It's that time of year again. Actually, a little earlier than that time of year, but I'm pushing it ahead a little to match when Ozy and I expect to have more free time to process the results.
The first draft of the 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey is complete (see 2013 results here) .
You can see the survey below if you promise not to try to take the survey because it's not done yet and this is just an example!
First, please critique this draft (it's much the same as last year's). Tell me if any questions are unclear, misleading, offensive, confusing, or stupid. Tell me if the survey is so unbearably long that you would never possibly take it. Tell me if anything needs to be rephrased.
Second, I am willing to include any question you want in the Super Extra Bonus Questions section, as long as it is not offensive, super-long-and-involved, or really dumb. Please post any questions you want there. Please be specific - not "Ask something about taxes" but give the exact question you want me to ask as well as all answer choices.
Try not to add more than a few questions per person, unless you're sure yours are really interesting. Please also don't add any questions that aren't very easily sort-able by a computer program like SPSS unless you can commit to sorting the answers yourself.
I will probably post the survey to Main and officially open it for responses sometime early next week.
Given that you already ask the Sex question, the Gender question can have just three answers “Man”, “Woman”, and “Neither/Other”.
As suggested by people on SSC, you might want to add a question “Is your gender an important part of your identity?” or something, to find out how many of us are cis-by-default.
I'd have three answers to Relationship Goals, “actively looking”, “open but not actively looking”, and “not open”.
Split the “no” answer to Children into “not now” and “never”.
Selfishly, I'm glad you didn't split physics in the Profession question into theoretical physics and experimental physics so that I, as a phenomenologist, don't have to choose, but you might still want to consider splitting them.
Maybe in the Religious Views question “Agnostic” → “Agnostic/Apatheist/Ignostic” (cf. “Don't know/Don't care/Don't understand”). Also, consider specifying what the hell you mean by “spiritual”, as IIRC the previous times different people interpreted it in different ways.
In the Aliens question, does octopus-level intelligence count? Does pre-50,000 BC human-level intelligence count?
Wouldn't (say) three calibration questions be enough?
Anything I do with gender and sex is going to have lots of people yell at me. But if I keep it the same, it will be the same people as last year and I won't make new enemies.
Trans people overwhelmingly dislike things that imply sex/gender to be distinct. I find this somewhat silly and long-term counterproductive, but it causes them psychological distress (often severe) to disregard it, so keeping things very clearly defined is probably a good thing.
It's that time of year again. Actually, a little earlier than that time of year, but I'm pushing it ahead a little to match when Ozy and I expect to have more free time to process the results.
The first draft of the 2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey is complete (see 2013 results here) .
You can see the survey below if you promise not to try to take the survey because it's not done yet and this is just an example!
2014 Less Wrong Census/Survey Draft
I want two things from you.
First, please critique this draft (it's much the same as last year's). Tell me if any questions are unclear, misleading, offensive, confusing, or stupid. Tell me if the survey is so unbearably long that you would never possibly take it. Tell me if anything needs to be rephrased.
Second, I am willing to include any question you want in the Super Extra Bonus Questions section, as long as it is not offensive, super-long-and-involved, or really dumb. Please post any questions you want there. Please be specific - not "Ask something about taxes" but give the exact question you want me to ask as well as all answer choices.
Try not to add more than a few questions per person, unless you're sure yours are really interesting. Please also don't add any questions that aren't very easily sort-able by a computer program like SPSS unless you can commit to sorting the answers yourself.
I will probably post the survey to Main and officially open it for responses sometime early next week.