[REPOST] Survey results 1/2009
- Scott Alexander
- Special Map Cartographer
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[REPOST] Survey results 1/2009
We now have results for the micronational survey we ran at the end of last year. I've been given the honor of presenting the write-up, but I would of course also like to thank Liam Sinclair of RIMA, who did most of the hard work coding the survey itself and getting the data into a readable format. I'd also, of course, like to thank everyone who took time to fill out the survey and give us this information.
All the following analysis was done using SPSS:
Out of 52 respondants, 22 (42.3%) were American, 14 (26.9%) were British, 4 (7.7%) each were Australian and Canadian. 8 people (15.4%) were from other countries.
37 respondants (71%) were from 17 to 25 years old. 9 (17%) were under 16, 5 (9.6%) were between 26 and 40, and one respondant (1.9%) was over 41. This question was poorly written and it was unclear which response people exactly 16 years old should have chosen. Also, in retrospect we should have done it as a continuous variable rather than by discrete categories so we could have gotten a mean.
"Years in micronationalism" was another one we should have done as a continuous variable (note to 2009 micronational survey writers!). What we have is that only 3 people (5.8%) have been in micronations less than 1 year, 15 (28.8%) have been in the hobby from 1 to 2 years, 23 (44.2%) have been involved from 3 to 5 years, 10 (19.2%) have been involved from 6 to 10 years, and one (1.9%) more than ten years (hello, Jacobus!). It is statistically very sketchy to calculate a mean from discrete data, but if you promise to forgive me I will tell you that the mean might be something like 4 years.
We asked you to rate various micronations to give their foreign ministries an idea of how they're seen worldwide. In retrospect this question was handled poorly; for example, we don't have a way to discount the effects of citizens rating their own country, and there was no "I don't care and I've never heard of them" option. Live and learn, eh? The following table is the mean (average) and standard deviation (a measure of how much the mean varies) for each country from best to worst (all were n=52):
Novatainia: 3.54, 1.18
Shireroth: 3.52, 1.35
Babkha: 3.42, 1.14
Natopia: 3.35, 1.17
Alexandria: 2.94, 1.07
Vanderveer: 2.85, .958
Katyusha: 2.83, .944
Bobalania: 2.48, 1.06
Ocia: 2.46, 1.11
Lovely: 2.15, 1.13
Some of these numbers are to be expected (Ocia has many enemies, and Lovely has always been something of a whipping boy) but others are kinda strange (are Novatainia and Shireroth really that popular?) There was some suggestion that these numbers may have been the result of the survey being most heavily advertised in Novatainia and Toketi, countries which are both very supportive of Novatainia and Shireroth, but later results cast doubt on this possibility. The standard deviations reveal Shireroth's rating was the most controversial and Vanderveer's and Katyusha's the least controversial. There seems a small trend for large nations to be more controversial than small nations.
Only three micronationalists (5.8%) visited only one forum per month. 30 (57.7%) visited 2 to 5, 14 (26.9%) visited 5 to 10, and 5 (9.6%) people visited more than 10 forums each month (hello, Dr. Spangle!). It should be noted that these numbers are almost worthless, because
people who visited more forums would be much more likely to see and take the survey. In particular, people who visited one forum would never see the survey (which was mostly advertised at MicroHub and the MCS, which are secondary forums for most people) unless that one forum was Toketi, where the survey was well-advertised. Once again, it is bad practice to take a mean from discrete variables, and we should have made this continuous; that having been said, I engaged in the bad practice and the mean was 5 forums.
Our respondants were overwhelmingly pro dual-citizenship. 25 (48.1%) called it "perfectly okay". 18 (34.6%) called it only a "minor problem". Only 9 (17.3%) were really against it and wanted "strict citizenship laws" in place to stop it.
But those who do oppose dual citizenship can rejoice. 22 of our respondants (42.3%) were single citizens. 12 (23.1%) were double, and a further 12 (23.1%) were triple. There is a sharp cut-off after 3 (perhaps because of tri-cit laws?) and only 4 people (9.6%) reported being quadruple citizens. Despite occasional talk of people with outrageous numbers of citizenships, only 1 (1.9%) person reported more
than 5 (hello, Ryan!).
Likewise, our respondants were overwhelmingly pro-recwar. Only 3 (5.8%) called it "absolutely unacceptable", a further 6 (11.5%) merely "personally disapproved" of it, and the remaining 82.7% were fans. This group was evenly split on the importance of complex regulations: 48.9% wanted them and 51.1% said they were unnecessary. This question, however, was poorly worded. It's unclear whether "complex regulations" here meant the relatively simple system of SNARL, an intermediate system like Anunia, or only included very complex systems like the old MRWS rules.
An amazing 40 people (76.9% of respondants) had founded a micronation themselves. Only 12 (23.1%) hadn't. This is actually a good sign, as it means we're capturing a good cross-section of micronationalists and not just a bunch of Toketans, as I was beginning to fear.
There has been a lot of talk about simulation recently. Most people in our survey took a neutral position, with 36 (69.2%) wanting "some simulation...but [it should] also leave room for personal creativity.". 10 (19.2%) wanted minimal simulation, and only 6 (11.5%) wanted "a complex, detailed mathematical simulation of everything from heavy industry to warfare and the weather." This is probably evidence that this survey captured more MCS people than CENTMO people, and it would be interesting to see what separate surveys of the two organizations revealed.
Fantasy – another controversial issue. 17 respondants (32.7%) liked fantasy and wanted to see more of it. Another 10 (19.2%) thought it was "legitimate and interesting" although they wouldn't want to be involved themselves. The remaining 25 (48.1%) were against it, with 13 of those (25%) going so far as to call it 'stupid". It's hard to say whether these numbers would be much less sympathetic to fantasy if the survey hadn't been so heavily advertised in some pro-fantasy countries.
16 people (30.8%) didn't care about micronational religion whatsoever. Of the remaining 36 people, 6 (16.6% of opinionated) opposed it because it was "too serious and personal a matter to fit in micronationalism" and 6 others (16.6% of opinionated) supported it unconditionally ("the more, the merrier".) 14 (38.9% of opinionated) only wanted fictional religions in micronations because real religions were too sensitive, and 10 (27.8% of opinionated) only wanted real religions because fictional religions were too silly.
There were many different reasons people were in micronationalism. Most common, at 15 people (28.8%) was "I just want to have fun!". 11 (21.2%), wanted "to be part of the micronational community and interact with my friends." 8 (15.4%) wanted to con-world and create cultures, another 8 (15.4%) wanted to simulate the workings of a real country, 7 (13.5%) wanted it as a political laboratory, and only 3 of us (5.8%) were real secessionists hoping to become independent. The conclusion seems to be that most of us are in micronationalism for non-serious reasons, with each category getting gradually fewer answers the more serious it was.
Despite the publicity Danny Wallace gave our hobby, only 7 people (13.5%) said they first heard about micronationalism from a TV program. 22 (42.3%) found out about it by the most common method, a link on the Internet. 15 (28.8%) heard from a friend, 3 (5.8%) from an article or book, and 5 (9.6%) from some other source.
Most of us aren't particularly proud or particularly ashamed to be micronationalists. Only 3 (5.8%) trumpet it to the world, and only 7 (13.5%) observe "total secrecy." The vast majority either tell a few close family members (21 people, 40.4%) or don't really bother to keep it a secret (21 people, 40.4%).
Opinion of secessionists is less negative than your average MNN thread would have led you to believe. 6 people (11.5%) were or planned to be secessionists themselves (which contradicts the 3 people who gave that option in the "reasons" question; at last, the "people answering different phrases of the same question differently" my statistics professors tell me about rears its ugly head.) A further 12 (23.1%)
approve of them and wish them luck, for a total of 34.6% being somewhat pro-secessionist. Another 22 (42.3%) are at least prepared to call them "interesting people" while acknowledging they are "sadly deluded". Only 12 people (23.1%) outright call them "stupid and crazy".
Support for a UN-style organization is also greater than might otherwise be believed. 47 people (90.5%) were prepared to consider the idea. Of those, 7 (13.5%) were highly in favor, 16 (30.8%) somewhat in favor, and 24 (46.2%) potentially in favor but doubtful. Only 5 people (9.6%) were willing to call "YAMO!" on it right away.
An astounding 27 people (52%) were currently founders or leaders of a micronation (24 or 46.2% happily, 3 or 5.8% wishing they could retire into private life). Of the remaining 25 citizens (48.1%), 21 or 40.4% were quite happy in supporting roles and 4 or 7.7% wanted to eventually become founders or leaders. Andreas the Wise suggests that the very high number of leaders may be because multiple people consider themselves leaders or founders of the same micronation. Future surveys ought to test for this.
Now, time for some correlations! To make things easier, I recoded each variable into ordinal data, such that the most "liberal" option (for example, permit all multiple citizenship) had rank 1 and the most "conservative" option (for example, ban all dual citizenship) had the highest rank. I then ran Pearson's r correlations.
First, to make sure I was doing it right, I ran a correlation whose outcome should be predictable: that of opposition to fantasy with high opinion of Novatainia (considered the most pro-fantasy nation). Sure enough, there was a correlation of -.63 (p=~0), meaning people who opposed fantasy had a much lower opinion of Novatainia. The same test, run on Shireroth, had a correlation of -.55 (p=~0), meaning Shireroth is considered slightly less fantasy than Novatainia, but still pretty fantasy. Again, predictable. Although Natopia is not commonly considered a fantasy nation, support for Natopia was weakly but still significantly correlated with support for fantasy (-.37, p<.01). No other correlations were significant. However, there was an overall correlation between support for fantasy and support for every country,
suggesting that people who liked fantasy tended to just have more positive opinions about other nations, even nations that had few or no fantasy elements. The only two nations that received less support among the more fantasy-prone were Ocia and Alexandria (neither correlation was significant).
The same test allows us to view correlations between support for two different nations. I will list the singificant ones here (all correlations are bidirectional, meaning a correlation between Shireroth and Babkha is the same as one between Babkha and Shireroth. Note that a larger absolute value of r and a smaller p both mean a stronger relationship; a negative r means a negative correlation. You can find a table of these numbers at http://www.raikoth.net/Stuff/table1.GIF):
Those who liked Babkha were more likely to like Shireroth (r=.29, p=.04)
Those who liked Babkha were less likely to like Novatainia (r=-.27, p=.05)
Those who liked Babkha were less likely to like Vanderveer (r=-.38, p=.005)
Those who liked Ocia were less likely to like Shireroth (r=-.-35, p=.01)
Those who liked Ocia were more likely to like Lovely (r=.29, p=.04)
Those who liked Ocia were more likely to like Bobalania (r=.29, p=.04)
Those who liked Shireroth were more likely to like Natopia (r=.47, p=~0)
Those who liked Shireroth were more likely to like Novatainia (r=.44, p=~0)
Those who liked Natopia were more likely to like Novatainia (r=.56, p=~0)
Those who liked Natopia were more likely to like Lovely (r=.29, p=.04)
Those who liked Novatainia were more likely to like Lovely (r=.34, p=.02)
Those who liked Novatainia were more likely to like Vanderveer (r=.32, p=.02)
Those who liked Lovely were more likely to like Alexandria (r=.35, p=.01)
Those who liked Lovely were more likely to like Vanderveer (r=.30, p=.03)
Those who liked Alexandria were more likely to like Katyusha (r=.44, p=.~0)
Those who liked Katyusha were more likely to like Vanderveer (r=.40, p=~0)
Those who liked Katyusha were more likely to like Bobalania (r=.40, p=~0)
Those who liked Vanderveer were more likely to like Bobalania (r=.40, p=~0)
I have argued before that people tend to confuse realism (vs. fantasy) with realism (vs.simulation), and that the depth of simulation a person supports has little relevance to whether the person also wants fantasy elements (like magic or dragons) in their micronation. This survey supports that opinion. The correlation between fantasy opinion and simulation opinion is only 7.4%, far below statistical significance (p>.5).
Interestingly, there was no significant correlation between your age and the amount of time you've been in micronationalism.
What do people learn when they've been in micronationalism a long time? Well, micronational veterans are more likely than the rest of us to oppose dual citizenship (r=.31, p=.03), but that's about it. What do they learn with age? Apparently absolutely nothing. There were no significant correlations between age and any of the "opinion" variables – opinion of simulations, of recwars, of dual citizenship,
of anything.
People who opposed dual citizenship were less likely to have a high number of citizenships (r=-.31, p=.02). Makes sense. Less obviously, people who oppose dual citizenship are less likely to support fantasy in micronationalism ( r=.42, p=~0). People who oppose fantasy are less likely to enjoy recwars (r=.33, p=.02). Your opinion of simulation has no effects on any other opinions.
Of country-rating/opinion correlations, I found only three of significance: Younger people tended to approve of Shireroth more. (r=-.36, p=.01) People who liked recwars tended to approve of Novatainia more (r=-.41, p=~0) People who liked dual citizenship tended to approve of Vanderveer more (r=-.35, p=.01)
Some of these results were surprising. Alexandria, for example, prides itself on its comprehensive simulation, but a supporter of simulation was no more likely to have positive feelings about Alexandria than an opponent of simulation was. Indeed, people's opinions of countries seem much more based on alliances and interactions with their homeland than on countries' philosophical beliefs.
(you can find a table of opinion correlations at http://www.raikoth.net/Stuff/table2.GIF )
I will conclude with some notes for the people who run this survey next year, who may or may not be Liam and me again, because I know I'll forget this before it's time for the next one of these:
- USE CONTINUOUS VARIABLES! That will make it possible to find means and medians, and make correlations much easier.
- Get all category borders right. Don't allow a redo of that "Over 17" vs. "Under 16" binning mistake.
- Figure out some way to catch the micronation of participants, even if it involves sketchy concepts like "micronation of primary residence".
- Figure out some way to get a better sample. This survey was more heavily advertised in certain micronations than others, so it probably overrepresented their citizens' opinions.
- Have a "Do you support the CENTMO or the MCS more?" question to use as a hook for correlations and stuff.
- Always include an "I don't know" and "I don't care" option.
I welcome feedback and suggestion from the readers. Thanks again to everyone who participated in the survey. See you again this time next year.
( you can download the raw data as an Excel spreadsheet here: www.raikoth.net/Stuff/micronationSurvey.xls )
All the following analysis was done using SPSS:
Out of 52 respondants, 22 (42.3%) were American, 14 (26.9%) were British, 4 (7.7%) each were Australian and Canadian. 8 people (15.4%) were from other countries.
37 respondants (71%) were from 17 to 25 years old. 9 (17%) were under 16, 5 (9.6%) were between 26 and 40, and one respondant (1.9%) was over 41. This question was poorly written and it was unclear which response people exactly 16 years old should have chosen. Also, in retrospect we should have done it as a continuous variable rather than by discrete categories so we could have gotten a mean.
"Years in micronationalism" was another one we should have done as a continuous variable (note to 2009 micronational survey writers!). What we have is that only 3 people (5.8%) have been in micronations less than 1 year, 15 (28.8%) have been in the hobby from 1 to 2 years, 23 (44.2%) have been involved from 3 to 5 years, 10 (19.2%) have been involved from 6 to 10 years, and one (1.9%) more than ten years (hello, Jacobus!). It is statistically very sketchy to calculate a mean from discrete data, but if you promise to forgive me I will tell you that the mean might be something like 4 years.
We asked you to rate various micronations to give their foreign ministries an idea of how they're seen worldwide. In retrospect this question was handled poorly; for example, we don't have a way to discount the effects of citizens rating their own country, and there was no "I don't care and I've never heard of them" option. Live and learn, eh? The following table is the mean (average) and standard deviation (a measure of how much the mean varies) for each country from best to worst (all were n=52):
Novatainia: 3.54, 1.18
Shireroth: 3.52, 1.35
Babkha: 3.42, 1.14
Natopia: 3.35, 1.17
Alexandria: 2.94, 1.07
Vanderveer: 2.85, .958
Katyusha: 2.83, .944
Bobalania: 2.48, 1.06
Ocia: 2.46, 1.11
Lovely: 2.15, 1.13
Some of these numbers are to be expected (Ocia has many enemies, and Lovely has always been something of a whipping boy) but others are kinda strange (are Novatainia and Shireroth really that popular?) There was some suggestion that these numbers may have been the result of the survey being most heavily advertised in Novatainia and Toketi, countries which are both very supportive of Novatainia and Shireroth, but later results cast doubt on this possibility. The standard deviations reveal Shireroth's rating was the most controversial and Vanderveer's and Katyusha's the least controversial. There seems a small trend for large nations to be more controversial than small nations.
Only three micronationalists (5.8%) visited only one forum per month. 30 (57.7%) visited 2 to 5, 14 (26.9%) visited 5 to 10, and 5 (9.6%) people visited more than 10 forums each month (hello, Dr. Spangle!). It should be noted that these numbers are almost worthless, because
people who visited more forums would be much more likely to see and take the survey. In particular, people who visited one forum would never see the survey (which was mostly advertised at MicroHub and the MCS, which are secondary forums for most people) unless that one forum was Toketi, where the survey was well-advertised. Once again, it is bad practice to take a mean from discrete variables, and we should have made this continuous; that having been said, I engaged in the bad practice and the mean was 5 forums.
Our respondants were overwhelmingly pro dual-citizenship. 25 (48.1%) called it "perfectly okay". 18 (34.6%) called it only a "minor problem". Only 9 (17.3%) were really against it and wanted "strict citizenship laws" in place to stop it.
But those who do oppose dual citizenship can rejoice. 22 of our respondants (42.3%) were single citizens. 12 (23.1%) were double, and a further 12 (23.1%) were triple. There is a sharp cut-off after 3 (perhaps because of tri-cit laws?) and only 4 people (9.6%) reported being quadruple citizens. Despite occasional talk of people with outrageous numbers of citizenships, only 1 (1.9%) person reported more
than 5 (hello, Ryan!).
Likewise, our respondants were overwhelmingly pro-recwar. Only 3 (5.8%) called it "absolutely unacceptable", a further 6 (11.5%) merely "personally disapproved" of it, and the remaining 82.7% were fans. This group was evenly split on the importance of complex regulations: 48.9% wanted them and 51.1% said they were unnecessary. This question, however, was poorly worded. It's unclear whether "complex regulations" here meant the relatively simple system of SNARL, an intermediate system like Anunia, or only included very complex systems like the old MRWS rules.
An amazing 40 people (76.9% of respondants) had founded a micronation themselves. Only 12 (23.1%) hadn't. This is actually a good sign, as it means we're capturing a good cross-section of micronationalists and not just a bunch of Toketans, as I was beginning to fear.
There has been a lot of talk about simulation recently. Most people in our survey took a neutral position, with 36 (69.2%) wanting "some simulation...but [it should] also leave room for personal creativity.". 10 (19.2%) wanted minimal simulation, and only 6 (11.5%) wanted "a complex, detailed mathematical simulation of everything from heavy industry to warfare and the weather." This is probably evidence that this survey captured more MCS people than CENTMO people, and it would be interesting to see what separate surveys of the two organizations revealed.
Fantasy – another controversial issue. 17 respondants (32.7%) liked fantasy and wanted to see more of it. Another 10 (19.2%) thought it was "legitimate and interesting" although they wouldn't want to be involved themselves. The remaining 25 (48.1%) were against it, with 13 of those (25%) going so far as to call it 'stupid". It's hard to say whether these numbers would be much less sympathetic to fantasy if the survey hadn't been so heavily advertised in some pro-fantasy countries.
16 people (30.8%) didn't care about micronational religion whatsoever. Of the remaining 36 people, 6 (16.6% of opinionated) opposed it because it was "too serious and personal a matter to fit in micronationalism" and 6 others (16.6% of opinionated) supported it unconditionally ("the more, the merrier".) 14 (38.9% of opinionated) only wanted fictional religions in micronations because real religions were too sensitive, and 10 (27.8% of opinionated) only wanted real religions because fictional religions were too silly.
There were many different reasons people were in micronationalism. Most common, at 15 people (28.8%) was "I just want to have fun!". 11 (21.2%), wanted "to be part of the micronational community and interact with my friends." 8 (15.4%) wanted to con-world and create cultures, another 8 (15.4%) wanted to simulate the workings of a real country, 7 (13.5%) wanted it as a political laboratory, and only 3 of us (5.8%) were real secessionists hoping to become independent. The conclusion seems to be that most of us are in micronationalism for non-serious reasons, with each category getting gradually fewer answers the more serious it was.
Despite the publicity Danny Wallace gave our hobby, only 7 people (13.5%) said they first heard about micronationalism from a TV program. 22 (42.3%) found out about it by the most common method, a link on the Internet. 15 (28.8%) heard from a friend, 3 (5.8%) from an article or book, and 5 (9.6%) from some other source.
Most of us aren't particularly proud or particularly ashamed to be micronationalists. Only 3 (5.8%) trumpet it to the world, and only 7 (13.5%) observe "total secrecy." The vast majority either tell a few close family members (21 people, 40.4%) or don't really bother to keep it a secret (21 people, 40.4%).
Opinion of secessionists is less negative than your average MNN thread would have led you to believe. 6 people (11.5%) were or planned to be secessionists themselves (which contradicts the 3 people who gave that option in the "reasons" question; at last, the "people answering different phrases of the same question differently" my statistics professors tell me about rears its ugly head.) A further 12 (23.1%)
approve of them and wish them luck, for a total of 34.6% being somewhat pro-secessionist. Another 22 (42.3%) are at least prepared to call them "interesting people" while acknowledging they are "sadly deluded". Only 12 people (23.1%) outright call them "stupid and crazy".
Support for a UN-style organization is also greater than might otherwise be believed. 47 people (90.5%) were prepared to consider the idea. Of those, 7 (13.5%) were highly in favor, 16 (30.8%) somewhat in favor, and 24 (46.2%) potentially in favor but doubtful. Only 5 people (9.6%) were willing to call "YAMO!" on it right away.
An astounding 27 people (52%) were currently founders or leaders of a micronation (24 or 46.2% happily, 3 or 5.8% wishing they could retire into private life). Of the remaining 25 citizens (48.1%), 21 or 40.4% were quite happy in supporting roles and 4 or 7.7% wanted to eventually become founders or leaders. Andreas the Wise suggests that the very high number of leaders may be because multiple people consider themselves leaders or founders of the same micronation. Future surveys ought to test for this.
Now, time for some correlations! To make things easier, I recoded each variable into ordinal data, such that the most "liberal" option (for example, permit all multiple citizenship) had rank 1 and the most "conservative" option (for example, ban all dual citizenship) had the highest rank. I then ran Pearson's r correlations.
First, to make sure I was doing it right, I ran a correlation whose outcome should be predictable: that of opposition to fantasy with high opinion of Novatainia (considered the most pro-fantasy nation). Sure enough, there was a correlation of -.63 (p=~0), meaning people who opposed fantasy had a much lower opinion of Novatainia. The same test, run on Shireroth, had a correlation of -.55 (p=~0), meaning Shireroth is considered slightly less fantasy than Novatainia, but still pretty fantasy. Again, predictable. Although Natopia is not commonly considered a fantasy nation, support for Natopia was weakly but still significantly correlated with support for fantasy (-.37, p<.01). No other correlations were significant. However, there was an overall correlation between support for fantasy and support for every country,
suggesting that people who liked fantasy tended to just have more positive opinions about other nations, even nations that had few or no fantasy elements. The only two nations that received less support among the more fantasy-prone were Ocia and Alexandria (neither correlation was significant).
The same test allows us to view correlations between support for two different nations. I will list the singificant ones here (all correlations are bidirectional, meaning a correlation between Shireroth and Babkha is the same as one between Babkha and Shireroth. Note that a larger absolute value of r and a smaller p both mean a stronger relationship; a negative r means a negative correlation. You can find a table of these numbers at http://www.raikoth.net/Stuff/table1.GIF):
Those who liked Babkha were more likely to like Shireroth (r=.29, p=.04)
Those who liked Babkha were less likely to like Novatainia (r=-.27, p=.05)
Those who liked Babkha were less likely to like Vanderveer (r=-.38, p=.005)
Those who liked Ocia were less likely to like Shireroth (r=-.-35, p=.01)
Those who liked Ocia were more likely to like Lovely (r=.29, p=.04)
Those who liked Ocia were more likely to like Bobalania (r=.29, p=.04)
Those who liked Shireroth were more likely to like Natopia (r=.47, p=~0)
Those who liked Shireroth were more likely to like Novatainia (r=.44, p=~0)
Those who liked Natopia were more likely to like Novatainia (r=.56, p=~0)
Those who liked Natopia were more likely to like Lovely (r=.29, p=.04)
Those who liked Novatainia were more likely to like Lovely (r=.34, p=.02)
Those who liked Novatainia were more likely to like Vanderveer (r=.32, p=.02)
Those who liked Lovely were more likely to like Alexandria (r=.35, p=.01)
Those who liked Lovely were more likely to like Vanderveer (r=.30, p=.03)
Those who liked Alexandria were more likely to like Katyusha (r=.44, p=.~0)
Those who liked Katyusha were more likely to like Vanderveer (r=.40, p=~0)
Those who liked Katyusha were more likely to like Bobalania (r=.40, p=~0)
Those who liked Vanderveer were more likely to like Bobalania (r=.40, p=~0)
I have argued before that people tend to confuse realism (vs. fantasy) with realism (vs.simulation), and that the depth of simulation a person supports has little relevance to whether the person also wants fantasy elements (like magic or dragons) in their micronation. This survey supports that opinion. The correlation between fantasy opinion and simulation opinion is only 7.4%, far below statistical significance (p>.5).
Interestingly, there was no significant correlation between your age and the amount of time you've been in micronationalism.
What do people learn when they've been in micronationalism a long time? Well, micronational veterans are more likely than the rest of us to oppose dual citizenship (r=.31, p=.03), but that's about it. What do they learn with age? Apparently absolutely nothing. There were no significant correlations between age and any of the "opinion" variables – opinion of simulations, of recwars, of dual citizenship,
of anything.
People who opposed dual citizenship were less likely to have a high number of citizenships (r=-.31, p=.02). Makes sense. Less obviously, people who oppose dual citizenship are less likely to support fantasy in micronationalism ( r=.42, p=~0). People who oppose fantasy are less likely to enjoy recwars (r=.33, p=.02). Your opinion of simulation has no effects on any other opinions.
Of country-rating/opinion correlations, I found only three of significance: Younger people tended to approve of Shireroth more. (r=-.36, p=.01) People who liked recwars tended to approve of Novatainia more (r=-.41, p=~0) People who liked dual citizenship tended to approve of Vanderveer more (r=-.35, p=.01)
Some of these results were surprising. Alexandria, for example, prides itself on its comprehensive simulation, but a supporter of simulation was no more likely to have positive feelings about Alexandria than an opponent of simulation was. Indeed, people's opinions of countries seem much more based on alliances and interactions with their homeland than on countries' philosophical beliefs.
(you can find a table of opinion correlations at http://www.raikoth.net/Stuff/table2.GIF )
I will conclude with some notes for the people who run this survey next year, who may or may not be Liam and me again, because I know I'll forget this before it's time for the next one of these:
- USE CONTINUOUS VARIABLES! That will make it possible to find means and medians, and make correlations much easier.
- Get all category borders right. Don't allow a redo of that "Over 17" vs. "Under 16" binning mistake.
- Figure out some way to catch the micronation of participants, even if it involves sketchy concepts like "micronation of primary residence".
- Figure out some way to get a better sample. This survey was more heavily advertised in certain micronations than others, so it probably overrepresented their citizens' opinions.
- Have a "Do you support the CENTMO or the MCS more?" question to use as a hook for correlations and stuff.
- Always include an "I don't know" and "I don't care" option.
I welcome feedback and suggestion from the readers. Thanks again to everyone who participated in the survey. See you again this time next year.
( you can download the raw data as an Excel spreadsheet here: www.raikoth.net/Stuff/micronationSurvey.xls )
Scott Alexander | Autokrator of Archipelago (What is Archipelago?)
Illustrious Founder of the MCS, and sometime Special Cartographer
Illustrious Founder of the MCS, and sometime Special Cartographer