(UPDATE SEPT. 3, 2005: This survey is now closed.)
My survey on people’s comfort zones with overlapping personal/professional information online is fascinating! Many of the most interesting are revealed in the write-in responses offered in the two text fields, plus the “other” option offered for many of the questions. As promised, I’ve published these responses.
Write-in responses for:
- Is personal info ever appropriate on a business site or weblog?
- Disclosure: Marital status
- Disclosure: Hobby
- Disclosure: Sexual preference
- Disclosure: Religion
- Disclosure: Mental illness
- Would you ever disclose personal information on your business site or blog? (See next item)
- Explanation of choice: Would you ever disclose personal information on your business site or blog? (Includes numerical response from question 7)
- What might make you quit reading a weblog that interests you mainly for business reasons?
- Identifying info offered by survey participants: In a nutshell, 57% chose to identify themselves in some way.
More about these results…
This index page is intended to provide easy access to all of the write-in responses. I’m presenting the write-in responses for each question on a separate question-specific page. (That’s what the links above are for.) Also on each question-specific page I’ll post a recap of the numerical responses to date for that question (all numerical responses are compiled here), plus my observations about the write-in responses to that question.
About “other” answers: Many of the questions allowed respondents to choose “other” and then write in their own answer. In some cases, those answers clearly fell under one of the options offered – the respondent simply wished to state that answer in her/his own way.
I’ve categorized such “other” responses where that is clearly possible. however, if I have any doubt as to the category of an “other” response, I’m leaving it as-is.
Each answer stands alone, which sometimes makes hard to discern meaning. I love SurveyMonkey, it’s a great tool. However, one shortcoming of using the free version is that I cannot view answers by respondent. I can only do aggregate reporting (total, and in list form).
That is, I can see that Jane Doe took this survey, as long as she chooses to identify herself in the final survey question. However, I cannot tell for certain how Jane responded to any of the other survey questions – I can only guess about that. For instance, if 55 people responded to, say, question 4, I can see the numerical breakdown of responses (including responses written into the “otherâ€? field), and how many people skipped that question – but I can’t specifically tie any of those responses or non-responses in that question to Jane.
Also, this means that if you decide to answer a question with “See my response to question 2,� I’ll have to guess about which response was yours. So for clarity, it’s best to answer each question independently of all your other responses.
UPDATE AUG. 11: I was just exploring Surveymonkey and discovered that they do allow me to view an individual respondent’s answers. So yes, I can see who wrote what, for the respondents who chose to leave identifying information.
In the case of Question 8, where people were asked to explain their answer to Question 7, the survey form asks respondents to first repeat their answer to Question 7 (never, maybe, or yes) and then explain that choice. Unfortunately, many respondents ignored the “repeat” part. This means that in some cases for Question 8, I’ll have to guess by the explanation which answer they chose.
UPDATE AUG. 11: Since I can view an individual respondent’s answers, I will be able to definitively associate answers to Question 7 with explanations in Question 8.
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