MobileRead's 10 best fiction: Survey [Discussion]

[pdurrant]

I've done my best with the world regions. No doubt I mis-named some and missed others. Let me know.

[Bilbo1967]

Why would Russia get its own entry?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Bilbo1967

Why would Russia get its own entry?

17 million km^2 and 143.5 million people. And what would you group it with? Europe and Russia? Central Asia and Russia?

[Dazrin]

I suggest a different split of the ages, rather than 25 year ranges can we change them to <20, 20-40, 40-65 and 65+?

It seems odd to group college grads (25) with junior high students (13) and retired people (70) with people who may still have kids in school (50).

Another option would be to use text descriptions something like:

• Life stage: School Aged (<18)
• Life stage: College/Early Career Adult (~18-29)
• Life stage: Adult (~30-65)
• Life stage: Senior Adult (~65+)

[sun surfer]

Here's my recommendations, and feel free to use all, none or some of these:

Age: Add in one more group and slightly reconfigure to the middle 3 options each having 15 year increments, ending up with 0-24, 25-39, 40-54, 55-69, 70 and up. (5 options total)

Sex: Fine as is. (3 options total)

Language: Specify that it's "First Language". Drop the "Other European". Since we're limited on space, this option's extraneous; we're fine with English and Other. (2 options total)

Education: Add in master's as an option. I think this one will get enough votes by itself that it's useful to have. (5 options total)

Genre: I think most people will be interested (for sometimes opposite reasons) to see the answers to two of the options, Sci-Fi/Fantasy and Literary, but it'd be weird to have only those two as options so I suppose keep them all. (6 options total)

Nationality: That leaves 9 spaces for this. I'd suggest-

Canada
The U.S.
Latin America
Ireland & the U.K.
Europe, including Russia
Africa
The Middle East
Asia
Oceania/Australasia

For the Americas and Europe, I've separated the major English-speaking countries out because I think that'd be more interesting to see the breakdown of. I'd have loved for every major English-speaking country (even the U.K.'s separate countries) to have separate options (and I would've liked to split Europe up more), but there's not enough room. Judging by the what I see around this site (and the nomination thread), I also agree that Russia doesn't need its own option and can be included with Europe while all of Asia could suffice under one option, like Africa. Even though there are people here from all over the world, with such limited option space I think it's not about necessarily fairly separating the world by population or area, but rather taking into account who is likely to vote in the poll (i.e. who's on this site) and making interesting and representative options from that.

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

17 million km^2 and 143.5 million people. And what would you group it with? Europe and Russia? Central Asia and Russia?

Why group it with anything?

Those Russians that live in the European part of Russia use Europe those that live in the Central Asian parts use Central Asia etc...

[Apache]

For sex just have Yes and No.
Apache

[Bilbo1967]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

Sex: Fine as is. (3 options total)

...with such limited option space...

Option space is indeed limited. So why go with a third sex option that is entirely unnecessary apart from the very slight possibility that we'll slightly offend somebody? If you identify as neither male nor female, I'm assuming you have larger problems in society than Mobileread surveys!

FWIW I like all the other options you put forward.

Well genre be multiple choice? It's not like the other option that are mutually exclusive.

[Catlady]

Instead of PhD or higher, what about just saying Postgraduate to indicate anything beyond the bachelor's degree?

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Catlady

Instead of PhD or higher, what about just saying Postgraduate to indicate anything beyond the bachelor's degree?

It seems those with Masters degrees really want to separate themselves from those with just a Bachelors!

OK, accepted.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Hamlet53

Well genre be multiple choice? It's not like the other option that are mutually exclusive.

They'll all be multi-choice, as they'll all be part of the same multi-choice vote. Just try not to be more than one age.

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by Dazrin

I suggest a different split of the ages, rather than 25 year ranges can we change them to <20, 20-40, 40-65 and 65+?


Another option would be to use text descriptions something like:

• Life stage: School Aged (<18)
• Life stage: College/Early Career Adult (~18-29)
• Life stage: Adult (~30-65)
• Life stage: Senior Adult (~65+)

Originally Posted by sun surfer

Age: Add in one more group and slightly reconfigure to the middle 3 options each having 15 year increments, ending up with 0-24, 25-39, 40-54, 55-69, 70 and up. (5 options total)

I accept that the age options need to be revised. I wonder if we have enough young member for it to be worth splitting children into two parts

Age: 0-12
Age: 13-20
Age: 21-30
Age: 31-60
Age: 61+

Further comments on the age question welcome. (& no, I can't just use a numeric field)

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by sun surfer

Nationality: That leaves 9 spaces for this. I'd suggest-

Canada
The U.S.
Latin America
Ireland & the U.K.
Europe, including Russia
Africa
The Middle East
Asia
Oceania/Australasia

For the Americas and Europe, I've separated the major English-speaking countries out because I think that'd be more interesting to see the breakdown of.

The point that since this is a (mainly) English language site, it'll be interesting to see the split of English language countries is well made.

Further comments on the geographical splits welcome.

[Katsunami]

Primary education, is that school to 12 years?

Id take it out, as I think everybody has that at least even the oldest people here.

In the Netherlands, it's:

Primary (6-12)
Secondary (12-18, high school)
Tertiary (18-2x, Bachelor, Master)
Promotion (Dr. / Ph.D....)

Id only include secondary and "tertiary and up". I think the number of people with only primary education or with a Ph.D. Will be very low indeed.