More reasons to question everything that you see on the Internet.

Y'know, I've always assumed that the reason people lie on surveys, in general, is because they simply hate surveys. On the internet, those same people are still there, and still hating the surveys, but they seem to have much more fun lying on those than they presumably would if the person asking the questions is on the phone with them, or standing right in front of them.

Anyway, the next time we have a poll here on WR, we'll have to include a question like, "Have you ever defeated an army of Ba'al-worshiping Carthaginian warriors single-handedly, despite being armed only with your penis," and then just throw out the votes of anyone who says "no."

Interesting piece.

I haven't been following the Wikipedia goings on lately, and it is nice to read something by a reviewer not directly related to WP.

It has become pretty clear lately that internet polling is a sham, yet in the UK at least, vital policy discussions are still being guided by polling sites like YouGov (T-H-L-K-D), which are open to all kinds of manipulation.

This another example, like Wikipedia, where reality does not match the touted claims. Snake Oil salesmen are creaming massive profits by extolling the virtues of these flawed ventures. If Wikipedia Review has meant anything at all over the past 3 years, we can say that we've been voices in the wilderness, bearing witness to this discrepancy as it widens in real time. Somebody has to do it.

I'm on some of those Internet survey panels myself; perhaps I even answered some of the surveys Kohs commissioned (some of the questions in the article sound vaguely familiar). Sometimes the surveys ask weird stuff making me wonder just what the point of a survey is; your commentary gives me more background on that.

They can be pretty annoying with their repetitive questions; I'm sick of constantly getting asked my age, sex, zip code, and education level even though those are already on file in my record, and sometimes the same survey will ask those demographic questions more than once (it's pretty common for a survey to ask my age at the beginning, then my birthdate at the end).

If a survey is too long, with lots and lots of questions about stuff I don't give a flip about, like asking me a long series of questions of what I think of the difference between different brands of salty chips, their taste, their commercials, whether a particular brand gives "an impression of wholesomeness" or is one I "feel good about letting my kids eat" (I don't actually have any kids), eventually I get to a point where I just want to get the darn thing over with so I'm not so careful in reading and answering the questions, perhaps producing some of the phenomena you see. On the other hand, I do often try to diligently answer questions even if it requires an annoying amount of digging through stuff like receipts that show, to the nearest dollar, how much I spent for my last tank of gas or printer ink cartridge (I'm fortunately enough of a packrat to usually have those receipts even a few weeks later when the survey is asked; I imagine most others, who threw away the receipt, just give the survey-takers a guesstimate off the top of their head.)

Am I breaking their rules where they keep reminding me that one condition of participating in their surveys is to never tell anybody else about what they ask in their surveys? (But then they keep sending me stuff branded with their name as bonus prizes, meaning that if I actually use it, people may notice that I'm a member of that survey panel and ask me about it.)

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They do that on purpose, of course - I'm sure tons of people here could explain it better, but the general idea is to determine a level of confidence. It's the "is this guy making his shit up and not being consistent" basic check. Irritating, but makes fairly good sense. Of course, it isn't enough to really make most Internet polls worthwhile. Not all polls conducted via the web are useless, but most of the "anyone can vote, open to the public" (sound familiar?) polls are.

~ Avruch