Survey: what do you love about SOMA? what needs to be improved?

Hi MOLers,

I'm doing research on what people love (and dislike) about living in this area and would be grateful if you'd all take this short (and anonymous) 8 question survey:

https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/V79MQNQ

I promise to share the results here when I'm done. Also, feel free to jot your thoughts below, both on the survey and also on what you think makes SOMA a great (or not so great) place to live.

thanks,

kidjinx

You shouldn't force a choice of three or indeed any answer in #7 or #8. This will bias your results. I did not complete the survey for that reason. I cannot pick three or indeed any for #8. Which is not to say that no improvements are possible, but I would not choose anything on your list

I don't know who wrote this survey but a lot is missing. For instance - where did you move from? People move here from lots of other states and countries than the metropolitan area.I know you have other but it's so slanted. Also ask the question - how long have you lived here? If it's only a short time their answers will probably be different as they honestly don't know the territory, etc.

Thanks for the feedback, CLK. I've tweaked it so that you can submit questions 7 and 8 with at least one, but no more than three responses. Part of this is a methodology question (I really want to prevent people from selecting every single thing on the list) and part of it is a limitation in the software (in order to limit the number of responses to three, surveymonkey forces you to make the question "required.")

I'm hopeful that most people can find at least one thing on those lists that they either love or feel needs to be improved.

What is this for?

galileo - thanks for your feedback as well.

for the "where did you move from" question there is an open "other" field that people can fill out if they are from any of the many, many places not listed.

Also, we had many, many questions that we would have liked to ask in a perfect world, but we are trying to strike a balance between 1) comprehensiveness and 2) not making it overly long and onerous for people to fill out.

Who is "We"?

But don't you think one of the options should be "lived here all of my life?" I know people for whom that is true. The question as worded assumes that all repondents are transplants.

Who is the "we" sponsoring the survey? Is this a political or commercial survey? That matters both to whether and how I would respond ...

sprout said:
Who is "We"?

imonlysleeping said:
What is this for?

I'm working on a personal creative project on what people love / don't love about where they live. I thought this survey could a) provide some input and b) be of interest to the SOMA community. No corporations, media, government, or universities involved. Just a guy with a SurveyMonkey account.

sprout said:
Who is "We"?

My wife and I.

Looking at SurveyMonkey it looks like you get paid for each response. Is that how it works? I googled it as I had never heard of it. Sounds interesting.

Done

Why did you change the order of choices in #8 vs. #7?

The questions strike me as basic to the point of being uninteresting. Where is the potential for discovery here? Most people moved here from NYC or elsewhere in Jersey. They moved for proximity to NYC, housing stock, reasonable home prices and charming downtown areas. They don't like the property taxes. Don't think you need a survey to learn all of that? Especially a self-selecting, non-scientific one like this.

galileo said:
Looking at SurveyMonkey it looks like you get paid for each response. Is that how it works? I googled it as I had never heard of it. Sounds interesting.

It's just a really solid (and free) online survey tool. I am definitely not getting paid.

I think they make money by upgrading heavy users to a paid premium version of the product.

cramer said:
Why did you change the order of choices in #8 vs. #7?

The order is set to be randomized so as to remove bias from respondent to respondent. It's a shortcoming in the software that you can't duplicate the same randomized order from question to question within the same individual survey.

imonlysleeping said:
The questions strike me as basic to the point of being uninteresting. Where is the potential for discovery here? Most people moved here from NYC or elsewhere in Jersey. They moved for proximity to NYC, housing stock, reasonable home prices and charming downtown areas. They don't like the property taxes. Don't think you need a survey to learn all of that? Especially a self-selecting, non-scientific one like this.

Well, you may or may not end up being right - finding out is kind of the point of this exercise. At the very least I am hopeful there will be good insight a) within the open field questions and b) possibly when comparing one town's answers to another's. I'm certainly open to adding other questions if people can think of more insightful ones.

I do know that there are 14 responses so far and there are already several thoughtful remarks in the open fields.

But what do you intend to do with this info? I still don't understand. Comments in open fields are just anecdotal and don't provide any actual data. If this were some kind of customer-service thing then you'd want the anecdotal comments, but if the goal is some kind of meaningful overview then only the comparable data would be of interest. Also, you don't have enough variables to make for any kind of analysis beyond, as you say, comparing the two towns. I'm just not grasping what the goal/point is, even just as a fun personal project. What are you hoping to learn?

Done. Good luck!

Agree with what people are saying. I also think words like "diversity" are kind of squishy and imprecise. I imagine some people define diversity in terms of race and religion, others in terms of sexual orientation, perhaps political leanings, still others in terms of income and/or types of employment (e.g., "creative" types).

"I came for (or value) diversity" really doesn't say much.

Can you let me if "Home > Pub > Train to Work > Train from Work > Pub > Home" is an okay response?

OMG, just take the survey or don't take the survey. Let the survey master decide how he uses the information.

If you post something on a discussion board, people are free to discuss it. Especially if you specifically ask people to do so!

Also, feel free to jot your thoughts below, both on the survey and also on what you think makes SOMA a great (or not so great) place to live.

I hate everyone and everything. No survey required! LOL

Done.

Freeway said:
I hate everyone and everything. No survey required! LOL

Well I hope you move to the other side of the world then.

LoL

Freeway said:
I hate everyone and everything. No survey required! LOL

Have a Grumpy Cat day, are we?

Nah. Was just discussing the survey that ReedPop/ShowClix forced users to take before buying NYCC ticket when I saw this thread. Based on people just crowbarring their way through it by clicking the first answers to all the questions, comiccon should expect 130,000 ,13-17year old, females , who like anime to show up.