Opinion Republic Blog

So, Just Why Did I Create this Website? (A commentary by the site's creator)

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So, just why did I create this website?

I am a professional Market Researcher. I work for one of the world’s largest Corporations. I do this for a living day in and day out, so why would I also choose a hobby on the subject? I plow through scores of research studies every year. My experience has given me a glimpse into the immense power of public opinion. Let me give you one example— I can place a blind product test of two products that are quite similar in performance, with relatively minor differences. On an individual respondent level, no single person is likely to accurately detect all of the points of difference. However, it never ceases to amaze me that if there is a large enough base size of respondents, collectively they will accurately detect minor differences; differences that often are barely detectable in a laboratory setting. James Surowiecki, in his book ‘The Wisdom of Crowds’, talks about this phenomenon. This is something that researchers have known for years and live the reality of day-to-day.

So, why have I created this website? One of the answers is that the public who creates the rich knowledge gleaned from research never gets to enjoy the benefit of those results. Because the public is the contributor, I wanted a place where the public can benefit from the amazing power of collective opinion; a place where they can have a voice, a true voice, not just a check box representing someon else's articulation of their opinion. There are dozens of sites out there that offer polls. The limitation is that existing polls are very one-sided. The person posting the poll decides not only the question but ALSO the response options.

With OpinionRepublic.com, I wanted something different. I wanted the opinions to be more open and less filtered. I wanted it to be more of a community dialogue, but in a way that brings some order to the chaos of current dialogue out there on the web. After many hours deliberating how this could be done, I came up with the logic flow of OpinionRepublic.com. Thanks to my friends at Convina, the concept was brought to life-- polls that start with a question (YOUR question) and NO pre-conceived responses. The only responses are those entered by YOU. Over time, the poll converges toward the top opinions, while allowing new opinions the chance to displace top-seeded opinions.

Are these polls ‘scientific’? Absolutely not, by the standard definition. The sample of respondents participating are not what we researchers call ‘representative’. However, the polls ARE ‘representative’ of those choosing to participate and those who have an opinion. I guess there’s something to be said for defining ‘representative’ in that way.

Additionally, these polls do not conceal the opinions of others prior to an individual voting; the top opinions are displayed prior to the respondent voting. If I were conducting more scientific research, I may not do it this way. However, for a website like this there are positives to consider with the negatives. There is a certain level of visibility that site visitors may need in a setting like this to engage in the ‘dialogue’. We hope to learn more over time. While it’s true that viewing the opinions of others before offering your own may bias you as a respondent, having watched OpinionRepublic.com over these months causes me to believe that the bias is not of a large magnitude. This is especially evident by the fact that I regularly see new opinions displacing formerly popular opinions. Additionally, because each poll begins with no pre-conceived responses, some of the bias may be naturally mitigated. From observation, early responses are not necessarily destined to be top responses.

So, do I believe these polls converge on ‘truth’ over time? I believe that over time, despite the less than scientific ‘representative’ sample, and despite the fact that these are ‘opt-in’ polls, that yes, when a large base size is achieved, it will converge quite truthfully. Do I fully believe the absolute % values when compared to a true representative sample? In many cases, no. Additionally, I think the top ten list can at times include response options that are not ‘truth’. However, overall, I think that the general themes that rise do represent ‘truth’.

What do I mean when I say ‘truth’ given that we’re talking about ‘opinions’? Well, each opinion has a certain probability of being true, or a ‘best solution’ for a broad audience. Those that don’t rank as high are not necessarily ‘false’ or ‘bad solutions’, they just may have a lower probability and/or be a less optimal solution for a broad audience. However, the lower ranked opinion may be an optimal solution for some, just not necessarily the many. That’s why an ‘opt in’ form of polling may not be entirely bad as it attracts those for whom the question has relevancy. Those who are more motivated to respond because it is more relevant to them are a ‘target’ group of sorts. Therefore, the top opinions are more likely to be probabilities for those for whom the question has relevancy versus forcing a question among a ‘representative’ sample just to have them play back a ‘best solution’ which may not be the ‘best’ solution for the target/relevant audience. (Before I get too deep on that subject, let's move on. However, I'd be happy to explore the idea further if interested.)

With all that said, I believe there are some pitfalls and worries. One of them is vandalism; users who dishonestly circumvent the system to drive their own agenda or just for kicks. Over time we have worked to improve security. There is more that we could do, but it can make for a cumbersome user experience. However, those are options for us to consider. It’s encouraging to see sites like Wikipedia adapt to the potentials of vandalism by site visitor policing. It gives other sites hope, but no guarantee. With enough critical mass of poll respondents on OpinionRepublic.com, the effect of vandalism gets ‘healed’ over time.

Which brings up my second concern, that this site needs a certain critical mass of visitors to make it optimal. I worry that the site may not get the collective mass that is needed to break the pull of gravity that grounds so many websites. However, if it is of value, in time it should reach a critical mass.

So, ending where I started… why did I create this site? I hope that this site can connect people of common interests, and can give you an appreciation for the power of collective opinion. I hope that other websites can use the free poll tools found here to drive better dialogue between their sites and their visitors. A way to make websites more of a conversation versus one-sided discourses. I hope it can bring some order to the barrage of information and dialogue that is out there. Ultimately, I hope that the information on this site can converge on ‘truth’. Truth that will help you in making more informed decisions; truth that will help you anticipate the future; and truth that will help you interpret the current world around you.

Thanks for visiting and for participating in this small experiment in democracy!

-Tyler

15 Comments

Tyler,

It sounds like you developed this site in order to create a wikipedia like environment, but for simple opinion polls. However, your API also allows users to create polls for their own personal websites that are tailored to their individual needs. As a result, I was wondering whether you will be rolling out any additional features that would be more suited for surveying (as opposed to one shot polls).

I have been searching the web for a mashup site/service that will allow me to generate a multiquestion, multifunctional survey and then publish it within my own website's html code (www.evertidegames.com). Ideally, people could answer a whole range of questions on one page, press submit and their results would be accessible to them, as well as me in an excel exportable file.

A friend of mine sent me a link to your website a couple days ago. But, after playing with your 'create your own polls' feature, I'm not sure if opinionrepublic fits my needs close enough since it doesn't allow people to fill out answers to a number of different questions at the same time. I think it would be next to impossible to get the people who come to my site to go through the rigors of answering one question at a time.

Do you plan to add this feature? Or do you have any other site that you know of that would fit my needs more closely?

Otherwise, I really like your site. It has a lot of features that are extremely interesting.

Thanks.

Richard,

Currently providing a full-featured surveying service is not within the scope of this site's project.

You can find some great DIY surveying at places like Zoomerang.com. It doesn't necessarily automatically publish the results for site visitors to my knowledge.

Thanks for the inquiry,

Tyler

Can you believe this? I was about to embark on a similar idea yesterday until I chanced upon your excellent poll website via Wikipedia! I, too, wanted to start a poll website where opinions can be gathered all over the world to help us understand this complex world better, so that we could make it a better place for all!

But you had a better idea: starting a poll with no pre-conceived options! What a great idea!

Will certainly support your website and direct people here via my blogs!

Keep up the great work!

Best regards,

David Woon

Singapore

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