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Hello again Ireland,

Below are the results of this month's national performance poll (administered around the 20th of each month), which independently measures and tracks public perception of performance for the following:

1) Ireland as a whole
2) The CP
3) All head ministers
4) Congress as a whole
5) Individual congress members

The purpose of this poll is not to single any individuals out for their positive or negative performance, but rather to encourage personal reflection and provide a little extra motivation for everyone to perform to the best of their ability no matter what role they play in our community.

Special Notice: Many of you already know this, but I will be permanently retiring from this game this month. Therefore, this is the LAST survey I will ever publish. If anyone wants to continue these surveys after I leave, they have my blessing. Feel free to contact me if you want to learn more about the survey software or see the STATA code I used to create the graphs.





RAFFLE WINNERS

Gold prizes were raffled off to randomly-selected players who completed the survey. Winners were determined by assigning each eligible survey-taker a number based on the order they took the survey, and then generating random numbers in the same range via the random number generator at http://www.random.org/. Only current Irish citizens who indicated that they wished to participate in the raffle were considered eligible to win the prizes.

Originally I had planned on giving out 5-gold each to 5 players and 2 gold each to 15 players, but because this is the last survey and I’m leaving the game, I decided to just splurge and give everyone who participated in the survey at least 2 gold (if they indicated they were interested in a gold prize).



5-gold prize winners [5]:
seanlynch
BickUA
Seanan
Liam Tatlock
Paddy OBrien

2-gold prize winners:
Everyone Else!


Congratulations to all of the winners!!!


SPONSORS

In addition to recognizing the winners of the raffle, it is also important to recognize the heroes who donated their own gold to help sponsor this month’s raffle prizes. Between them, this month’s private donors provided 31 gold to the raffle fund (not including my own donation).

James Keiller: 10 gold donation


Anthony Colby: 10 gold donation


Mary Robinson: 3 gold donation


Endritt Zekka: 3 gold donation


Danilo Garcia: 2 gold donation


Winston Hope Smith: 2 gold donation


Cry of the Banshee: 1 gold donation

THANK YOU ALL!!!

Looking ahead: Because I am retiring from the game, I will NOT be collecting gold for next month’s survey. Thank you to everyone who helped make the past surveys a success.

A record of all past sponsors (and winners), including cumulative totals for each individual, can be viewed in this Google doc.





PARTICIPANT PROFILE

Before you continue to the results of the poll it is very important to understand the makeup of those who took the poll. Both the number and diversity of survey-takers can have a significant effect on the validity and reliability of the results, as well the way in which specific results are interpreted.

I regret to report that, although we offered a record high level of gold in prizes this month, the turnout was at a record low with only 24 citizens participating in the poll. This is down from 35 last month, and well below our record high of 45. However, the responses we got this month were relatively diverse, with particularly good representation from our top two parties.

NOTE: The original number of people who took this survey was 27. However, this month I decided to drop the (two) foreign citizens from the results due to the abusive nature of their responses and shaky relation with the Irish community. One foreign citizen rated everything only 0.5 stars across the entire survey, and the other abused the congress section by selecting all three “complaint” options for almost every single congressman. A third individual’s responses were also removed due to obvious and confirmed identity fraud. Specifically, the respondent provided a profile link of a legitimate Irish citizen who had already taken the survey, and then proceeded to rate everything 0.5 stars across the entire survey. The removal of these three responses (two abusive foreigners and one case of identity fraud) brought down the final number of eligible survey-takers to 24.


CS breakdown

PARTY breakdown

MU breakdown

EXPERIENCE breakdown

CURRENT ACTIVITY breakdown






NOTES ON INTERPRETATION

Star scale: Unless otherwise specified (as in the individual congress member ratings), all performance evaluation judgments were made on a 5-star rating scale with 1/2-star increments.

5 stars = extremely satisfied
2.5 stars = neither satisfied nor dissatisfied
0 stars = extremely dissatisfied

Strip plots and confidence intervals

Many of the graphs in this report are strip plots. The grey dots in the strip plot represent individual votes and are arranged in a histogram-like distribution. The red dots represent the means of the sample distribution and the red lines represent a 95% confidence interval around those means. A confidence interval can be interpreted as the area in which we can be reasonably sure that the true population mean lies, given the properties of our sample data.

If you have any specific questions on interpretation of confidence intervals, just let me know.





RESULTS: IRELAND AS A WHOLE

We will start our analysis with evaluations of the country as a whole. Below are the results of how survey-takers thought we were doing overall this month, as well ratings as on 4 specific performance domains (explained below). These criteria were based on the results of the May 2013 brainstorming survey in which participants were asked to give the most important criterion by which the country should be judged as successful.











Comments: Free-comments for this and other sections can be found in-full here.


Performance Domain Key

Reputation: Is Ireland respected by other countries (including both our friends and its enemies)? Did we have an organized and effective military presence around the world this month? Did we behave honorably in foreign affairs? Do we have many friends and allies? Were we loyal to our friends and allies? Were our friends and allies eager to fight for us? Did we have a significant influence in regional and world affairs (for our size)? Do you feel a sense of pride to be e-Irish?
Independence: Is Ireland in control of its home regions? Was Ireland sovereign over its own affairs this month? Was our foreign policy subject to direct coercion by other countries this month? Did we generally determine our own foreign policy or did we primarily follow the lead of our larger friends and allies? Is Irish sovereignty currently under threat from indirect foreign influence such as PTO?
Activity: How active was Irish society as a whole this month? Were many newspaper articles published? Were there many public discussions and debates? Did you see many "shouts" from your friends? Did we have active political parties and MUs? Did we have an active forum and/or IRC channel? Was Ireland a fun and interesting place to live? Did we accomplish much as a society or are we stagnating from boredom?
Unity: How well did Irish society work together to accomplish common goals this month? Did our citizens share common enemies and goals or were they preoccupied with infighting? Were public debates constructive or did they lead to further divisions? How deep and entrenched are political divisions and personal feuds? Do Irish citizens generally trust each other or is trust limited to social cliques? How strongly do citizens identify with their country vs. their party or MU? How well did citizens follow government orders/advice (e.g. battle orders)?





RESULTS: COUNTRY PRESIDENT

Next we will focus on the performance of the CP. Like the country as a whole, the CP was also rated both on overall performance as well as on four specific performance domains that are essential to the CP’s job description (based on responses to the May 2013 brainstorming survey).











Comments: Free-comments for this and other sections can be found in-full here.


Performance Domain Key

Leadership & effectiveness: Was the CP a good leader this term? Did he inspire activity and enthusiasm in his ministers and in the community? Did he earn the respect of his people? Were they eager to follow his orders/advice? Did he bring the country together or did he further polarize and divide it? Did he pursue the interests of all or just those of his own party/coalition? Did he organize and run the government in an effective way? Did he implement pragmatic, fair and effective policies? Did his strategic decision-making reflect competence and wisdom or was it reckless and uninformed?
Activity & reliability: How much effort did the CP put into his job this term? Was he a dedicated public servant? Was he consistently available to his ministers and the public? Was he productive? Did he keep a close eye on community and world events and respond quickly to new developments?
Communication & openness: Did the CP communicate often and effectively with other members of the government? With congress? With other countries and world leaders? Did the CP keep the mass public informed about government affairs? Was he candid and open in his answers to public questions about government affairs? Were all financial activities logged and made public? Was the CP respectful to his fellow citizens? Was he open to new ideas and criticism?
Integrity & honor: Was the CP honest this month? Did he earn/keep your trust? Did he conduct government business with honor and integrity? Did he keep all of his promises (including campaign promises)? Did he avoid using national resources or his position of power for personal gain? Did he put the interests of the country above his personal ambitions?





RESULTS: CABINET

In addition to the CP, each head minister of the current administration was rated on their overall performance this month (below).







Comments: Free-comments for this and other sections can be found in-full here.





RESULTS: CONGRESS





In addition to overall performance, the performance of every individual congress member was measured. Only those survey-takers who were members of congress or worked closely with congress this term were encouraged to complete this section of the poll.

Very important: When interpreting these results, it is extremely important to keep in mind that results may be affected by the specific make-up of those who took the survey. Some parties were more represented in this survey than others. Being human as we are, this can potentially lead to biased responses. However, negative ratings were asked to be justified by selecting specific reasons, which have been included below for the readers’ consideration.





Specific reasons given for negative ratings:




Comments: Free-comments for this and other sections can be found in-full here.





RESULTS: BONUS SECTIONS

In addition to rating government officials, each month I also like to include a unique and fun bonus section.

This month, I included an experimental section that allowed participants to rate their own political party. However, because not enough people participated in this survey to make the results statistically meaningful, the results will not be reported. My apologies to those who participated in the survey and were looking forward to seeing the results for their party. Please direct your anger at those who chose not to take the survey this month.





That’s it for this month’s survey. A raw report of results from the software company is available here. Participants are encouraged to check this report for the presence of their PIN to verify that their answers were counted in full. As always, anyone can request an excel version of the data set, albeit with identifying information about specific participants removed.

Thanks for reading!


Signing off,
Stilpo





LIST OF PREVIOUS SURVEYS:

[September 2013] National Performance Poll #5
[September 2013] July bonus section results
[September 2013] August bonus section results
[August 2013] National Performance Poll #4
[July 2013] National Performance Poll #3
[June 2013] National Performance Poll #2
[May 2013] National Performance Poll #1

[Nov 2012] Saoirse party performance survey
[Nov 2012] Government roles and responsibilities Survey
[Oct 2012] Policy opinion survey
[Oct 2012] Desirable traits for congress members