What's on the eUK's Mind? [Census Results]
Day 1,880, 13:06
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Published in United Kingdom 
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by
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by Major Lee Hung
Census
I did a 'census' on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to gather the opinions of the people of the eUK. This is no longer technically an official thing, a more official census will be conducted by ACroc this month. It is very important however in decided how the MoHA, and potentially other departments, are going to operate this month.
It also allows me to further my personal project of making the eUK a better place.
But anyway, the results are in!
Analysis
Total Responses: 103
This was across all political parties, MUs etc across the eUK - from new citizens to ministers. Hopefully this will give a nice insight in to what the eUK wants. Only 4-500 were active in the last 3 days in the eUK, so at least 20% of the population has been polled, which is the kind of sample I was hoping to get.
What Kind of Players do we Have?
It started with some nice easy question, first the names, then the type of player people regard themselves as. This is a breakdown of that result:
As you can see, military is a large part of our society. Political is the next biggest, although the two aren't mutually exclusive. This gives us a good starting point on where to focus this term.
The economic players are slowly dying out or have been forced towards other modules, and we have a large number of casual players.
What is your opinion on the overall direction of the eUK?
This question was aimed to overall, gather how optimistic/pessimistic people are about the future. This offered very mixed views, and I feel the average should respresent it well.
This question was on a scale of 1 - 5. 1 meaning you're pessimistic about our future, 5 meaning you're optimistic about our future.
So how do people feel? Average: 3.019
This means that the overall result means that the country is very mixed. Although, this is to be expected. On one side of the spectrum, we have people who appear to be happy with what the government is doing. On the other, people fear the government is ruining us.
3.019 is a worrying result, and although it lies in the middle, you should take this as a bad sign - people overall, at the very best, believe we're not moving anywhere. You could argue that people overall even think we're making backwards progress. It's clear we need to address this area.
How do you feel about the current political system in the eUK?
This is a very important question in my opinion. Congress and the ministries have been reformed, and no longer use the forums to a great extent. A cause for concern? A benefit to the eUK? Let's find out.
The question was, again, a scale of 1 - 5. 1 meaning you hate the new system, 5 meaning you like the new system.
Average: 3.097
Again, this means there's clearly a very mixed view. Interestingly, the responses for each person correlate directly with the previous question. If they voted five on the last question, chances are they chose 4 or 5 on this one.
So again, the point remains. We need to find a way to make the other half of the eUK happy. Currently, only one half is voting in favour at the present time. We may need to create a hybrid system, between the new reforms and the old system, and we could then be gearing towards neutrality, which will hopefully bring the number up to a healthy 4+
Does your government represent you?
This was a simple 'Yes' or 'No' answer, and the question is self explanatory.
This is an extremely worrying result: 49% of the eUK doesn't feel as though it's being represented by its own government. For me, this is the most alarming of the results on the entire census.
This calls for serious change from the government - if the very people who vote, don't feel represented, we're displaying a terrible form of democracy. More importantly, this directly correlates with our rates of retention.
I will be putting forth a number of proposals relating to this in the next article.
How do you feel about the current eUK government?
This links in with the last question, and the result should be predictable based on the result of the previous question. It was another 1 - 5 scale question, 1 meaning you dislike the current government and 5 meaning you like it.
Average: 3.010
Again, if people dislike the very entity they elect, we have serious underlying issues that need to be addressed.
Does the current eUK cause you frustration?
Another yes or no question. Simply put, do you feel frustrated with the eUK right now? This should take in to account all areas of the nation, from government to military.
This is another extremely worrying result. 61% of the eUK is frustrated with the way things are going. This doesn't correlate with the others - a sign that the eUK is currently a place of great tensions.
This is another area we'll need to address, and will be a part of my list of proposals in the next article. When there's such frustration with your own country, something is seriously wrong.
Based on the suggestions, this seems to stem largely from two areas: The community issues we're currently seeing, and the government. For example, foreign affairs are seemingly becoming a hot topic, and is in my opinion, one of the many contributors.
Have you considered leaving the eUK recently?
This was a yes or no question. This is a key sign that things have gotten so bad, that you feel it's no longer possible for you to have an impact and fix things, making you want to move away for a new start. It's very important that as a nation, we're all trying our best to keep our fellow community players around, no matter how strongly we feel about them.
A worrying 38% have recently considered leaving the eUK - this result should be self explanatory. We need to work on making everybody feel involved and have the opportunity to change what they don't like. This result correlates with opinions on the government, it seems to be another issue relating to politics.
Do you like our current alliance?
This was the least alarming result on the census, only 8 people dislike our current alliance, 95 are in favour. The 8 is less than I expected, and so we can safely assume that this isn't a big enough issue to give a top priority to address. The 8 no's will no doubt largely stem from problems from other nations rather than our own.
What are your thoughts on the 'Official eUK Military Unit'?
Legion has become an extremely hot topic recently. There's been much divide over the issue, and a lot of different ideas coming about as a result. This will be a nice indication on whether the government has currently done the right thing in keeping it official. I basically took the most common ideas on a solution, and put them in as responses in this multiple choice question.
The results are self explanatory - there's a very large split on what to do. I won't go in to detail on this one, as somebody else has already written on it today.
Elle Roslin has recently written an article on the topic, which I feel sums it all up best. I recommend that you check it out here.
How do you view our international image?
This was a simple foreign affairs question, again on a scale of 1 - 5. 1 meaning you think it's pretty bad, 5 means you think it's pretty good. So how does the eUK feel about its own international image?
Average: 3.091
This is again worrying. We should try to make our nation look as good as possible, not like some average country that has no significance in the world. Most people voted 2, 3 & 4, which means they basically view us as in between. If our own people think we're nothing spectacular, what do other nations think? This is an area we need to emphasise this term.
What areas do you think we should focus on this term?
This one was more for government reference than anything. It was a multiple choice question, and you could choose multiple answers from the list. I'm feeling too lazy to turn this one on to a graph as all the responses have gone in to one cell.
The top three choices:
-Strength economic position
-Increase military strength
-Community building
This is a good reference point for the government, to know what to prioritise according to the people's opinions.
How Important are the Forums and IRC to your eRepublik Experience?
Simple question, another from a scale of 1 - 5. One meaning they're irrelevant to your experience, 5 meaning they're vitally important and very much a part of your eRepublik experience. This, in my personal opinion, should be used to decide whether we revert to the forums or not.
Average: 3.214
There were a lot more 5s than 1s, and many voted on the upper end of the scale. It's therefore an indicator that we need a new approach. The forums are still very important to a significant number of people in our community, and we cannot simply shun them for feeling this way. We should address this, as it ties in with many of the other underlying issues.
Hot Topics for the Suggestion Box
I'm going to go in to a lot more detail on suggestions in the next article. They give a general insight in to why people voted the way they did. It's pretty interesting to see what came up mostly though!
-Some game design suggestions; unfortunately out of our control
-Three suggestions on what I should and shouldn't have done in the survey, these have been noted for next time
-More war
-Community problems need address (This came up most frequently)
-Government should stay out of military affairs
-Increase eUK population
-Problems with Sage Goku and Sir Nick Griffin were mentioned frequently
-Forums/IRC
Conclusion
There was much correlation between the results, and it was very interesting to see. People seem to feel strongly about key issues, and we have three clear sides - those who are neutral, then those who are on either extremity of the spectrum.
The government needs to do a lot of work to address the problems brought up by this census. Currently, efforts are being focused in the wrong places, such as starting wars abroad to avoid addressing the issues at home.
It's time to begin fixing these issues - brushing them away is clearly making tensions worse, and many appear to be making their plans to leave the eUK. Unless we can fix things, we have a very worrying year ahead of us.
Thanks for your Participation!
I hope the tanks were a sufficient reward for your time in filling out the census - the results are extremely useful and give us all a lot to think about.
I'll be publishing an article soon based on these results, so that we can know what we need to do.
Thanks,
Joshua Whelan
I did a 'census' on Thursday, Friday and Saturday to gather the opinions of the people of the eUK. This is no longer technically an official thing, a more official census will be conducted by ACroc this month. It is very important however in decided how the MoHA, and potentially other departments, are going to operate this month.
It also allows me to further my personal project of making the eUK a better place.
But anyway, the results are in!
Analysis
Total Responses: 103
This was across all political parties, MUs etc across the eUK - from new citizens to ministers. Hopefully this will give a nice insight in to what the eUK wants. Only 4-500 were active in the last 3 days in the eUK, so at least 20% of the population has been polled, which is the kind of sample I was hoping to get.
What Kind of Players do we Have?
It started with some nice easy question, first the names, then the type of player people regard themselves as. This is a breakdown of that result:
As you can see, military is a large part of our society. Political is the next biggest, although the two aren't mutually exclusive. This gives us a good starting point on where to focus this term.
The economic players are slowly dying out or have been forced towards other modules, and we have a large number of casual players.
What is your opinion on the overall direction of the eUK?
This question was aimed to overall, gather how optimistic/pessimistic people are about the future. This offered very mixed views, and I feel the average should respresent it well.
This question was on a scale of 1 - 5. 1 meaning you're pessimistic about our future, 5 meaning you're optimistic about our future.
So how do people feel? Average: 3.019
This means that the overall result means that the country is very mixed. Although, this is to be expected. On one side of the spectrum, we have people who appear to be happy with what the government is doing. On the other, people fear the government is ruining us.
3.019 is a worrying result, and although it lies in the middle, you should take this as a bad sign - people overall, at the very best, believe we're not moving anywhere. You could argue that people overall even think we're making backwards progress. It's clear we need to address this area.
How do you feel about the current political system in the eUK?
This is a very important question in my opinion. Congress and the ministries have been reformed, and no longer use the forums to a great extent. A cause for concern? A benefit to the eUK? Let's find out.
The question was, again, a scale of 1 - 5. 1 meaning you hate the new system, 5 meaning you like the new system.
Average: 3.097
Again, this means there's clearly a very mixed view. Interestingly, the responses for each person correlate directly with the previous question. If they voted five on the last question, chances are they chose 4 or 5 on this one.
So again, the point remains. We need to find a way to make the other half of the eUK happy. Currently, only one half is voting in favour at the present time. We may need to create a hybrid system, between the new reforms and the old system, and we could then be gearing towards neutrality, which will hopefully bring the number up to a healthy 4+
Does your government represent you?
This was a simple 'Yes' or 'No' answer, and the question is self explanatory.
This is an extremely worrying result: 49% of the eUK doesn't feel as though it's being represented by its own government. For me, this is the most alarming of the results on the entire census.
This calls for serious change from the government - if the very people who vote, don't feel represented, we're displaying a terrible form of democracy. More importantly, this directly correlates with our rates of retention.
I will be putting forth a number of proposals relating to this in the next article.
How do you feel about the current eUK government?
This links in with the last question, and the result should be predictable based on the result of the previous question. It was another 1 - 5 scale question, 1 meaning you dislike the current government and 5 meaning you like it.
Average: 3.010
Again, if people dislike the very entity they elect, we have serious underlying issues that need to be addressed.
Does the current eUK cause you frustration?
Another yes or no question. Simply put, do you feel frustrated with the eUK right now? This should take in to account all areas of the nation, from government to military.
This is another extremely worrying result. 61% of the eUK is frustrated with the way things are going. This doesn't correlate with the others - a sign that the eUK is currently a place of great tensions.
This is another area we'll need to address, and will be a part of my list of proposals in the next article. When there's such frustration with your own country, something is seriously wrong.
Based on the suggestions, this seems to stem largely from two areas: The community issues we're currently seeing, and the government. For example, foreign affairs are seemingly becoming a hot topic, and is in my opinion, one of the many contributors.
Have you considered leaving the eUK recently?
This was a yes or no question. This is a key sign that things have gotten so bad, that you feel it's no longer possible for you to have an impact and fix things, making you want to move away for a new start. It's very important that as a nation, we're all trying our best to keep our fellow community players around, no matter how strongly we feel about them.
A worrying 38% have recently considered leaving the eUK - this result should be self explanatory. We need to work on making everybody feel involved and have the opportunity to change what they don't like. This result correlates with opinions on the government, it seems to be another issue relating to politics.
Do you like our current alliance?
This was the least alarming result on the census, only 8 people dislike our current alliance, 95 are in favour. The 8 is less than I expected, and so we can safely assume that this isn't a big enough issue to give a top priority to address. The 8 no's will no doubt largely stem from problems from other nations rather than our own.
What are your thoughts on the 'Official eUK Military Unit'?
Legion has become an extremely hot topic recently. There's been much divide over the issue, and a lot of different ideas coming about as a result. This will be a nice indication on whether the government has currently done the right thing in keeping it official. I basically took the most common ideas on a solution, and put them in as responses in this multiple choice question.
The results are self explanatory - there's a very large split on what to do. I won't go in to detail on this one, as somebody else has already written on it today.
Elle Roslin has recently written an article on the topic, which I feel sums it all up best. I recommend that you check it out here.
How do you view our international image?
This was a simple foreign affairs question, again on a scale of 1 - 5. 1 meaning you think it's pretty bad, 5 means you think it's pretty good. So how does the eUK feel about its own international image?
Average: 3.091
This is again worrying. We should try to make our nation look as good as possible, not like some average country that has no significance in the world. Most people voted 2, 3 & 4, which means they basically view us as in between. If our own people think we're nothing spectacular, what do other nations think? This is an area we need to emphasise this term.
What areas do you think we should focus on this term?
This one was more for government reference than anything. It was a multiple choice question, and you could choose multiple answers from the list. I'm feeling too lazy to turn this one on to a graph as all the responses have gone in to one cell.
The top three choices:
-Strength economic position
-Increase military strength
-Community building
This is a good reference point for the government, to know what to prioritise according to the people's opinions.
How Important are the Forums and IRC to your eRepublik Experience?
Simple question, another from a scale of 1 - 5. One meaning they're irrelevant to your experience, 5 meaning they're vitally important and very much a part of your eRepublik experience. This, in my personal opinion, should be used to decide whether we revert to the forums or not.
Average: 3.214
There were a lot more 5s than 1s, and many voted on the upper end of the scale. It's therefore an indicator that we need a new approach. The forums are still very important to a significant number of people in our community, and we cannot simply shun them for feeling this way. We should address this, as it ties in with many of the other underlying issues.
Hot Topics for the Suggestion Box
I'm going to go in to a lot more detail on suggestions in the next article. They give a general insight in to why people voted the way they did. It's pretty interesting to see what came up mostly though!
-Some game design suggestions; unfortunately out of our control
-Three suggestions on what I should and shouldn't have done in the survey, these have been noted for next time
-More war
-Community problems need address (This came up most frequently)
-Government should stay out of military affairs
-Increase eUK population
-Problems with Sage Goku and Sir Nick Griffin were mentioned frequently
-Forums/IRC
Conclusion
There was much correlation between the results, and it was very interesting to see. People seem to feel strongly about key issues, and we have three clear sides - those who are neutral, then those who are on either extremity of the spectrum.
The government needs to do a lot of work to address the problems brought up by this census. Currently, efforts are being focused in the wrong places, such as starting wars abroad to avoid addressing the issues at home.
It's time to begin fixing these issues - brushing them away is clearly making tensions worse, and many appear to be making their plans to leave the eUK. Unless we can fix things, we have a very worrying year ahead of us.
Thanks for your Participation!
I hope the tanks were a sufficient reward for your time in filling out the census - the results are extremely useful and give us all a lot to think about.
I'll be publishing an article soon based on these results, so that we can know what we need to do.
Thanks,
Joshua Whelan
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Comments
Thanks again to all who participated! It gives those who want to better the eUK a great idea of where to begin.
Raw data is available; names and suggestions and all other identifying information has been omitted to retain anonymity. Please note that I'll only be giving the data to those who I trust not to use the results to write a political spin story. They're useful to see correlations or write your own analysis which I'd be very happy to see.
😮 It's divided almost straight down the middle for nearly every question. Wow.
Good article. A lot of time was put into this.
As I wasn't asked this census is invalid. Sorry.
no surprise really, it's clear to see we have such a divide. Be interesting to see which parties the participants are from.
Thanks! 🙂
And yeah, the extremities in the scale questions especially were pretty interesting. It shows the full extent of the 'divide', and shows how things are very slightly in favour of one of these sides.
Interesting fact: The slight increment on the answers for both 'sides' directly correlate with the CP elections.
I was confused as to what 'government' meant in your questions = Congress, Executive or both?
Same for the IRC and Forum question - I love and need IRC but I don't use the forums so........?
Both congress and cabinet are what I intended by 'Government'; and IRC and forums are combined in the census, but the Suggestion Box gave a decent indication of how people interpreted that.
49% is a minority, majority rules in a democracy \o/
Looking at the MU results another way, ~85% want an official MU of some sorts (or multiple ones), and ~80% don't think we need a new governmental MU.
Yeah, Alfagrem has a point. I have always used IRC and will continue to do so, however I hardly ever really use the forums. And the word "government" can be very vague. Some may think it's only Congress, only the CP and his/her cabinet, or both of them combined. I guess if you were able to see how people interpreted what you meant in the suggestion box then it's fine.
We also don't know the party breakdown of this poll. As a crude example, if it was 80% TUP replying then BA is doing well, if it was 80% UKPP then he is doing awfully. Presumably you have more OV voters here than in the country as a whole, as you are their PP.
Voted
The UK is very divided, and the government isn't making any effort to fix it, relying instead on their slim majority
🙁
Danie with regards to ..
"This is an extremely worrying result: 49% of the eUK doesn't feel as though it's being represented by its own government. For me, this is the most alarming of the results on the entire census."
If it was a TUP CP i think we would see the same stat, as the UK is almost split 50/50 down the line with politics atm.
Tbh there's not a lot to be gained from this, you could guess the results and be pretty close. The questioning needs to be approached differently.
I have to say that it's a markable improvement of the one in the current Library Project.
I wonder how much of this is a result of parties incubating feelings and opinions and demonizing the opposite side.
My only real criticism is that this reveals polar choices, and what we need is not an either/or approach, but an 'and' approach. For example, we should have strong ingame communication but the use of forums and irc is extremely beneficial. Other web tools should also be explored to see if they can add value.
Nice review of the poll results Josh, keep up the good work!
"The UK is very divided, and the government isn't making any effort to fix it, relying instead on their slim majority"
Iain its been the same since I joined the game in July, so what's YOUR solution?
@BA: We don't know if it is a 50:50 split as we don't know the parties of the people who filled the forms in. There could be 100 UKPP responses for all we know, in which case you would be doing awfully, or vice versa, in which case you would be doing well.
The one concrete thing is that the eUK frustrates us all. I lol'd. I'd say lets get together and figure out how to stop being frustrated, but then I remembered the most frustrating thing to most ukers is other ukers on the other side of our little divide.
I wonder how much of this is a result of parties incubating feelings and opinions and demonizing the opposite side.
My only real criticism is that this reveals polar choices, and what we need is not an either/or approach, but an 'and' approach. For example, we should have strong ingame communication but the use of forums and irc is extremely beneficial. Other web tools should also be explored to see if they can add value.
^
Joshua, very nice article and analysis!
@BigAnt/Diane Fox/Joshua Whelan:
If the party breakdown of this poll is so important, I guess Joshua could edit his article and show us one more chart displaying how many participants (of 103) come from UKPP, TUP, NE, 1V, etc.
It would mean Joshua would have to click on 103 player profiles, but if it's so important for the relevance of answers on questions about current eUK CP and government, maybe it would be worth while? *smile*
it seems to be an excellent response and idea- we should put you in-charge of conducting annual censuses
excellent article, very interesting, shame it didn't include party stats or show any correlations i.e. people who were frustrated with the uk were more likely to have answered that they weren't represented by their government or that kind of thing, maybe if you still have the data you could do some more analysis?
average 3s and military by far the biggest module choice, could the results have been a bit skewed by people just filling it in for the free tanks?
I'm TUP and I voted mainly 3s. We are not setting the world alight but we are not in a disastrous situation either.
For all, except those who partake directly in eUK politics, the change in governmernt (Congress AND CP) has made virtually no difference, one way or the other... despite the wild promises that it would.
MOAR WAR ^__^
So the truth comes to light
Great work Joshua, thank you
A very nice read and virtual copy of the real world. No matter who is holding the reigns of power or what they do people will always find fault with them/it as it doesn't reflect their own personal vision of what we should or shouldn't be doing