Here are the results of the survey – 93.2% of people voted in favour of these being released. There were 46 responses in total (subtract two blanks). Thanks for responding everyone! I wasn’t sure if people would be interested in this, but it worked out well (and there are some clear messages from the results), so I might do it again at some point.
There’s a way to share the results straight out of Google Forms, but this would mean showing complete answers to the last question, which I wanted to keep private seeing as they’re more identifiable than just sets of numbers. So I’ll do this a different way (and I’ll still talk about that last question).
I asked this question to get a general idea of what people value this platform for. Predictably, answering questions was the most voted result, but it’s also clear from these results (and really, just from looking around) that people like it for the interaction. I can see from the data set that the vast majority of people who voted ‘Talking with the regulars’ also voted for ‘Sharing knowledge…’, so these groups of people fortunately don’t seem to be at odds.
I removed an option that said ‘I’m a lurker/not very active’ last minute, but a few people submitted words to the effect manually, so that’s another one we’ll bear in mind.
Google Forms does this nasty thing with the x-axis that makes it look like more people voted for a given option than they truly did. The highest voted option was selected by 22/44 people, so none of these options actually captured a majority of the userbase. (Probably a good thing!)
Still, it’s clear that the approval system and privileges systems should be explained better. I’ve taken some steps toward improving this with the starter’s guide (and trying to link into it in various ways), though we’ll probably not see the effects of that unless it’s put somewhere extremely visible (e.g. the rules page). Do you guys have other ideas for how we could communicate this better?
None of the options here were distinctly unpopular, which shows there’s some work to be done making this place easier to understand. (Thanks to the person who mentioned that section-based points totals are confusing – I recently added a line to the starter threads about points explaining this.)
The average for this question is 3.98, which is alright, but hopefully we can push it higher in the not-too-distant future. I think people are predisposed to answering a question like this in a kind way, so I think the reality is we have a bit to improve upon. Lots of people gave clear indications for where they want to see improvement and I/we will be taking all of that on board.
Another question where the x-axis is a bit confusing, and again, none of the options captured a majority of the userbase. I’m not surprised by the top voted checkbox and I/we will try to address that. Again, none of these options were unpopular, and that makes a lot of sense given the reaction to some of the questions that follow.
A few people elaborated later that their votes for ‘handling drama’ and ‘time zone coverage’ were related to the chat room, which also makes sense. It’s a shame that kicking privileges are totally bound to staff roles that don’t always have much to do with the chat room. Aside from pedalling the chatmod and chat prereq suggestions again, I’m not sure what to do except say “keep pinging us when things go bad”. Maybe I can do some development work, but that’d have to go through Pokemaster first (PHP is not really in my wheelhouse).
I considered making this question a 1-5 scale like the previous one, but I wanted to see how people would react to the descriptions I added. Not a whole lot of people made the jump to say a crackdown is needed, but almost everyone at least agrees there are some low-effort posts about, so watch this space :)
Once again, the x-axis tells a bit of a lie here – none of these results represent a majority of the userbase. However, about half of us think the rules list is missing some things, and a touch under that proportion think that the list is unclear about some things. A good amount of people also think the page is too long.
I actually agree with all the options here (though I didn’t fill out the survey), so these results have at least helped me personally see what issues people are most concerned about (and maybe that people don’t think the rules list is that urgent).
The first of a few strong statements made in these results – people don’t like Game Freak logic questions much! The proportion of people who think they shouldn’t be on PokeBase at all is almost a majority, and only two people said outright that they like those questions.
As far as I know, you guys have the total backing of the staff on this one, so expect some changes to be made.
Another strong statement – interestingly, this pie looks a lot like the previous one, just with the proportions shifted around slightly. More people came to the defence of trivia questions as opposed to ‘Game Freak logic’ questions, but the exact same proportion (75%) at least said they need tighter moderation.
Overall, people seem a touch more sympathetic toward these questions compared to Game Freak logic questions, but I still think it’s clear changes will be made here.
I realised after the fact that the ‘No’ option should have said ‘They shouldn’t be allowed anywhere’ to create a distinction with the ‘main section’ response, but these results are still revealing. A majority of people think in-game team questions should be allowed in some form on the RMT section, but a big group of people are against the idea. I think this topic needs some more discussion to see if we can come to a consensus.
My personal opinion is that we should at least “try” allowing in-game team advice on the RMT section, provided it’s well-organised and not terrible to read, a bit like the red option in the poll. We can pull it all back if the results are bad.
Perhaps another poorly-asked question by me. In short, I think there is a distinction between questions that ask for an outright in-game team rate, and questions that supply an in-game team and ask for help with one particular thing (e.g. the final member, or some key battle). I wanted to see where people think the latter belongs.
The results for this question were the most divided in the entire survey, so again, I think this topic needs some more talking. Somebody made a very good point that in-game team advice generally only serves the person who asked for it, and I think that’s another parallel you could draw with the content already on the RMT section. It could be a helpful way to decide what belongs on the main section (i.e. repeatable problems/questions that many people may find useful) and the RMT section (i.e. help with individual people’s strategies).
For those who don’t know, we already do moveset rates in one thread on the RMT section. But I always felt they were a bit cramped there (and the thread was destined to die like it has, given how badly it’s advertised), so I wanted to see what other people thought. It seems the majority of people are happy with the current idea, but a good amount of people do think they should be in separate threads. I think this is yet another topic we could discuss, fleshing out the advantages and disadvantages.
At least, most people agree moveset rates should be allowed in some way.
More strong statements in these results. I’m glad people voted for the ‘battle format’ option, because I would’ve pushed for it again anyway. :’)
As I mentioned in the poll, we’ll be encouraging all of these regardless of the results, so this question is a matter of which ones ought to be a total necessity. I was a bit surprised that the ‘explanation’ option pulled in front of all the others to become outright second, so that’s something we’ll definitely be taking into account. ‘Bare minimum literacy’ also got a vote from a majority of people.
Once again, none of these options were unpopular, so all of them are at least actionable. My opinion is that enforcing all of them at once is a bit harsh – maybe we should try them one step at a time to see the effects they have on post quality. I think the ‘battle format’ rule alone would have noticeable effects (but there’ll probably need to be more if we want to get RMT where we want it to be).
Really interesting results on an issue I think is currently poorly addressed by us at the moment. A fairly strong majority of people think open ended questions should be allowed in some form, and a touch over 50% of everyone liked the ‘controlled’ approach most.
I am personally torn between the red and blue options. I think the moveset questions cause a ton of clutter that shouldn’t be worsened, but it’s very clear from their popularity that people like them, so we should at least entertain a discussion about allowing more open-ended style questions.
This is another one where I think we should discuss a bit more, and maybe where “try it and see what happens” is a solid approach.
I was a bit surprised by these results given how hard people came down on trivia/theory questions earlier. I’m personally in the yellow camp, because I think people should at least try a google search before they ask a question (and I think the current rule gets hairy in areas PokemonDB is not perfect with, e.g. locations). But it looks like most people don’t think so!
Perhaps this could do with a better discussion of what an ‘easy to search’ question looks like? There is quite a spectrum and I’m sure people would draw the line in different places.
Discussion for the final question is in the next answer!
