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The xkcd survey

Praktik said:
I had a real tough time coming up with a popular food i don't like!

Ended up going with "mussels" - but mostly its cause i have very little exposure to them. THe idea feels gross, but i bet i havent had them prepared the right way yet.
Click to expand...

I said Cheesecake.
 
I started to take it, but I kept getting stuck on the questions, and got bored and went off to do something more interesting instead.

An example of some of the questions I got stuck on:

What's a really popular food that you don't like?

I don't know what's meant by "really popular" food in this question. I don't like liquorice or pumpkin. Do they count as "really popular" or just regular food?

What word can you never seem to spell on the first try?

Just one word? Never on the first try? Those two conditions make it tricky to answer, and none of the very many words I tend to frequently misspell popped into my head at this question.

That's about the point I gave up.

Taking another look at it, and reading past that point I see some other questions I'd have gotten stuck on if I'd continued with it...

When you adjust a thermostat that was set by someone else, it's usually because you want the room to be ...
  • Warmer
  • Cooler
I live alone, so I'm the only one who adjusts the thermostat, and there's no thermostat I can adjust at work. So how do I answer this question? Where's the option for "I rarely or never adjust thermostats set by someone else".

On a scale of 1 to 10, how good at spelling are you?

Where's the option for "how the hell should I know, it's not as if I've ever measured my spelling ability against some kind of objective spelling-ability metric"?

Which do you prefer?
  • Vanilla
  • Chocolate
Where's the option for "Depends on what I'm eating"?

On a scale of 1 to 5, which number is your favorite?

I don't have a favorite.

Which of these describes you?
(Check all that apply)
  • Dog person
  • Cat person
  • Half-cat half-person
  • Part of a subterranean race of dog people
  • Literally named "Catherine Person"
None of the above. Let's drop the adjectives and just go with "person".

It's not just the XKCD survey I have a problem with, it's practically every kind of survey, even customer satisfaction surveys that I encounter, which is why I very rarely attempt to take surveys. There's usually no way to give correct answers to most of the questions.

I do like the last question:

Have you ever thrown out all your different pairs of socks/underwear, bought a bunch of replacements that were all one kind, and then told all your friends how great it was and how they should do it too?
  • Yes
  • No
  • I did the throwing out thing, but didn't talk to everyone about it
  • No, but I'm totally doing that now
I'd have selected the third option if I'd gotten that far. Having all the same kind of sock is pretty convenient because you never have to bother sorting socks and never have more than one odd sock.
 
Last edited:
Brian-M said:
On a scale of 1 to 5, which number is your favorite?

I don't have a favorite.


Have you ever thrown out all your different pairs of socks/underwear, bought a bunch of replacements that were all one kind, and then told all your friends how great it was and how they should do it too?
  • Yes
  • No
  • I did the throwing out thing, but didn't talk to everyone about it
  • No, but I'm totally doing that now
I'd have selected the third option if I'd gotten that far. Having all the same kind of sock is pretty convenient because you never have to bother sorting socks and never have more than one odd sock.
Click to expand...

28% of people who did the sock thing have no favourite number.
 
ya the 1-5 "fave number" didnt make sense to me either

went with 5, maybe for the first time I realized it IS my fave number if I'm having to pick between 1 and 5

but I still thought I was misunderstanding the question, because it starts with "on a scale"....

So I think the question is a non-sequitir
 
That was fun and I am sure the results will be entertaining. Also, I get to feel superior because I typed the word cat with the quotation marks. Take that, people who did not do that.
 
Brian-M said:
It's not just the XKCD survey I have a problem with, it's practically every kind of survey, even customer satisfaction surveys that I encounter, which is why I very rarely attempt to take surveys. There's usually no way to give correct answers to most of the questions.
Click to expand...
IMHO, that's what Randall is parodying. I enjoyed taking his survey, but I rarely answer any others, and I certainly won't reply to politicians' questionnaires. They are worded in such an obviously biased fashion that the results are meaningless.

Surveyors want something for nothing. They want my opinion, but rarely pay for it. My time is too valuable to give away so freely.
 
Brian-M said:
I started to take it, but I kept getting stuck on the questions, and got bored and went off to do something more interesting instead.

An example of some of the questions I got stuck on:

[...]

It's not just the XKCD survey I have a problem with, it's practically every kind of survey, even customer satisfaction surveys that I encounter, which is why I very rarely attempt to take surveys. There's usually no way to give correct answers to most of the questions.
Click to expand...
Many surveys, and I think this one in particular, aren't about "correct answers". Rather, they're about your subjective impressions.

The survey doesn't know or care what are the "correct" popular foods. The survey cares about what people think of, when they are prompted with "popular food that you don't like". The only thing you need to know to answer the question correctly is what is the first food that comes to mind when you think "popular food".

Hot dogs
But I like hot dogs.​

Guacamole
But I like guacamole.​

Chicken drumsticks
I hate chicken drumsticks. Pow! Question answered. Moving on.​

Are chicken drumsticks really a popular food? It doesn't matter. All that matters is that you thought of it, when asked about popular food.
 
FenerFan said:
That was fun and I am sure the results will be entertaining. Also, I get to feel superior because I typed the word cat with the quotation marks. Take that, people who did not do that.
Click to expand...

I did one better:

i typed:

["cat" here:]
 
Praktik said:
I did one better:

i typed:

["cat" here:]
Click to expand...

I did "cat', but on the random words one, after some thought, I decided to actually put in five random words rather than the quote "five random words". I know, inconsistent.
 
I responded to the survey but I could not see any way to see the data - any ideas / links?
 
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