17 Mar 2012, 3:55 pm
Before you go "There is a statistics section!" Please read the whole thing first 
After being on this forum for a bit I've started noticing that a surprising amount of things about people on the spectrum (Even ones that are used by professionals) seem to have been either inaccurate or completely the opposite. But at the same time these are usually out of 3-100 people out of the advertised 60k+ people here. So I started wondering 'are these stats accurate or are they just like this either from chance or because of the title/section it's in?'
So then I started wondering 'well what if say once a week or so their was a poll either pinned somewhere on the home page of WP or even a paragraph or so spot with the articles on the home page?' That way the polls wouldn't be restricted in visitors and would have less variables which could compromise the results (EG a title that may get more of one side of the votes to it then the other)
(For an example of a question to ask I would ask something like "Have you been officially or unofficially diagnosed as on the spectrum? 1: Officially diagnosed. 2: Unofficially diagnosed" as this could show an approximate stat on how many people on the spectrum haven't been officially diagnosed, which could either show the current diagnostic system is good or show that a new or 'upgraded' diagnostic system may be needed. Or that the road to getting diagnosed may need to be modified.)
17 Mar 2012, 6:03 pm
17 Mar 2012, 10:01 pm
After being on this forum for a bit I've started noticing that a surprising amount of things about people on the spectrum (Even ones that are used by professionals) seem to have been either inaccurate or completely the opposite. But at the same time these are usually out of 3-100 people out of the advertised 60k+ people here. So I started wondering 'are these stats accurate or are they just like this either from chance or because of the title/section it's in?'
So then I started wondering 'well what if say once a week or so their was a poll either pinned somewhere on the home page of WP or even a paragraph or so spot with the articles on the home page?' That way the polls wouldn't be restricted in visitors and would have less variables which could compromise the results (EG a title that may get more of one side of the votes to it then the other)
(For an example of a question to ask I would ask something like "Have you been officially or unofficially diagnosed as on the spectrum? 1: Officially diagnosed. 2: Unofficially diagnosed" as this could show an approximate stat on how many people on the spectrum haven't been officially diagnosed, which could either show the current diagnostic system is good or show that a new or 'upgraded' diagnostic system may be needed. Or that the road to getting diagnosed may need to be modified.)
I think if you want clean stats, you'll probably have to do something off site. I don't think you'll be able to impose stringent enough controls here.
18 Mar 2012, 12:42 am
18 Mar 2012, 7:03 am
I just think with the amount of people who would vote on it that it could bring some very interesting results.
Why? Because all of WP is optional and no-one has to read anything - except the rules and ToS
- therefore any poll would only reflect those who bothered to answer it which is essentially what you've found with the poll you linked, and it wouldn't make much difference where the poll is located as long as it remains optional.
Also, it's quite easy to suppress the display of the front page and I know of members who do this to reduce the visual clutter and distraction.
Because of this "always optional" nature, polls on WP are only ever likely to be mildly interesting and largely of entertainment value.
Nothing wrong with that, of course - but they can't therefore produce significant results.
I probably don't need to point out the problem with having a poll presented to a member as a condition of logging on to WP - it's too much like an interrogation and I'm pretty certain that wouldn't be appreciated at all!
In any case, implementing something like this would require substantial re-coding of the forum software.
19 Mar 2012, 7:33 pm
I am the only yes so far. 
