BRAND NEW! It's the Tuesday Mini-Poll

[muckefuck]

Another Monday has come and gone and, once again, I find that my opinion on some matter of burning interest to rollick has not been solicited. Woe be me! Fortunately, I know she is susceptible to shame, so I hearby declare my intention to start the Tuesday Mini-Poll, which will only appear on those Tuesdays when no Monday Mini-Poll has been forthcoming. That'll light a fire under her!

This week's topic: Surveys

Every once in a while, I stumble upon a new LJer who I consider Friending. I'm cautious about doing this too soon, since some people get freaky when you unFriend them. This caution generally lead me to audit their journals for a time. (As welcomerain warns, don't assume I don't read your journal just because you're not on my Friends list.)

There are various reasons why I choose not to add these journals to the select pool I read daily, but nothing kills my interest quicker than seeing a bunch of entries which are merely surveys or quiz results. Quizzes can be cute, but they ultimately tell me more about the quiz than about the quiz-taker. Plus, the more outré they become, the more arbitrary they seem. Now I'm simply waiting for the Which LJ Quiz Are You Quiz, a reductio ad absurdum that will suck all the joy out of designing quizzes like a fun singularity and leave us all gasping for something else to fill the hollowing void of our journals with.

Like surveys.

I've never gotten into these. I think I can understand the appeal: They're a way to talk about yourself without seeming too narcissistic. After all, someone asked, right? And if everyone is filling out the same survey, it becomes like a party game; not participating comes to be seen as the antisocial act. The interview meme takes this a step further by, in essence, demanding surveys tailored specifically for you. What could be more validating?

But that's all just my cynical penny-ante psychologising. Rather than listening to my own ass, I'd rather listen to y'all's...er...opinions. Why do you take surveys? What do you get out of completing them? Out of reading them? Why do/don't you post the results and who do you think reads them--and why?

That oughta get things started.

Comments

[snowy-owlet.livejournal.com]

I'm a sucker for taking quizzes, but I think that has more to do with the mental break than anything else. I'll blaze through the answers without much thought, grunt at the results, and move on. I rarely read other people's quiz results. I have little interest in the high-school soda-drinking habits of anyone. Also, I have generally found that lots of people fill out quizzes online in such a way as to make them seem more interesting and cooler than they are in life. That's the only way I can figure out why I got Eagle on the "What Would Your Daemon Settle As?" quiz, as opposed to something potentially applicable, like a squirrel, a magpie, or a sea slug.

[danthered.livejournal.com]

Why do you take surveys?

I generally don't.

What do you get out of completing them?

Very little except a nagging sense of time waste (over and above that normally entailed in LJ activities, of course! 8^{)} )

Out of reading them?

Not much. Researchers are keenly familiar with the drive to know how popular or common are one's beliefs, and by corrollary the generally strong desire to be in the majority. Perhaps these surveys are, as you say, a means of seeking validation? By hazarding that guess, I don't mean to imply I don't seek validation. I must admit that I do, I just tend not to do it via LJ surveys.

I also found the "interview me, dammit!" thing more than a little offputting. I'm glad it's (slowly) dying down.

[zerbie.livejournal.com]

First: I hereby applaud your scheme to shame rollick into bringing back the Monday mini-poll.

Second: I take a fair number of quizzes, because they're brainless but excellent for procrastinating. I rarely post my results, though, because I don't think anyone cares. Like you, I am turned off by checking out someone's journal and finding an endless stream of quiz results. What I do sometimes is post my results in a comment to the first post in which I see the quiz. That way, everyone's annoyed! I like to be equal-opportunity about this. Sometimes I'll post them to my own journal, but that's fairly rare.

Third: My mind is still not made up on surveys. I won't take really long ones, and if someone posts a really long one, I likely won't read it. If I suddenly get an influx of friends, I will post a few quick surveys so the new readers can get the quick-and-dirty nonsense about my favorite soft drink or whatever, so they're not confused when I start talking about my Sick Addiction/One True Love. They'll already know it's Coke, and that's that.

In terms of the interview thing, I'm a journalist. Well, sort of. A mini-journalist. At any rate, I ask people questions for a living. I have no real desire to ask people interviewesque questions in their journal, but at the same time, I want people to know that they can pretty much always ask me whatever they want. I'm pretty open. I asked for a few people to interview me, but then I decided it was no good, so now I just have the ask-a-question thing going. I like that better.

[rollick.livejournal.com]

Oh, the shame! Oh, the vilification! Oh… someone noticed?

The Monday Mini-polls had lost popularity to the point where they were starting to lose their appeal for me. At the point where they were only getting a half-dozen responses from the 200-plus people who were supposedly reading, I felt like they'd served their purpose. At least for a while. Maybe I'll bring them back after my vacation.

As to your survey question… What kind of survey are you talking about? Do you just mean those check-some-buttons surveys and polls that so many people post in their journals? (I fill out those mostly so I can see the answers automatically on my friends page, because I'm always curious.) Or do you mean online, off-LJ surveys where you fill out a lot of personal info, like on the amazingly-dumb-IMHO "LJ Slut" thing that's going on right now? (I don't bother with those.) Or do you mean something like this, where you ask a question and we answer? And if the latter, why would you bitch about my non-poll-posting while saying you never much got into them yourself?

[muckefuck.livejournal.com]

Okay, let's talk definitions.

For me, the first are "quizzes". All the "What Major Arcana/Heinlein novel/nasal hygiene product/etc. are you?" crap that people post in their journals fall into this category.

The second are the "surveys" I'm talking about--lists of personal questions. They seem to be getting longer and longer, with more and more cutesy variations (e.g. numerical or alphabetical themes) appearing.

"Polls", either produced using the LJ poll tool or like your Monday Mini-Poll, are different. They strike me as more targeted: The poller has a particular question in mind they'd like to hear various people's responses to. It's not so much a scattershot, shotgun attempt to get people to talk about themselves.

[rollick.livejournal.com]

Gotcha. Yeah, I pretty much don't bother with surveys unless they're actually on LJ and are very quick and I'm bored. I already know stuff about me. I'm more interested in finding out stuff about other people.

[teapot-farm.livejournal.com]

>Why do you take surveys?

Surveys can make a good starting point for those of us who don't usually talk about ourselves. There's an implied "unlike those other arrogant gabbling bastards" there, but I didn't actually intend it... I rarely update LJ because it somehow isn't natural to me to just up and start writing about what I've done (usually dull to anyone except me) or some passing idea I had, or whatever. Surveys do, I guess, imply that someone wants to know the answers - so yes, "validating" perhaps.
And I read other people's because I'm fundamentally nosy, and often bored at work.
As far as journals full of quizzes go - yes, offputting. Though I wish LJ would show you if there were other friends-locked posts, even if you couldn't see the contents - so you'd know there was some content somewhere...

[mollpeartree.livejournal.com]

Funny, I was just discussing my lj insecurities with princeofcairo the other night. I've left off doing polls because the main thing I keep learning from them is that there are, at most, 9 people from my friends list who actually read my journal. I'm too sensitive to poll anymore! If I ever issue an "I am reading this right now/I am not reading this right now" poll, you will know that it's time for everybody to send me their spare Zoloft.

For me, the attraction of taking quizzes is learning all about what a very special and fascinating person I am. The quiz always says something flattering to me about my unique personality, no matter what I answer! (Unless it is the Circle of Hell quiz). I think most people post quizzes in their journals just because they're bored, though.

Why does Bunj take surveys?

[bunj.livejournal.com]

1. Does he take surveys because he likes yammering about himself?

2. Does he enjoy the challenge of answering questions about himself he normally doesn't ask?

3. Does he just want to think up the most smart-ass or off-base answer he can?

4. Is he just bored?

5. Is it just 'cause they're there?

Re: Why does Bunj take surveys?

[rollick.livejournal.com]

Is this a radio-button poll or a check-box poll? Can we select more than one answer, or just the one?

Re: Why does Bunj take surveys?

[bunj.livejournal.com]

Which would people prefer?

1. A radio-button poll.

2. A check-box poll.

3. A check-box poll which supports more than one answer.

4. All of the above.

5. None of the above.

6. 2 and 5.

7. 1 and 5.

Re: Why does Bunj take surveys?

[rollick.livejournal.com]

5) None of the above. I want a text-entry poll that encourages 10,000-word essay answers.