OpEdNews was the first progressive media website to commission a poll by a nationally respected pollster. We’ve done several poll projects and we’ve learned a bit about polling—caught the bug. So, when we planned on adding polling to our site, we decided, as we try to do with most of our projects, to do it better than it’s done anywhere else on the web. In this case, that meant providing demographic results as well as the basic numbers.
If you to go other sites that do polls, like Dailykos, you get the percentage of people who voted for each option in the poll. We are already doing that. But we’re adding the information that pollsters usually charge a fortune for—info on how people voted based on demographics—gender, age, education, ideology, race, party.
To do the demographic analysis we need to have the demographic data. That means we need you to provide it. We are requiring you to fill in your gender, education and location. The rest are optional. But, if you don’t fill in the info, you won’t be able to see how others voted. You won’t have access to the statistics for the demographic info you don’t fill in.
We’re not going to let anyone else know the demographic info you fill in. We are never going to share it without your permission. Down the road, we’ll be adding “relationships” with different levels of privacy, at which time, you will be able to allow some people to see more about you. But we’ll never give your info out without your explicit permission on who to give it to. We’ll never give your name, for example, to an advertiser.
I ‘ll repeat. You do NOT have to give any demographic data other than the basic gender, location and education. We call our model ISYMIYSMY—I show you mine if you show me yours.
We’re excited about this project. To our knowledge, no other site allows members to create polls and see such detailed results. We hope it will challenge our members to create some very creative polls. We’re also inviting members to suggest other demographic questions for us to consider adding. This is going to be fun and fascinating.
Here are the basic questions we’ve either already been asking or that we’ll be adding.
It’ll be great if, when they are all on line, you answer them. Or, you’ll be able to, when you see a poll where you want to see the results, fill them in then.
The demographic questions below are not cast in stone. If you have any ideas on how to improve them, on other questions, or if you have problems with these, please add a comment.
Demographic category: Gender
Male/Female
Location by state, Zip, Congressional district
Demographic: Sexual Preference
Heterosexual
Gay/Bisexual/Transexual
Demographic: Ethnic Background
Caucasian
Black
Hispanic
Asian
Aboriginal (first nation, Native American, etc.)
Demographic: Age
18-24, 25-35, 36-45, 46-60, 61-70, 70-79, 80-99
Demographic; Religion
Catholic
Protestant
Jewish
(other denominations we ask)
Atheist/Agnostic
Pagan/Wiccan
Born Again
Yes
No
Ideology
Progressive
Liberal
Moderate
conservative
Very Conservative
Party
Democratic
Republican
Independent
Libertarian
Green
Other
Military or Military In Family
Yes
No
Union: member or family member in union
Yes
No
Marital Status:
Married
Never Married
Divorced/separated/widowed
Civil Union/Gay Marriage
Income Range
Use our existing ranges
Live In:
Lge City
Small CIty
Suburbs
Rural
Children 17 or under in the home
Yes
No
NASCAR Fan
Yes
No
Network Most Watched for News
ABC
CBS
NBC
CNN
MSNBC
FOX News
CNBC
Public Television
CSPAN
Democracy Now
Al Jazeera
Christian Broadcasting
Other
Primary News Source
Daily Newspaper
Network News
Cable News
Talk Radio
Internet
Restaurant Meals Eaten or Taken Out in Last Week
None
1-2
3-5
6 or more
Kind of Radio You Listen to The Most
NPR/Public Radio/College Radio
Religious
Sports
Talk Conservative
Talk Liberal
Music
Other
None
Source Of Household Income
1 person working
2 or more people working
Social Security or Welfare
Savings/Investments
Other
Education (as we’ve been collecting)
Less than High School
High School
Some College/associate degree
Bachelor’s Degree
Post Graduate Degree
Doctorate/MD/ DDS/JD
Voted in 2004 for
Kerry
Bush
Nader
Other
Voted in 2000 for
Gore
Bush
Nader
Other
How Many books do you own?
None
Under 50
50-100
100-500
500-1000
Over 1000
Over 5,000
How often do you go out to the movies?
Weekly
Once a month
A few times a year
Never
How often do you go to Walmart?
Weekly,
Monthly
Every few months
Once a year
Never
