It may be that as the number of petition signers grows, there is also a negative effect on someone's willingness to sign - 'if they've got 500,000 signatures already, what differences would one more make?' - and that reduces the net effect?
One extra issue which will be very relevant for FixMyTransport I suspect is the question of how the context of the petition defines small or big. 20 signatures on a petition calling for rail ticketing to be simplified would make me think it isn't a petition that (so far) is at all successful; 20 signatures on a petition about parking in my road would make me think very different, Mark On 27 June 2011 20:02, Tom Steinberg <[email protected]> wrote: > What an interesting paper! Thanks Seb. I also see that it was > co-authored by Tobias Escher, who wrote our recently published > evaluation reports. Nice work, Toby. > > Here are a couple of thoughts that it provokes: > > 1.) It always seemed obvious to me that it was more attractive to sign > a petition with a million signers, than one with 5, especially if it's > about a big issue. What surprises me is that whilst the effect exists, > it's so small in this experiment: > > "For those presented with high numbers, 66.7 per cent were signed > (that is, 4.2% more than in the control group) and this result is > significant (p=0.015)." > > People are (therefore) much less swayed by big numbers than I would > have guessed. > > 2.) This makes me wonder what it would be like to build a petitions > site that *refused to tell you how many people had signed a petition* > until some period after you sign, or some fixed date. It could even > incentivise you to take part by letting you be part of a sweepstake > "Now you've signed, would you likes to guess how many other people > will sign?" > > 3.) It would be nice to run this again with little issues, rather than > huge big global issues. More than nice - very useful for projects like > FixMyTransport... > > best, > > Tom > > > On 27 June 2011 11:21, Seb Bacon <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi, > > > > With particular relevance to ePetitions and Pledgebank, some > > interesting research: that showing how many other people have signed a > > petition affects the likelihood of others signing: > > > > http://www.psa.ac.uk/journals/pdf/5/2009/Margetts.pdf > > > > Seb > > > > _______________________________________________ > > developers-public mailing list > > [email protected] > > > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public > > > > Unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/tom%40tomsteinberg.co.uk > > > > _______________________________________________ > developers-public mailing list > [email protected] > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/listinfo/developers-public > > Unsubscribe: > https://secure.mysociety.org/admin/lists/mailman/options/developers-public/mark.pack%40gmail.com >
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