4 ms·

"On the last SSC survey, I asked who participated in the thread, and used that to get a pretty good idea of its userbase." I think this is worth drilling into.

"On the last SSC survey, I asked who participated in the thread, and used that to get a pretty good idea of its userbase." I think this is worth drilling into. Scott's data shows the user base, but he slips into "I took some random surveys" when he addresses the question of comment frequency. That data is not as high quality. If I had the survey data, I'd use the Reddit API to figure out comment frequency by respondent type, and see if there's anything interesting there.

pitt1980 8y ago
Why is it 'worth drilling into'? What's the relevance?
- kkarakk 8y ago
  in my limited experience, open forum social boards without a particular political stance very rarely have data available easily
- BryantD 8y ago
  If there are 10 right wingers and 10 left wingers, but the right wingers post 10x as many comments, that's a rather different scenario than if they're posting equal numbers of comments.
  - pitt1980 8y ago
    Even if that’s the case, so what?
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
whiddershins 8y ago
I believe Scott makes the survey raw anonymized data available: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/13/ssc-survey-results-2019/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/13/ssc-survey-results-201... So, drill away!
- BryantD 8y ago
  Anonymized is unfortunately not useful for this -- you need to be able to get to the reddit user names. I don't see anything in there that would provide number of comments they make in the culture wars thread, and that's really what you need.
  - FeepingCreature 8y ago
    > you need to be able to get to the reddit user names. I don't understand how you can think that's a reasonable thing to ask for, given what this thread is about.
nullc 8y ago
The survey data in the past showed that most people on the blog didn't use the subreddit. I don't know why we shouldn't assume that the converse isn't true as well. IIRC the last survey also had an option for "yes, I know about that thread and stay the hell away from it for the love of god" (okay, the actual option was less extreme than that, but I would have picked my more colorful version if it had been offered and I think many people I know who read SSC would have also). I'm surprised to see that not mentioned in the discussion of those statistics. Unfortunately with this post the possibility to neutrally poll his readership for their own opinions on that thread more directly is probably forever lost now. Any poll now on the subject would be read by too many users as a question on supporting/opposing harassment campaigns or the tenuous link to deplatforming.

pitt1980 8y ago

Why is it 'worth drilling into'? What's the relevance?

kkarakk 8y ago
in my limited experience, open forum social boards without a particular political stance very rarely have data available easily
BryantD 8y ago
If there are 10 right wingers and 10 left wingers, but the right wingers post 10x as many comments, that's a rather different scenario than if they're posting equal numbers of comments.
- pitt1980 8y ago
  Even if that’s the case, so what?
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]

whiddershins 8y ago

I believe Scott makes the survey raw anonymized data available: https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/13/ssc-survey-results-2019/ https://slatestarcodex.com/2019/01/13/ssc-survey-results-201... So, drill away!

BryantD 8y ago
Anonymized is unfortunately not useful for this -- you need to be able to get to the reddit user names. I don't see anything in there that would provide number of comments they make in the culture wars thread, and that's really what you need.
- FeepingCreature 8y ago
  > you need to be able to get to the reddit user names. I don't understand how you can think that's a reasonable thing to ask for, given what this thread is about.

nullc 8y ago

The survey data in the past showed that most people on the blog didn't use the subreddit. I don't know why we shouldn't assume that the converse isn't true as well. IIRC the last survey also had an option for "yes, I know about that thread and stay the hell away from it for the love of god" (okay, the actual option was less extreme than that, but I would have picked my more colorful version if it had been offered and I think many people I know who read SSC would have also). I'm surprised to see that not mentioned in the discussion of those statistics. Unfortunately with this post the possibility to neutrally poll his readership for their own opinions on that thread more directly is probably forever lost now. Any poll now on the subject would be read by too many users as a question on supporting/opposing harassment campaigns or the tenuous link to deplatforming.