while i commend your willingness to "go the extra mile" to garner hobbyists' viewpoints, what you are in fact building is a poll, not a survey.
what you'll be able to say when you're done is that "73 percent of those who chose to respond to the poll said gauge one locomotives should have wheels spanning 45mm." you will not be able to say "73 percent of hobbyists said gauge one locomotives should ahve wheels spanning 45mm."
my point has always been that none of the opinion-gathering techniques detailed so far are scientific. self-selection -- i.e., going to a web site and answering questions or returning a postcard -- skews the results.
i have actually written up a method of creating a (mostly) statistically valid survey of our hobby, but decided that it is way, way off topic (if anybody is interested, i'll send you the explanation off-list), so i'm not posting it.
but maybe i'm wrong; maybe a poll of self-selected hobbyists has some value and maybe i just don't see it.
\dmc
At 9:43 AM -0500 3/17/03, Chuck Walters wrote:
I have been following the threads concerning the surveys that have taken
place at various times within the last year. I took part in the Aster
survey and found it to be (of course) geared toward Aster, which is okay as
it was their survey. However, I don't believe a survey has been conducted
in a long while that is totally unbiased and not manufacturer sponsored.
With that said, and in the hopes that the results of such a survey would be
valuable to a few manufacturers, I have created a shell for an online survey
that allows for anonymity and report ability. It is my intention that the
results will be shared with as many manufacturers as possible, here on the
listserv and reported in Steam in the Garden. Maybe someone will take
notice. What I need from this illustrious group is a list of questions that
you would like to see on the survey. If possible, please make the questions
geared toward check box answers. This will ensure a cleaner database. But
one line answers will work also. When the survey is ready, I will post the
link.
My Best,
Chuck
Charles W. Walters Twin Lakes Railway CEO http://home.twcny.rr.com/twinlakesrw
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