From your perspective, that makes sense. From my perspective - I don't intend to ever look at this data. I'm going to import it into SPSS, have it crunch numbers for me, and come out with some result like "Less Wrong users are 65% libertarian" or like "Men are more likely to be socialist than women."

If you put "other" - and this applies to any of the questions, not just this one - you're pretty much wasting your vote unless someone else is going to sift through the data and be interested that this particular anonymous line of the spreadsheet believes in strong environmental protection but an otherwise free market.

Looking at the answers, I really shouldn't have allowed write-ins for any questions - I was kind of surprised how many people can't settle on a specific gender, even though the aim of the question was more to figure out how many men versus women are on here than to judge how people feel about society (I considered saying "sex" instead, but that has its own pitfalls and wouldn't have let me get the transgender info as easily. I'll do it that way next time.)

I was particularly harsh on the politics question because I know how strong the temptation is. I think next survey I'll give every question an "other" check box, but it will literally just be a check box and there will be no room to write anything in.