Any package for surveys?

[Andrew McGlashan]

Hi Simon,

elbbit wrote:
> I held off writing back because I have just launched a new website at:
> http://www.tibble.net/
> 
> Wait!  Don't go!  This isn't spam!   Please!  Just listen!

Yes, it looks very spammy to me....

> For anyone who is half in the know about the goings on in the world, and
> are aware of Project Venus or the Zeitgeist Movement, you will
> understand that there is a growing concern over many global issues:
> - over-population of the planet
> - resources might run out (as a result of too many people)
> - money is a form of slavery
> - the choices available to us are set by corporations/governments, not
> by us the people
> ... the list goes on.

The problem with many "leading" questions [as per your site] is that you 
can't agree / disagree with the question properly as there are grey 
areas.  You might somewhat agree with each argument, so you are unable 
to choose b/w either given answer in a simple y/n situation.  There are 
often at least three answers to a question, "your" answer, an "opposing" 
answer and the "correct" answer; however that trivializes the fact that 
multiple answers could be equally correct for different people with or 
without further argument -- but if you define the question to rigidly, 
you can't give fair license to get the answer that is truly relevant for 
the responder.

I think back to the good old Eliza program, back in my late primary 
school days in the era of the TRS-80 and Apple ][e computers.  The 
program asks a simple question, then depending on your response, it will 
ask further questions along the way to get to an artificial point of 
"knowing" the answer.  Not sure if this helps, but along those lines, 
you could perhaps ask simple questions and build a tree to allow people 
to always give very short and un-ambiguous answers which they can agree 
with and not end up on the shelf trying to decide an impossible "right" 
answer for them based on the question which doesn't give them enough 
scope to answer properly and therefore let the asker know what is really 
thought by the responder.

Inevitably, many forum polls have the same problem.  Limit the available 
choices and you can't get appropriate or meaningful results.  There are 
always other options that aren't seen in the poll.


This might give you an idea:

   http://www.mobygames.com/game/trs-80/eliza

-- 
Kind Regards
AndrewM

Andrew McGlashan
Broadband Solutions now including VoIP