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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.





RAFFLE WINNERS

First things first. Gold prizes were raffled off to 12 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.



2-gold prize winners [8]:
MrConway
Danilo Garcia
Elite C
Winston Hope Smith
Alexcantona
EmperorPalpatine
Cry of the Banshee
Gzuzz

5-gold prize winner [4]:
seanlynch
johnny jnr
Damhnaic
Snaveait

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 23 gold to the raffle fund (not including my own donation). Because of this, we were able to increase the total prize money again this month to 36 gold (versus 20 gold last month and 15 gold the month before). I’m thrilled to see that I’m not the only one out there who is interested in making this survey a success.

AD31: 10 gold donation


James Keiller: 10 gold donation


Mary Robinson: 3 gold donation


THANK YOU ALL!!!

Looking ahead: So far we have 27 gold collected for next month’s survey (not including my own contribution). If you wish to become a sponsor, please PM me to make arrangements (any amount of gold is appreciated, but the minimum donation to be listed as an official sponsor is 0.5 gold).

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.

Turnout was average this month with 35 people participating in the poll. This is down from 45 last month, but up from 28 the month before. The responses we got this month were relatively diverse, with at least 7 Irish parties and at least 6 MUs being represented. Also included in the analysis are responses from 3 participants who were not current Irish citizens but considered themselves to be an active part of the Irish community. As always, meta-data collected from each user (i.e. IP address, browser info, etc.) was used to help screen for multi-voting. One response, whose PIN was “0000000” was not included in the analysis due to blatant fraud.

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

Rather than using box plots as in previous reports, this time around I am trying out a new type of graph called a strip plot. 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.

These confidence intervals are useful because they provide us with a very simple visual test of the differences between two means. If the confidence intervals between two means overlap, we cannot be certain that the true population means are actually different from one another. If the confidence intervals do not overlap, this means that the differences between the means are less likely to be due to random fluctuations in the data and we can say with much more certainty that means are actually different from one another in the greater population. Generally, the larger the sample is, the smaller the confidence intervals will be and the more certain we can be about differences in population means. This is why larger samples are always better in surveys like this.

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: being respected by friends and enemies; having many friends; having an effective military force; being seen as loyal and honorable; contributing to alliances; feeling a sense of pride to be Irish; having an influence in world affairs
Independence: being free of foreign influence; avoiding foreign PTO; controlling our own regions
Activity: being economically and socially productive, having fun, publishing many newspaper articles, having lively and constructive debates, accomplishing social goals; retaining new players
Unity: working together effectively as a society; minimizing internal divisions and personal feuds; being civil with each other





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: bringing people together; inspiring activity and enthusiasm in ministers and community; organizing government effectively; being proactive; having clear priorities and goals; implementing pragmatic and effective strategies
Activity & reliability: effort; dedication; self-sacrifice; being consistently available to ministers and public; keeping up to date and being responsive to the latest world and community events
Communication & openness: keeping ministers, congress and public informed of government business; being open to new ideas; being diplomatic and civil; building relationships with world and community leaders
Integrity & honor: honesty, trustworthiness, honor, putting Ireland first





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.

In this month’s bonus section, participants were given the opportunity to vote on a “dream team” government cabinet based on prior nominations that were collected in this article. Candidates could be any “living” citizen that has ever been a part of the eIrish community. Instructions were to select the best person for the job, regardless of political affiliation or technical experience, assuming they had the time and motivation to give it their all.

In addition to a government dream team, I also used the same nomination process to run an utterly shameless popularity contest. Here, participants were supposed to choose the most well-liked citizen regardless of political or military competence. This was supposed to be someone that is interesting, funny, friendly, or generally makes this game more fun to play; someone who you would like to grab a drink with in real life.

The results of both the popularity are included below. Just remember that these surveys are for entertainment purposes only. As such, they are not intended to be used in any official decision-making process about government offices.

Note: The numbers in parentheses is the average position achieved in the rankings.

Country President

Ian E Coleman (5.41)

Other contenders:
Sweet Drinker (5.63)
Bhane (5.84)
Nogin the Nog (7.09)
Stilpo (7.34)
Raven Anarcho (7.53)
Winston Hope Smith (7.63)
irishbhoy1967 (7.8😎
Moomoohead (8.41
Liam Tatlock (8.63)
Mary Robinson (9.75)
Aeriala (10.03)
Chance Harrison (10.2😎
Padraig (10.53)
Castenada (10.84)
ReleasetheKrakken (13.19)

Minister of Defence

Seanan (2.00)


Other contenders:
Ian E Coleman (4.14)
Bhane (4.45)
MUFC / Psych0 (4.55)
Marcus Suridius (4.76)
Kurdt Fradenburg (5.3😎
5n4keyes (5.90)
Lucky Slevin (6.14)
Releasethe Krakken (7.69)

Minister of Foreign Affairs

Brian Boru (3.93)


Other contenders:
Raven Anarcho (4.17)
irishbhoy1967 (4.52)
Ethel Rosenberg (4.55)
Chewie (4.90)
Liam Tatlock (5.2😎
Moomoohead (5.52)
MrConway (6.52)
JohnSmith2k9 (7.03)
Releasethe Krakken (8.59)

Minister of Finance / Economy

Appleman (2.86)


Other contenders:
Sweet Drinker (3.14)
Bhane (4.21)
Nogin the Nog (4.3😎
Loouman (4.52)
Liam Tatlock (4.76)
Stranger Here Myself (5.52)
Viktor Kurgan (6.62)

Minister of Community

Anthony Colby (3.21)


Other contenders:
Stilpo (4.00)
Winston Hope Smith (4.07)
James Keiller (4.31)
John Gormley (4.55)
Irasian (5.3😎
Patrick O’Leary (5.52)
Mikebane / EmperorPalpatine (6.4😎
Releasethe Krakken (7.4😎

Minister of Information / Education

Ian E Coleman (1.73)


Other contenders:
Irasian (2.80)
John Gormley (3.67)
Death and Taxes / Malbekh (3.53)
Winston Hope Smith (3.63)
Releasethe Krakken (5.63)

Popularity Contest

Seanan (4.2😎


Other contenders:
James Keiller (4.7😎
Bhane (5.03)
Yddub Emwolb (5.44)
Winston Hope Smith (5.81)
Death and Taxes / Malbekh (6.31)
Moomoohead (6.91)
Castenada (7.47)
MrConway (7.59)
Mikebane / EmperorPalpatine (8.09)
Boudicca (8.34)
Viktor Kurgan (9.75)
ReleasetheKrakken (11.19)


Congratulations to all the winners!







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. And although I didn’t get any volunteers to help with oversight or multi-hunting for this month’s survey, I always welcome inquiries to get involved in oversight for future surveys (I’m looking at you, Kurgan). All I require is that you get in touch with me via PM before the 20th of next month, and that you promise not to share or discuss any private data with anyone except myself or others who are helping with oversight. Anyone may also request to review this and past data sets, albeit with personally-identifying information such as profile links and IP addresses filtered out.

Thanks for reading!


Regards,
Stilpo


P.S. If you liked this article, don't keep it to yourself!




LIST OF PREVIOUS SURVEYS:

[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