

Do you have any thoughts or concerns about the direction the wiki is taking? [large text field?]

Edit: Adding suggestions.

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Giving bearhugs to the unsuspecting since 1872.

Last edited on 24 Apr 2014 14:01 by Drewbear Show more

Re: Possible Questions

Pig_catapult 23 Apr 2014 20:56

Should be "20-24", not "20-14". Also, we have a non-negligible number of people who found the wiki through TV Tropes (including myself)

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Piffy is an SCP Foundation Moderator, Lv. 9001 Squishy Wizard, and Knight of the Red Pen.

Last edited on 23 Apr 2014 20:58 by Pig_catapult Show more

Re: Possible Questions

(account deleted) 23 Apr 2014 21:40

Also, something like "do you have any thoughts or concerns about the direction the wiki is taking?" in addition to the things suggested above.

Given that this includes an option for "do you write articles for the site," I retract my suggestion about linking it to usernames.

e: Anaxagoras suggested changing "Linked by someone I know" to "Friend referred me to it," as it's more expansive and covers non-internet recommendations. I agree.

Last edited on 23 Apr 2014 21:50 by (account deleted) Show more

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