Brandon is conducting a survey. He sent me an email. I’m trimming the invitation.
Heya,
[…] I’m seeking participants for a short survey (13 questions). The questions are designed specifically to test a key aspect of […]. The results won’t be published in any scientific journal, but I’ll do a writeup on them once the survey is closed and share it online.
Please feel free to participate and/or share the survey with anyone you’d like:
http://kwiksurveys.com/s.asp?sid=jblyccj8lluam18284546
Brandon Shollenberger
I have no idea if this survey will be useful, useless, hackable, crackable, gameable or whatnot. I’m too busy to write a plugin extension to help people “auto-game”. But I’m willing to let this rip! I’ll go fill out the survey, feel free to do so yourself. I’ll repeat the link.
Didn’t seem like 13 questions to me, more like 3, before I got shunted off the first page to some sort of advertisement. Survey wouldn’t let me back in.
I didn’t like some of the phrasing, and it seems a little silly in general, but I filled it out anyway
Mark Bofill –
I think the survey is just that first page. When you hit “next” the link takes you to an ad without indicating that the survey is complete. While there were 3 questions (from memory), each had several parts, so I’d guess that 13 is the count of the number of responses solicited.
Edit: Andrew_FL, yes, it seemed quite silly. I imagine that Brandon has in mind to make a point about quality control in web surveys, by using the results which he obtains.
Yeah. I took it. I think I could retake using a 2nd browser. I didn’t pay attention to the number of questions. I just took it and stopped when it seemed “done”.
Possibly I could retake if I changed cookies? I don’t know the exact analysis Brandon is going to do. I know enough that weirdness in language won’t “matter”. Maybe the number of questions also “won’t matter”.
Mark, I think it was 3 questions with 3, 5, and 5 subparts = 13. Interesting. I got the ad too but the URL for the add says “thank you” and when I clicked back it said I already took it. I think it registered. I hope we hear back soon. If I’m allowed to speculate I guess it is something about relative strength of our feelings re:…. etc. Brandon if you’re listening, you don’t have my express permission to share anything about my employer, though I’m not sure any would come through via the IP, since I’m at a coffee shop. Maybe.
Yeah, I was able to do it again with a second browser.
Same computer same brower but this time on ethernet port, it recognizes me, so I guess my computer details are recorded.
Where is he going with the eugenics question? I was in 4-H, so I may have been taught to use eugenics at a young age. I bought a Berkshire boar and crossed him with long-snouted sows. Is that eugenics?
Back in the 1880’s my great grandfather introduced an English bred bull to a big ranch in the Panhandle of Texas. Amazingly, in that county you can still see that bull’s genes in the cow herds.
I’m scared to death I’m a Nazi.
Hey guys, sorry for the slow response. I have some trouble posting at this site due to my ISP. A comment I tried to submit earlier got eaten because of that.
Anyway, I’m not sure why I immediately interpreted the survey as 13 questions while others interpreted it as three (KwikSurveys interprets it as three as well). To me, each individual query is a question. The fact they may use the same introduction and are grouped together doesn’t change that.
As for gaming the survey, all you need to do to game it is delete the cookie KwikSurvey stores for it. You could take it an unlimited number of times if you did that. However, I’ll warn you there may be ways to detect it if you do. KwikSurvey doesn’t list IP addresses (so no worries there bill_c), but it does provide timestamps and some regional information. Naive gaming can be picked up via those.
As for the silliness of the survey, it was specifically designed to be silly. The point is to gather data to test a methodological issue. My hypothesis is I can get “significant” results nobody would accept using the same methodology others have used. If I’m correct, that should call their work into question.
JCH, I originally planned to use “the Holocaust” instead of “genocide.” Too bad. We’d have been able to find out if you really are a Nazi!
Lucia,
Brandon has more of a sense of humor than a certain semi-deranged Australian psycho-babble professor.
BTW, on my browser your you-tube video (United Breaks Guitars) seems to have locked out the comment fields. I noted that airlines seem to now allow guitars in the passenger section, even if they have to be stood up in the first class coat locker. Maybe the video is why.
Me too. Since Steve mentioned it, I’ll just respond here – thanks, I hadn’t heard about the United Breaks Guitars thing!
SteveF
I think it was the < 3 for which I failed to enter html code.
SteveF, are you sure about that? Did you ever consider the possibility I am completely serious about everything I’ve ever said?
Brandon
I think that would merely give you a ‘0’ for sense of humor. “semi-deranged Australian psycho-babble professor” manages to get negative points on the scale of -10 to +10.
lucia, good point. There is “negative humor,” and Lewandowsky’s mocking responses to critics is full of it.
Okay, I know that may not be what you meant, but the pun was irresitable.
That’s precisely what I meant.
I answered the survey as a straight man* would. Hope that didn’t mess up the results!
* “straight man” as in “comic’s foil”. Not sayin’ that I’m not L, G, B, T, or gender-ambiguous.
AMac, the point of the survey actually hinges on getting accurate answers. Some goofing off/lying is inevitable, but if enough people did it, the results would be garbage.
So thanks!
I decided to go with “global warming” being “real”, though the question is so undefined/ambiguous it could be used as a Rorschach inkblot test. e.g., I could state that it is warming, not warming, or cooling depending on the time period chosen.
Then does this include/exclude human contributions.
If so, are they statistically significant, minor, or major? etc. etc.
Brandon 122534,
Honestly, I thought you were just poking fun at lewandowski’s absurd surveys, because they are such a fun target.
.
I had not considered the possibility that everything you ever said was serious. I have never known anyone who never joked about anything.
Hm, I prefer The Question to Rorschach.
SteveF, me neither. I just couldn’t resist teasing you.
Andrew_FL, it’s funny you say that. I posted a video of The Question over in the WUWT thread about this survey. I’d post the link here too, but I’m on my phone so it’d be too much trouble.
See I wish this was like Jeff’s blog, where you could see my little avatar next to my name.
It’s the Question. Funnily enough it was a joke at the time about being a “conspiracy theorist.”
Brandon, for the mother question you should have used is/was
AndrewFL,
Is that what you wanted?
Oh, yes! Thank you.
Lucia,
OK, so now how to I set my avatar?
I’m using http://en.gravatar.com/ . Other avatar options exist, but you should be able to upload one there and it should appear. I. Hope.
Lucia,
Thanks.
Cute!!
Oh boy, Eli would love the IRB report for this one.
Eli,
There is no institution involved.
Even for institutes, if it’s not done for research purposes, surveys generally don’t require IRB approval. E.g., “customer satisfaction” surveys wouldn’t normally require IRB approval.
Getting your dept head/supervisor to sign off on a survey first is probably a good CYA activity in any case. Some institutes mandate dept head/supervisor approval to certify that IRB approval is not necessary.
Eli Rabett, I promise to make all such documentation freely available to anyone upon request as soon as some institution starts paying me for climate related activities.
Which I expect will be never.
Anyone else notice that good blogs tend to attract some of the *worst* trolls?
I’m sorry I know it isn’t very relevant I’ve just had to deal with a *lot* of dumb people today.
Is the survey closed
already?
Andrew FL: “Anyone else notice that good blogs tend to attract some of the *worst* trolls?”
There is no “fun” (-10 on the scale) in destroying a party that’s already bad and boring.
Niels A Nielsen, I closed the survey after 24 hours so I could start working on the results. I had gotten over five thousand responses so there was no sense in keeping it open longer.
I know people may have missed it since it was only open for 24 hours. As such, I opened a second, identical survey:
http://kwiksurveys.com/s.asp?sid=h1wq2yej0dhjgs4284520
Which will remain open so people can take it anytime. I don’t anticipate using its results, but who knows?
The unintentional irony of Eli trying to hold Brandon, a non-academic, to a standard he and his pals flagrantly ignore for their fellow CO2 obsessed who are actually academics is wonderful. Thanks, Mr. Rabett.