User:Karmafist/Wikipedians' Political Perspectives

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[edit] Introduction

I'm curious on the political viewpoints of Wikipedians at large, and what part of the political spectrum Wikipedian as a whole tend to see things, if any. I'm putting it on this user sub page temporarily until I figure out where to put it next, but feel free to add constructively to this. karmafist 20:15, 26 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Methodology

  • Social and Economic scores from Political Compass.org
  • I'm going to archive scores with every 20-30 or so.

[edit] Caveat

I will not add any info regarding your personal data without your permission first, but I hope to show trends and such regarding how the project is going as a whole. If you can, please add the data on your own, but I am more than willing to help.

[edit] Request

As well as displaying an average (which is pretty much useless information, to my mind), would it be possible to display the distribution of Wikipedans' views as points on the political compass? It would be interesting to see how the distribution are arranged, particularly against the distribution of political parties, which (if the Political Compass website is anything to go by) tends to be a diagonal from -,- to +,+ running through 0,0.

Just from looking at the results below, it seems to me that the "Wikipedan distribution" is more along the -,- to +,- line (ie, roughly horizontal below the XY axis - that is, most people are socially liberal, but vary only on economic liberalism). ElectricRay 15:05, 8 December 2005 (UTC)

Sure, I'll get on it. It'll probably be a table though, so it might be fairly wierd looking. karmafist 19:09, 9 December 2005 (UTC)
Done - it actually plots very easily in Excel. I woyuld say not quite a horizontal distribution, but certainly below the horizontal axis, and mostly to the left of the vertical axis: thus far, your average wikipedan is happy for people to do what ever they like except freely enter into contracts. Weirdoes! (no prizes for guessing I'm the lone dot in the bottom right) ElectricRay 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
It does, but I thought the axes were opposite on that website? Eh, no biggie. The background of your graph is a bit too dark for clear contrast of the axes labels, and the data point label would be better as "Score" or something like that rather than "Social". Also, you should slap the graph into a image editor, there's a good chunk of white space at the bottom of the graph that's just hanging out there.


I used the same axes as in the PoliticalCompass.org site - horizontal is economic, left and right as is traditional; vertical is social; top being authoritarian, bottom anarchist. Note also excel redrew the axes by reference to the distribution of the points - so that 0,0 is actually higher and to the right of centre (reflecting the fact that the bulk of the distribution is lower and to the left of 0,0).The only image editor to which I have access is Paint, hence the white space. ElectricRay 00:54, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
Errors of the first-born (as mentioned above) now corrected. ElectricRay 01:18, 11 December 2005 (UTC)
I'm not terrific with wikitables, like I said before, so in the "Positive" horizontal quadrants, the cells are smaller for some reason. karmafist 21:17, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Check the history of the template - I put two alternatives - the first will give you approximately the same boxes, the second one will give yoiu fixed width boxes. Guettarda 22:00, 10 December 2005 (UTC)
Much better, thanks Guettarda. karmafist 06:47, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Comment

The lack of a "No opinion" option on this test makes it impossible to accurately convey my views. --YixilTesiphon Say hello Consider my Wikiproject idea 17:02, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

And some questions combined concepts that I strongly agreed with and strongly disagreed with. As if it said, "Murderers should be executed in electric chairs powered by state-owned electric monopolies." Agree, or disagree? I had to say I strongly agreed with some questions while ignoring my real feelings of strong disagreement on the lesser parts of them. Anyway, my score was -4.00 economic, -8.00 social, but I couldn't figure out the syntax to add it to the tables. Delete this along with the others when tabulated. Aumakua 08:47, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

I think that's what the "somewhat agree" parts are for. :p --AySz88^-^ 15:50, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Data

/Archive 1

*=Additional Data
Username Economic Social Political Subdivision* Country* Notes*
karmafist -5.38 -4.72 Merrimack, New Hampshire United States
KHM03 -1.63 -2.26 Pennsylvania United States I may be the most liberal Republican in the USA.
Evolauxia -4.75 -9.23 St. Louis, Missouri United States Anarcho-syndicalist of sorts
Lar 8.00 -5.38 Ada, Michigan United States Hardcore traditional Libertarian since before I could legally vote, going on 30 years now.... Oh, and This poll is flawed. LOL.
Doug Bell 4.63 0.21 San Diego, California United States
Stephan Schulz -6.00 -6.87 Karlsruhe, Baden-Württemberg Germany Apparently, I'm a bit like Ghandi, Mandela and the Dalai Lama, only less fascist ;-)
Joseph Hiegel 8.75 -6.10 Wauwatosa, Wisconsin United States
Bastin8 9.88 1.85 Chorleywood United Kingdom
Batmanand -8.75 -5.85 Studying in Oxford United Kingdom I have been taking the test every few months or so for the last few years. I appear to have drifted slightly to the left and slightly further "up" (slightly more authoritarian) over the years. Whilst I would not self identify as a "hippy" or anything like that, the test says I kinda am. I would say that this suggests the test is flawed in some way
Dharmabum420 2.0 -4.46 Vancouver, B.C. Canada
Daniel -3.88 -4.21 London UK
Andrew -6.63 -5.54 Perth, Western Australia Australia Independent centre-leftie.
Audacity 0.50 -3.44 West Hartford, Connecticut United States I'm in flux politically, having been raised Republican, but living in a liberal town. I think I'm happy as a libertarian, though. Read The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, if you haven't already.
Blast-san -4.50 -1.13 Belle Center, Ohio United States Despite what my political stance may suggest, I actually agree with the religious right on many issues. The test didn't really take into account all my positions (such as I do not think I need someone to command, but a power structure is necessary, I agree with public surveillance cameras, but I do not agree with ID cards, etc.).
omg ShiftPlusOne -9.75 -3.03 Kentucky United States I'd say McCarthy missed one.

[edit] Metadata

[edit] Current Stats as of 11:50, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Median

  • Economic: -3.88
  • Social: -4.77

[edit] Average

  • Economic: -2.43
  • Social: -4.01

[edit] Standard Deviation

  • Economic: 4.88
  • Social: 3.29

[edit] Graphs/Tables

[edit] Excel Graphs

Took all the scores I could find here and made a little Excel XY-graph. As I expected, the bottom-left quadrant is the most crowded. The sample is self-selected, and Karmafist identifies himself as a Democrat and has occasionally clashed with Wikipedia authority. So my guess is that the general Wikipedia contributor population isn't quite as skewed as the graph suggests. But if there's any skew in the general Wiki population, it probably lies in this direction: left on economic issues, libertarian on social issues.

Disclaimer: I didn't take the test myself! I was a naughty boy and did what the test designers warned against: I looked at the explanation of the test instead of answering the questions. The designers said that would bias any test-taker, and I agree. But if I had to spot myself on the graph, I'd land in the lower right quadrant—the distant second in Wiki population. And I'd be pretty close to the origin. I'm a wishy-washy moderate. Casey Abell 15:57, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] As Of December 17,2005

I took that quiz and got a -8.50 and a -3.33. BrianGCrawfordMA 04:11, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

i got -2.25 and -6.77 on april 2 2006. -Yung Wei 綪永徽
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