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[Results] Two days ago, I created a simple survey form and asked Reddit to submit a blank form. Despite having the instructions front and center, Reddit still had an 89.6% failure rate. (imgur.com)

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[–]RudolphMorphi 213 ポイント214 ポイント  (24子コメント)

"Haha, idiots. I wonder what the survey was, I don't remember seeing it. Oh...oh, I filled that in. Fuck."

[–]zoninationShares Results[S] 66 ポイント67 ポイント  (23子コメント)

At the very least, I hope the key takeaway is to not jump at the first headline, but to critically think about intent before responding to something.

...if everyone did that, Reddit would be a better place.

[–]dodekerekt 45 ポイント46 ポイント  (1子コメント)

And a much slower one.

[–]HammerAttack 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

We'd all have to throwaway our jump to conclusions mats and get shit done, guh.

[–]megoprune 23 ポイント24 ポイント  (19子コメント)

I think your entirely experiment is useless. ~~The takeaway should be make your questions what you really want an answer to. And don't make false headlines if the results matter to you. ~~

This is a much better version of what I wanted to communicate: https://www.reddit.com/r/SampleSize/comments/5kwry7/comment/dbrct0l?st=IXANNTYY&sh=5cffc5ee

[–]zoninationShares Results[S] 13 ポイント14 ポイント  (18子コメント)

That's just the thing, though. How often do you see:

  • A narrated or sensationalized headline that Reddit votes on because of the title?
  • A comment on a Reddit thread that clearly doesn't understand what the article is about?
  • People in discussion-based subs responding to questions that the title asks and missing the entire post body?
  • Commenters who don't read stickies or posters who violate subreddit rules? (As an insider, I know for a fact that people still aren't reading dataisbeautiful's sticky on plagiarism)

It happens quite often. Maybe not 89.6%, but you get the gist.

[–]megoprune 28 ポイント29 ポイント  (17子コメント)

This is a survey. None of that applies whatsoever. A survey should have clear instructions and no misleading, because it's the survey taker who depends on being understood to get good results. We have no obligation to make sure you aren't a liar.

[–]EsQuiteMexican 14 ポイント15 ポイント  (10子コメント)

A survey should have clear instructions and no misleading,

It had very clear instructions. Leave this entire survey blank. That couldn't possibly be more clear. The problem isn't that there weren't clear instructions, it's that y'all didn't bother to read them. Downvote me all you want, but you know it's true; OP proved exactly their point with this survey.

[–]Wareya -3 ポイント-2 ポイント  (9子コメント)

If you construct deliberately self-contradictory surveys, you have a self-contradictory survey. That's all it is. This is not a fault on the participants, this is a fault on the survey.

All OP proved is that if you construct a self-contradictory survey people will fill it out in whatever interpretation they come up with.

Yes, it is absolutely a self-contradictory survey; it has non-optional questions, yet the "instructions" tell people to submit the survey without filling them out. That is necessarily self-contradictory.

[–]sudo-CHOP 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (5子コメント)

Really? Self contradictory?

  • You saw the post title: it was a narrative and a question. No instructions there.
  • You saw the form title: it was a question. No instructions there either.
  • All questions were optional too.

The only place there was any command issued whatsoever was the part that it said "Instructions:"... And it was also front and center.

There was one simple command in the entire post. Rationalizing past that is mental gymnastics.

[–]MisterBigStuff 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Being a survey and being posted to /r/SampleSize implies that OP wants you to answer the survey.

[–]Wareya 4 ポイント5 ポイント  (3子コメント)

Really? Self contradictory?

Yes. Self-contradictory.

You saw the title: it was a narrative and a question. No instructions there.

The survey is directly in contradiction with the narrative and question. The instructions do not have to be in contradiction with themselves for the survey as a whole to be self-contradictory.

You saw the form title: it was a question. No instructions there either.

Implicit instructions are still instructions.

The only place there was any command issued whatsoever was the part that it said "Instructions:"... And it was also front and center.

The Myers-Briggs Type dropdown menu says "choose". That is literally an explicit imperative command. That was an optional question, but again, the instructions do not have to be in contradiction with themselves for the survey as a whole to be self-contradictory.

There was one simple command in the entire post. Rationalizing past that is mental gymnastics.

Rationalizing past common sense is mental gymnastics. The survey is not the instructions. The survey is the survey as a whole.

[–]sudo-CHOP 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Personally I think there's something to be gained between understanding implications vs. explicitly describing something. This is just one of those cases where the implicit and explicit clashed, and you had to determime your own course of action.

And unfortunately I'm old enough to know the world doesn't run on people's expectations of what something is. It runs off of objective terms and the cold and calculated results.

I failed the test too. But who cares. All OP is doing is reporting the results.

[–]DCromo 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

if after thesubmit button a second survey came up asking about the color choices or he placed the second 'blank' one after an intial one one it would validate it a bit more.

[–]timawesomeness -2 ポイント-1 ポイント  (2子コメント)

I feel like you would be the one that does the entire test when their teacher gives them a test with instructions that say "don't do the test, just write your name and sit quietly", and then try to argue that they were supposed to do the test.

[–]Wareya -3 ポイント-2 ポイント  (1子コメント)

No, I would walk out of the classroom and ask to be removed from the teacher's class. Schools are places of learning, not places for teachers to bait children into doing the wrong thing and correcting them afterwards (which, by the way, can have a profound long term negative psychological effect on children, and it should never be done).

[–]queen_ass_ripper -3 ポイント-2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

timeawesomeness more like stemcellness. Because you keep procreating yourself with a bunch of stem cells like a bad batch of polio vaccines. Now apologize to Wareya so we can all get back to figuring out why the government is putting microphones in our dogs. ())::::::::::::::::::::D~~~~ZAPPED~

edit: Sorry about that, I didn't mean to come off as so antagonistic. I had to put my dog down today to find that fucking microphone that the government put in him and it got me in a bad mood. Found the microphone though. Apologize to Wareya.

[–]Signal2NoiseRatio 12 ポイント13 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Have you been on Earth long? Get the fuck out of here with your lofty rational expectations , Marvin, they're here to eat, fuck, drop bombs, and watch Kardashians.

*E: apparently I need to mention the 16th percentage that are self actualized with healthy dose of objectivity so we don't paint All color McFuckStickRetard.

[–]nohat 60 ポイント61 ポイント  (1子コメント)

I accidentally submitted a blank survey, then was to lazy to redo it. So there's that.

To be fair to reddit's attention span, you repeat the obvious, straightforward purpose of the survey three times (reddit title included) in big bold letters, then hide the actual instructions in small font boilerplate.

Still useful as a corollary to the lizardman constant.

[–]mobiusdisco 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

yeah, what this guy said.

[–]ILikeCatsAndBoobs 100 ポイント101 ポイント  (4子コメント)

Huh, I totally filled in that survey with answers. I think I usually read all the little notes, because I can remember following instructions or looking for more information about how I should answer in other surveys. I guess the narrative and "quick test" led me to just filling it in as fast as possible, I don't remember there being instructions there at all.

Though you have to admit that it is a bit misleading; if it were a genuine survey, the title question would be instruction enough.

[–]zoninationShares Results[S] 32 ポイント33 ポイント  (2子コメント)

True. But I didn't want it to really be a genuine survey. I wanted to see how Reddit responded to a simple narrative.

[–]depressed-salmon 24 ポイント25 ポイント  (1子コメント)

In that case I'd say it's less a survey and more a psych study, and one that seems fairly interesting actually; how well do people read instructions after being a short description of the objective

[–]supbanana 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Same here, I was surprised to see I filled out that survey because I don't recall any instructions. Pretty cool reminder to check the fine print

[–]mihai_andrei_12 17 ポイント18 ポイント  (0子コメント)

It is an interestin study ideea, but i think you interpreted it wrongly. The actual attention span has less to do with this "failure" than you pretend.

[–]caninuswhitus 31 ポイント32 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Interesting! I was wondering what the purpose of that was. I had a teacher in Jr High that gave us a test like this. He emphasized that we needed to read ALL the instructions before taking the test. I failed that one and learned my lesson! I passed this one.

[–]kcender 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I had a teacher in the 8th grade do this too. I failed the "test" and also DIDN'T learn my lesson. Theirs was to read each question first, and then do what it said. The last question said just to flip the paper over and be done. On a timed test that is multiple choice, I always go for speed and don't want to spend time reading each question twice. Anyway, that was about 25 years ago and I'm still bitter.

[–]TheBlackHive 94 ポイント95 ポイント  (14子コメント)

Communicating badly and then acting smug when you are misunderstood is not cleverness.

[–]metafish 9 ポイント10 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Why did stickman 2 say "language"? I don't get it.

[–]EsQuiteMexican 23 ポイント24 ポイント  (8子コメント)

> OP posts a survey with the explicit instruction "leave this entire survey blank". There is no tricky language or fine print; it's as plain as possible.

> People don't bother to read the instructions; fail the test.

> People blame OP for communicating badly.

Checks out.

[–]Senray 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (0子コメント)

The "instruction" was in small print and contradicted every other cue

[–]MisterBigStuff 12 ポイント13 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Who the fuck reads the instructions for a simple "What's your favorite color" quiz. It's a pure "gotcha", just for the sake of being a "gotcha".

[–]AquaQuartz -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Eh, I don't think it was supposed to be a gotcha. It's more of a "yup, as expected, most people gloss over any info which is not immediately relevant."

[–]Wareya 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (4子コメント)

I never took the survey. Your projection doesn't check out.

This trick is a complete waste of this community's resources.

[–]EsQuiteMexican 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (1子コメント)

lol how much do you pay to get access to these surveys? how are you limited in how many you can get? It's neverr a waste if the resource is free and infinite.

[–]Wareya -4 ポイント-3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

lol how much do you pay to get access to these surveys?

About fifty cents of my time and attention per survey.

It's neverr a waste if the resource is free and infinite.

Time and attention are not infinite.

[–]sudo-CHOP -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (1子コメント)

How is it a complete waste if we learn something about ourselves?

[–]Wareya 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Just because you personally learned something from this doesn't mean anyone else has to feel the same way. This survey reflects incredibly basic wisdom in survey design, and the fact that OP and so many other posters here are smug/demeaning about it is legitimately bad. The surveytakers have no responsibility other than to take the survey. The ease of taking the survey correctly is the designer's problem, not the takers'.

[–]Sebaceous_Sebacious 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Let's cut the OP with a knife

[–]xkcd_transcriber 6 ポイント7 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Image

Mobile

Title: Words that End in GRY

Title-text: The fifth panel also applies to postmodernists.

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 328 times, representing 0.2313% of referenced xkcds.

xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete

[–]DrawingSpade 19 ポイント20 ポイント  (1子コメント)

But... the colors...

[–]zoninationShares Results[S] 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Tomorrow morning!

[–]ShowerThoughtPolice 24 ポイント25 ポイント  (9子コメント)

This survey is more about bad survey makers than bad survey takers. This is not a "simple" survey. It is short, but not simple.

Your presentation of the results misses the point entirely. There's a standard of visual presentation where important information must be highlighted and ancillary information can be provided in small print and is un-highlighted. The instructions are visually presented as meta information (information about the survey). "People don't read the fine print."

You also need to do the same survey without the trick text so you get a better idea of the population of the people who are taking your survey. Your Myers Briggs results are more a reflection of Reddit users in general, and ALL of your survey takers in specific. Hypothesis: The 89.6% people are less detail oriented vs [opposite of detail oriented?]. The others are more detail oriented and less [opposite of detail oriented].

It would be interesting to see this survey run where the text explicitly indicated the "real" survey. For example:

  • This purpose of this survey is to determine how people process information. Those who have a detailed processing style will read this text. Please indicate that you have read this text by taking the survey found by clicking on "x". x. Also, submit the survey below with all blank fields.

    (NOTE: Technically, it would be MUCH better to tell people to simply not-take the direct survey as that would reduce their burden, and to use IP logging to massage your final data.)

It would be interesting to tease out any difference between those who take the "fake" survey and those who take the "real" survey. The analysis should not have any judgement about the people who end up in either category other than what the data indicates about who they are. The data only indicates "what is", not "what should be". For example, I'd say "fake survey" = "direct survey" and "real survey" = "indirect survey".

tldr: "People don't read the fine print."

EDIT TLDR: "So effectively, all OP did was separate the pedantic people from the normal people." (Credit /u/EagleDarkX!)

[–]EagleDarkX 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (1子コメント)

So effectively, all OP did was separate the pedantic people from the normal people?

[–]ShowerThoughtPolice 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Excellent tldr, haha! Added to text! :)

[–]EsQuiteMexican -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (6子コメント)

Six paragraphs of nerd babbling jut because you refuse to admit you didn't bother to read three lines of instructions? Wow, that's not petty at all.

[–]kochachi1 4 ポイント5 ポイント  (5子コメント)

Six paragraphs pointing out legitimate faults in OP's survey. Sounds like someone just wants to feel superior.

[–]EsQuiteMexican 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (4子コメント)

I'll feel superior regardless; I was just amazed by the lengths of how much y'all are willing to rationalise that you're sore losers.

[–]kochachi1 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (3子コメント)

Maybe he posted it to provide legitimate feedback on OP's study. The only reason to assume he did it to rationalize his mistake is to feel superior.

[–]EsQuiteMexican -2 ポイント-1 ポイント  (2子コメント)

Sure, whatever you like on your tea.

[–]ViKomprenas 57 ポイント58 ポイント  (10子コメント)

Oh, shut the hell up. You gave us clear instructions to answer the survey, in large type, on the part that you must at least acknowledge to view the survey itself, the reddit title. Then, in even larger type, on the title of the form itself. And again, by actually asking questions. You mark it as casual, suggesting that misunderstandings aren't particularly important. You put completely contradictory instructions, once, in significantly smaller print. This is like writing a Terms of Service, bolding a few paragraphs, and then complaining that nobody noticed how you snuck "You agree not to eat cherries" in the middle of a paragraph on DMCA counter-notice resolution procedure. The instructions that were "front and center" were the ones to answer the survey. Stop acting like you don't know that.

[–]wkb 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (1子コメント)

I would say simply posting a survey, regardless of the title, is asking for questions to be answered.

I mean, that's the point.

[–]sudo-CHOP 12 ポイント13 ポイント  (7子コメント)

The title wasn't the survey instructions. The title was a narrative and a question. So was the form header. We can "technically..." the hell out of each other but at the end of the day the only thing that was actually a command was the instructions.

This isn't like a cherry clause in a DMCA notice. This is like skipping the only paragraph in a news article and then immediately jumping the bandwagon on the Facebook comments section.

Don't worry, I fell for it too.

[–]EagleDarkX 10 ポイント11 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Firstly, it's his fault for making it so that 89% of the questionnaire takers took it incorrectly. That's shitty questionnaire making.

Secondly, if the title is a clear instruction, and the questions are clear instructions, you never need to read the small text. The small text only ever serves as clarification. If your small text serves to replace the title instruction, your survey is shitty, and will always be filled in incorrectly.

The one thing OP showed is that you should be clear and concise if you want people to do things for you. If there are headlines, I will generally read the rest of the article to see if it's bullshit, because of context. If I see a google survey that says "PRESS A", with a question that says "PRESS A", I will press A, even if there's small text that says "actually, press B lol." If he wanted me to press B, he should have made that clear, that's not my responsibility.

That's also why people consider clickbait shitty.

[–]ViKomprenas 9 ポイント10 ポイント  (5子コメント)

Erm... no. Asking a question is a command to answer, even if that answer is "I don't know" or "I won't tell", so all of the questions, the form title, etc, were also commands.

[–]EsQuiteMexican 4 ポイント5 ポイント  (4子コメント)

Not if there are extra instructions on how to answer the question.

[–]ViKomprenas 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (3子コメント)

Wait, what? So if I say "What's your favorite color?" and then hastily add "Answer in German!", I've retracted my question?

[–]EsQuiteMexican 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (2子コメント)

No, but you would be allowed to dismiss the perspective of the people who answer in English, as they did not bother to read the instructions. they are clearly inattentive.

[–]ViKomprenas 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (1子コメント)

What if I were to only whisper "Answer in German"? What if I simply assumed they knew, since there was a sign at the entrance telling them to answer color-related questions in German?

[–]EsQuiteMexican 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

The first one is a bad analogy since it was pretty clear with the rest of the isntructions, you just didn't pay attention. The second one is more accurate, and again, that's fault of the people who enter a place knowing they'll be asked about colours and not bother to read the signs at the entrance.

[–]goodhumansbad 11 ポイント12 ポイント  (0子コメント)

You know why I saw your tiny instruction and submitted a blank form? Because the following happened in grade 7 on the first day of English class with all new people (my high school didn't have a grade school attached, so almost nobody knew each other unless they came from the same separate grade school).

We sat down and the teacher said we were going to kick off our first class with a short test, before she did her introduction etc. She told us to carefully read through the entire test before starting.

The last number said something like "Ignore all other questions: flip your paper over and place your pen on top. Wait in silence." All the other numbers were instructions like "Write out the Canadian National Anthem." "Name 20 elements from the periodic table." "Stand up and make a noise like a chicken." "Call out your favourite colour." Essentially a mix of stressful questions most 12 year olds wouldn't be sure of, thinking they were going to fail a test on their first day of school, and questions that made you do something embarrassing especially if you were the first to reach that question.

So of course, over the course of the next few minutes, people were frantically scribbling, and doing all these embarrassing things. Unless you were very lucky to have taken her verbal instruction literally, like I did. Only a very small number of people flipped their paper over immediately.

When people reached the end after doing all the questions, and saw the last instruction to disregard all the preceding questions, they looked at her with such shock that they'd been tricked... you could tell she did this every year to her grade 7s and she just LOVED it.

I've always thought that was kind of a crummy thing to do to nervous 12 year olds on their first day of school. Made some people feel really stupid/humiliated (first impression: Suzie stood on a chair and clucked like a chicken vs. Ellie sat cooly in her seat smiling smugly ... these things can stick when you're that age).

HOWEVER, it did teach me a valuable lesson about reviewing all the fine print before starting a test, which also helps you gauge how much time you should spend on each question so you don't find yourself at the end with 4 minutes to write an essay because you dawdled on the multiple choice questions.

I've never forgotten that little 'lesson' - whether I agree that it's fair/rational or not, it stuck. Fool me once...

[–]PM_meYourAspirations 8 ポイント9 ポイント  (0子コメント)

oh yeah, jokes on us all right

[–]Quagmire056 4 ポイント5 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I feel like if this had been presented as an academic survey people would have been more likely to read the smallprint. As it was, the headline and survey presentation were clearly very informal so people felt no need to read the instructions. I don't think this proves what you think it does..

[–]LolFish42 7 ポイント8 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Do you actually have any results for the question in the original title?

I still hate you for that. Scumbag.

[–]zoninationShares Results[S] 7 ポイント8 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I have results from the actual survey that will be posted tomorrow.

Don't worry, this survey served multiple purposes.

[–]Lington 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (1子コメント)

We took a test similar to this in High School. Our teacher gave us a sheet and at the top it said something like leave everything blank but don't make it obvious to your classmates. Most people filled it in. (It wasn't counted toward anything, of course).

[–]whatislife4 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

We did this in 3rd grade. I failed.

[–]tbariusTFE 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

reminds me of when you're a kid and you're given that 100 question/task list. which includes shit like question 50: "yell, halfway there!" and the first time someone does, its hilarious. but at the very start, it says read every question completely before answering any of them. and at the very end its like, answer no questions, sit quietly.

[–]jfb1337 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I have been bamboozled again

[–]Inamo 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (1子コメント)

I don't want to submit a blank form! I want to tell you my favourite colour. It's green :)

[–]zoninationShares Results[S] 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Green is a good color. It's my favorite as well!

[–]Wareya 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

A conflicting message is not a message to do X. It's just a conflicting message.

[–]EagleDarkX 5 ポイント6 ポイント  (0子コメント)

You expect people to read the small letters when the instruction at the top and at the questions themselves are 100% clear and unambiguous on a silly google survey?

[–]zoninationShares Results[S] 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Interesting Results

All results, code, and plots are open-source and are present on this page. Plots were generated using R and ggplot2, and R code is below, so if you have them installed, you're in good graces.

You can read some of the interesting results yourself by running the main script and playing in R. Here are some of my favorites:

  • Performing subset(resp,score==3) yields this result. These are responses from submitters that I gave the benefit of the doubt.
  • To find the distribution of the Number of correct answers, using as.data.frame(table(resp$score)) will yield this result
  • To show a list of genders, run as.data.frame(table(resp$gender)). It will yield this result
  • There was one lady who wanted to chime in that Myers-Briggs is bullshit, but despite her parroting of a popular viewpoint, still failed the test. You can view the result by running resp[54,]; it will yield this result
  • To show that the majority of respondents were not trolls, you can run library(dplyr); sample_n(resp,25). This will yield a sample of 25 which will look like this

[–]OnStilts 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I liked this, but you don't have enough information to conclude (or imply) what you do about the M-B personality types. Without knowing the types of those who did follow the instruction, you can't really rule out an identically proportional distribution about them. For all we know, the selection bias for those who even use this sub or chose to click on your particular survey gives us nearly all people who identify with the 'rational' types. Maybe none of the other types were represented among those who didn't fail.

[–]timawesomeness 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Reminds me of the instruction reading test that was given out by teachers in my elementary and middle school that had instructions not to do the test which almost nobody read.

People are really bad a following instructions because they don't read them. Always been a problem, always will be a problem.

[–]Mocha2007 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (2子コメント)

Having created surveys myself, I'm not surprised at all. Sometimes I wonder why I even bother putting instructions on my surveys.

Every single time someone has said something along the lines of "I don't know what to do", I have always answered that question in the instructions.

"I read Q5 and I think you're assuming-" no, YOU'RE assuming, because you haven't read the instructions, which specified to take every question literally and not assume anything.

The instructions are there for a reason.

[–]megoprune 4 ポイント5 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Make your questions specific and your surveys will be more successful. (Include the relevant portion of the instructions)

[–]shirshine 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Woo! We are the 10.4%!

Felt so sneaky reading the comments after taking it, all these cheeky "wow! Interested in the results" responses

[–]zoninationShares Results[S] 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Actual color survey results coming soon too.

Stay tuned....!

[–]TheYearOfThe_Rat 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (1子コメント)

How about we ban you, permanently?

[–]EsQuiteMexican 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

The salt is strong in this one.

[–]Pixel871 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Well you completely fooled me, I completely missed that part of the instructions.

[–]cisxuzuul 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (1子コメント)

Wonder about the age demo.

[–]zoninationShares Results[S] 2 ポイント3 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Interesting question. Here are the results from failed responses; Majority in their 20's... pretty Typical for reddit.

Var1 is the age someone entered, Freq is the frequency. The left column is strictly an index.

[–]Senray 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (1子コメント)

http://xkcd.com/169/

"Communicating badly and then acting smug when you're misunderstood is not cleverness "

[–]xkcd_transcriber 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

Image

Mobile

Title: Words that End in GRY

Title-text: The fifth panel also applies to postmodernists.

Comic Explanation

Stats: This comic has been referenced 329 times, representing 0.2319% of referenced xkcds.

xkcd.com | xkcd sub | Problems/Bugs? | Statistics | Stop Replying | Delete

[–]StancedDub 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

I was one of the few who read the instructions :D

Very good survey idea.

[–]The1nOnlyNinja 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

You cheeky bastard

[–][削除されました]  (5子コメント)

[deleted]

    [–]kcazllerraf 8 ポイント9 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    I think that's an awful lot to extrapolate.

    In addition it's weird that you specifically call out rationality when it's highly irrational to expect a survey to not expect you to answer it's questions. I read this more as a study on the effectiveness of the Google survey instruction field

    [–]SweetButtsHellaBab 18 ポイント19 ポイント  (2子コメント)

    Despite its failure rate, Reddit still considers themselves to be of rational temperament.

    I'm sorry, but not reading sub-instructions to a straight forward question doesn't make you not rational; it may make you impatient or cocksure or inattentive or any number of other things, but not irrational.

    [–]megoprune 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    OP is the irrational one really

    [–]EsQuiteMexican -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Impatience, cocksureness and inattention are all traits of the irrational.

    [–]spasm01 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Reddit still considers themselves to be of rational temperament

    unobservant=/=irrational

    well I see OP deleted his exaggerated extrapolations

    [–]william44isme 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Oh I was so confused by this! Also the topic was so interesting I wanted to fill it out. I did end up leaving it blank though

    [–]BabyNinjaJesus 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    I saw that one. Said to myself "of course they do ya fuck" and kept scrolling

    [–]supbanana 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    To be fair, when I see 'casual' and 'friend and I are having a debate', as the survey taker I don't see the importance in reading the fine print, whereas if it is a more serious/academic survey I'll at least glance at it. I wonder how different the results would be if you had tagged it as 'Academic' and gave it a serious title instead of setting it up the way you did. It would have been interesting to do both types at the same time (instead of now, when the sub will be suspecting things like this) and see how the data differed.

    [–]micajoeh 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    God we're disappointing

    [–]NojWerdna 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    I like it. Caught me out and I deserved it. While many in this thread aren't wrong that the way you did it was deceptive (the post being called quick, and the bolder/larger text just saying answer the questions) it is always important to read the whole question and answer properly. Very often Pete get bored of questions or simply answer randomly and to don't Hey sorts of tests really highlights our complacency when it comes to answering surveys.

    A very common practice in official surveys is to put a question in that forces a given answer such as agree or disagree: 2+2=4 and anybody that answers incorrectly the results are immediately dismissed as they cannot be accurate, another way is to include 2 opposing questions for instance yes or no: "I like pizza" then later on in the questionnaire yes or no: 'I don't like pizza" and again any that don't match you instantly dismiss. I will always read the small print in the future and hope to not be caught out again.

    Still very interested in the results of the colour surgery though. Whether there is any correlation intrigues me.

    [–]Str8OuttaFlavortown -5 ポイント-4 ポイント  (3子コメント)

    I usually just fill in bullshit anyway without even reading the instructions because I don't really give a fuck about your survey. Congrats, you faulted a handful of people on reddit.

    [–]Pixel871 3 ポイント4 ポイント  (2子コメント)

    If you don't care about surveys, why are you here?

    [–]Str8OuttaFlavortown -3 ポイント-2 ポイント  (1子コメント)

    Because why not?

    [–]NojWerdna 0 ポイント1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    You are ruining the survey results. Skewing age demographics and answering randomly seem like fun but take away from us that enjoy a) statistical analysis and 2) computing opinions with others

    [–]Hohahihehu -3 ポイント-2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    Well, the important thing is you got to feel smug and superior for deliberately misleading people, and that's what counts.

    [–]dashtucker -1 ポイント0 ポイント  (1子コメント)

    .

    [–]you_get_CMV_delta 1 ポイント2 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    That is a valid point. I never thought about the matter that way before.

    [–]gogeauxgadgetpirogue -2 ポイント-1 ポイント  (0子コメント)

    youre getting downvoted in the comments because you seem to be overreaching, which youll take as meaning you are certainly correct and will double down on your silly extrapolations.

    seems like you wasted a little bit of many people's time and are then calling them stupid. bold move cotton