Web Visitors Polling

I occasionally wonder how many people actually visit this site and really participate. So I decided to scan through a few old Polls (yeah, OK it's a slow day and I have too much time on my hands) you know, to help tempus fugit.

Anyway, it would appear that on average, the highest participation in some of the more recent polls averaged somewhere between 180 to 210 participants. However, on poll stands out like a sore thumb.

With a total of 2215 participants, it would have to be the most polled poll on this site, nulli secundus. And it was a close call too, with 731 voting Yes, 729 voting No and 732 voting No more than anyone else.

And what was the poll I hear you ask? Nominatim, "Are Actors Insular?"

Now did this poll produce a massive responce or what? LOL LOL LOL
Ad absurdum.

Jeff "Bella Gerant Alii" Watkins

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Hi Jeff

Jeff Watkins wrote:
> I occasionally wonder how many people actually visit this
> site and really participate.

While the polls are a fun way at looking at participation, there's plenty of other stats available from the site. For independent traffic stats try clicking on the ball and squiggle icon to the left of every page - the one between the flag and the W3C logo.

http://t.extreme-dm.com/?login=theatroz

24,569 reloads or pages last week doesn't mean a great deal until you put it in context. For a comparison check out the Blueroom site:

http://www.blueroom.net.au/main.html

While the site records them as visitors in the counter on the right, these are essentially directly equivalent to the reloads or pages figure above. What does it all mean?

Theatre Australia 24,569 pages last week.
Blueroom 22,000 pages in the last three years.

The moral of the story? Make sure you list your productions on this site AND include a link back to your own site to push traffic in your own direction.

Cheers
Grant

Thou roguish earth-vexing bladder!

mmmm... can improve on this one...

Thy roguish ear-vexing blather!

;-)

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Jeff Watkins wrote:
>
However, one poll stands out like a sore thumb.
>
> With a total of 2215 participants, it would have to be the
> most polled poll on this site, nulli secundus. And it was a
> close call too, with 731 voting Yes, 729 voting No and 732
> voting No more than anyone else.
>
> And what was the poll I hear you ask? Nominatim, "Are Actors
> Insular?"
>
> Now did this poll produce a massive response or what?



G'day Jeff

As you're the first to have noticed this anomaly, I'd say my experiment at the time didn't work as far as causing any sensation...however, the results since have all proved positive.

You'll notice that the poll you speak of was left up on the board for over 10 MONTHS! Pretty well everyone was bored with it and ignoring it, although I discovered that new votes were being added daily, probably by new visitors to the site.

Basically, I was corrupting the results to draw attention to them. I'm probably responsible for over 1000 of those votes, as every time I logged on I added more votes to the 'losing' categories until they were all exactly equal. From this process I discovered that several votes a day were still being added, which I kept readjusting...yet no one made comment that the results were perfectly divided..?

(From memory, the true response to 'Are Actors Insular' would be over half saying "No more than anyone else", and about a quarter each saying 'Yes' or 'No' ... 'yes' slightly in front. In ten months there were probably 1000 real votes in total.)


The other thing I discovered, which Grant has since corrected, was that the percentage calculations were inaccurate. (What should have been a 3 way 33% split from the number of votes cast was displayed as something like 35-30-45...and not only that but the 'total votes' tally did not match the individual votes in each category. The poll was not only redundant, but corrupted and inaccurate! ) Previous polls would have all suffered as well, from the incorrect tallying system.


As a result of this tampering, and discussing with Grant how to remedy some problems, I was offered the role of 'Poll Roller'. I'm keeping tabs on the new polls that are suggested, and activating them to replace the old ones regularly (roughly every 2 or 3 weeks).

As recent posts have shown, the polls may still not be a totally accurate measure of opinion, but they do create a focus for a lot of interesting discussion.


Please feel free to contribute new ones...the best suggestions go to the top of the list.


Cheers,
The Poll-tergeist

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