Survey Results 2010
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Survey Results 2010
The Micronational Survey of 2010 had an exceptional turnout, with 88 respondents recorded before the forms were closed. The inclusion of several extra identifying questions not used in previous surveys allowed a much deeper analysis of the results, breaking them down by macronational country, age, micronational community and micronational country. Unfortunately our analysts have not been able to go through each and every number with a fine toothed comb, but we hope to bring to your attention the most interesting features, and look forward to further analysis being done on the public release of the result summaries.
The macronational countries of respondents were of little overall surprise; the bulk came from the United Kingdom (18) and the USA (34). The rest of Europe provided 19 respondents; Australia 6 and Canada 4. Seven other respondents came from such exotic destinations as Malta, Argentina, South Africa and Brazil (the final three left this section blank). More interesting was the array of micronational countries – 41 separate countries were recorded, with 27 of them having only one respondent who listed that country as their primary nation. Shireroth (10), Gralus (9), Batavia (7) and Antica (6) put on a strong show; and Alexandria, Ashkenatza, Flanders and Stormark each provided 4 respondents. We’ll be looking at these countries in more detail soon.
Age wise, our respondents this year ranged from 12 to 38, plus several blanks and one older resident who would not reveal their specific age. The mean age was 20.9 with both the median and the mode 19; 40 of our respondents were aged 15-19 and 20 aged 20-24, making up a large chunk of our community. However, only 58% of our respondents were in the 17-25 bracket, compared with 71% last year. The average time in the hobby was 5 years, however you measured it, though we had people from 12.5 to 0.5 years of involvement. They visit a mean of 4.72 micronational forums a month, and 2.95 regularly. Another interesting result (perhaps reflecting the inclusion of non-Micran micronationalists in the survey) was that micronationalists held 1.92 citizenships on average, with both the median and the mode being 1. Whichever of you claims 19 citizenships, I suggest you might want to drop at least 15 of them – I know from experience .
We micronationalists are traditionally a secretive bunch, but 42% of respondents this year “don’t really keep it a secret”, and 7% (6 respondents) trumpet it to the world. Another interesting caricature was shattered with the news that 29% of respondents prefer being a citizen to leading a nation; and 38% are equally happy as a leader or a follower. And the stranglehold of Danny Wallace on the community seems ended – only 8% of respondents heard about micronationalism from a TV show, with 55% following internet links and 25% hearing about it from friends.
Why are we still here? 11% aim at secession, double that of last year, and perhaps reflecting the wider net cast for survey results. Another 10% are experimenting with culture, and a further 10% with conworlding. The largest result was 27% interested in simulating a country, followed by 19% just here for the fun of it, and 16% here for the friends. These non-serious results are notably down from last year, accounting for 50% of respondents then. As another interesting comparison, 68% of respondents have founded their own nation this year, down from 77% last year.
This year we aimed to capture a wider range of micronationalists and we appear to have succeeded. 62 respondents were from MCS, 13 from Microwiki, 9 claim some sort of real land, and the rest either on small maps or ignoring territory entirely. Nobody claimed any sort of allegiance to an MCS Alternative, so it looks like we’ll be staying a one-map sector, which is good news.
Focussing now on a few of the more controversial issues, opinions on dual citizenship were almost exactly the same as last year, with 49% in favour, and 34% considering it only a minor problem. Recwar had a phenomenal 18 “other” responses, ranging from “Too much bickering” and “There is currently WAY too much wikipedia surfing involved” to “When do I start?” Those interested in the full array of responses should go to the results below. Of those who gave standard responses, 46 were pro and 24 against. The recwar charter question also raised a number of “other” responses, including one call for the MRWS original and two for a storytelling/freeform approach. 23 respondents had never heard of any of these, a number which surprises me, and a further 21 don’t like recwar at all; perhaps explaining why there hasn’t been a large international war yet this year. The international standard Anunia attracted only 14 supporters (one in combination with QUARREL), and another 8 liked the old style SNARL. Personally, I wonder what would have happened if I’d just put “points based recwar system” on there, but I suspect the current wording of the question is the best for the bulk of the community.
With regard to the general simulation, 31 respondents (35%) favour little or no simulation, and 46 (52%) like some simulation but also personal creativity, down from 69% last year. Only 13% wanted a complex simulation, up from 11.5% last year. Fantasy remained largely unchanged from the previous year’s results, however, with 50% in favour, 49% against (18% of those thinking it stupid) and only one person without an opinion. The religion results were fairly evenly split – including an interesting call to “Convert to the Catologion Faith NOW infidels...” – perhaps we should replace Omism with Catalogianism on next year’s survey. The secessionist question raised some interesting responses too – 15% of respondents were secessionists, and a further 22% wished them luck; but 31% think they’re sadly deluded and 30% think they’re stupid. Not as interesting, however, as the question on simulationists. With 62 people from the MCS, you would suspect at least 62 simulationists. Only 39 of us are/plan to become simulationists, and 20 people think us deluded or crazy. I think the answers were best summed up in this ‘Other’ response – “I don't understand the question.” Accordingly, the results on the question “Are you Simulationists, Seccessionist, Neither or Both?” can probably be discounted, though at least 49 people identifying as simulationist, 8 as secessionist, 10 as “Both”, and 21 as “Neither”. Even something very strange is going on, or a lot of people have completely missed the periodic secessionist/simulationist discussions on MCS.
Only 14 people (16%) claim any UN style thing is a YAMO; a combined 29 people (33%) are interested or desparate; and 51% would consider it if it proved itself. Is this connected with the rise of the SC and OAM? We’ll see as we get to nation specific results later. Finally, on the question of economics, 38 respondents (43%) think them fun but tending to not work out, 17 (19%) think every nation should have one, and 14 (16%) prefer a simulated economy to a real one. On the matter of economic unification, a majority of respondents (56%) favour a mix of national and multinational economies, and 16% think nations should share a currency and bank (SCUE, anyone?). Another respondent likes both.
In terms of national ratings, most were fairly similar, so I’ll just draw attention to a few patterns. Ocia was overwhelming underloved, with a mean value just above 2, and 20 respondents putting a 1. With 37 0’s, they clearly aren’t a riot on the international scene anymore. Shireroth was the opposite, with a mean of 3.68, the highest recorded, and only 6 0’s, the lowest amount. Remember that 3 is neutral, so a mean above 3 is good; and 0 (not counted when calculating the mean) indicates “I don’t know.” With that in mind, Shireroth was the best known nation of those recorded – most other nations recorded over 20 0’s. Lovely was a surprise, with results similar to those of Ocias, though slightly better. With 22 0’s, this is a further indication that their heyday as the poster boy of micronationalism is over. On the organisational front, only the MNN got a mean rating above 3 (3.24), and unsurprisingly, the least well known thing was the AMU, with 42 0’s.
I fully intend to point out some interesting results from the sorted data; but as this analysis has taken me far longer than intended already, I’ll leave that for another day.
Finally, the matter of the release of the results. As has been mentioned several times, the results this year included several identifying questions to allow a deeper analysis. Unfortunately, they also make it very easy to identify individual respondents, something we said the results would not be used for. Accordingly, the raw data will not be released this year. However, we have prepared a detailed aggregation of the results, included that of individual subsamples sorted by macronational country, age, micronational community and micronational country, and a separate page for Dutch micronationalists. In the case of micronational country, countries with three or more citizens responding have been included. These results are available here.
And last year’s results can be found here.
The macronational countries of respondents were of little overall surprise; the bulk came from the United Kingdom (18) and the USA (34). The rest of Europe provided 19 respondents; Australia 6 and Canada 4. Seven other respondents came from such exotic destinations as Malta, Argentina, South Africa and Brazil (the final three left this section blank). More interesting was the array of micronational countries – 41 separate countries were recorded, with 27 of them having only one respondent who listed that country as their primary nation. Shireroth (10), Gralus (9), Batavia (7) and Antica (6) put on a strong show; and Alexandria, Ashkenatza, Flanders and Stormark each provided 4 respondents. We’ll be looking at these countries in more detail soon.
Age wise, our respondents this year ranged from 12 to 38, plus several blanks and one older resident who would not reveal their specific age. The mean age was 20.9 with both the median and the mode 19; 40 of our respondents were aged 15-19 and 20 aged 20-24, making up a large chunk of our community. However, only 58% of our respondents were in the 17-25 bracket, compared with 71% last year. The average time in the hobby was 5 years, however you measured it, though we had people from 12.5 to 0.5 years of involvement. They visit a mean of 4.72 micronational forums a month, and 2.95 regularly. Another interesting result (perhaps reflecting the inclusion of non-Micran micronationalists in the survey) was that micronationalists held 1.92 citizenships on average, with both the median and the mode being 1. Whichever of you claims 19 citizenships, I suggest you might want to drop at least 15 of them – I know from experience .
We micronationalists are traditionally a secretive bunch, but 42% of respondents this year “don’t really keep it a secret”, and 7% (6 respondents) trumpet it to the world. Another interesting caricature was shattered with the news that 29% of respondents prefer being a citizen to leading a nation; and 38% are equally happy as a leader or a follower. And the stranglehold of Danny Wallace on the community seems ended – only 8% of respondents heard about micronationalism from a TV show, with 55% following internet links and 25% hearing about it from friends.
Why are we still here? 11% aim at secession, double that of last year, and perhaps reflecting the wider net cast for survey results. Another 10% are experimenting with culture, and a further 10% with conworlding. The largest result was 27% interested in simulating a country, followed by 19% just here for the fun of it, and 16% here for the friends. These non-serious results are notably down from last year, accounting for 50% of respondents then. As another interesting comparison, 68% of respondents have founded their own nation this year, down from 77% last year.
This year we aimed to capture a wider range of micronationalists and we appear to have succeeded. 62 respondents were from MCS, 13 from Microwiki, 9 claim some sort of real land, and the rest either on small maps or ignoring territory entirely. Nobody claimed any sort of allegiance to an MCS Alternative, so it looks like we’ll be staying a one-map sector, which is good news.
Focussing now on a few of the more controversial issues, opinions on dual citizenship were almost exactly the same as last year, with 49% in favour, and 34% considering it only a minor problem. Recwar had a phenomenal 18 “other” responses, ranging from “Too much bickering” and “There is currently WAY too much wikipedia surfing involved” to “When do I start?” Those interested in the full array of responses should go to the results below. Of those who gave standard responses, 46 were pro and 24 against. The recwar charter question also raised a number of “other” responses, including one call for the MRWS original and two for a storytelling/freeform approach. 23 respondents had never heard of any of these, a number which surprises me, and a further 21 don’t like recwar at all; perhaps explaining why there hasn’t been a large international war yet this year. The international standard Anunia attracted only 14 supporters (one in combination with QUARREL), and another 8 liked the old style SNARL. Personally, I wonder what would have happened if I’d just put “points based recwar system” on there, but I suspect the current wording of the question is the best for the bulk of the community.
With regard to the general simulation, 31 respondents (35%) favour little or no simulation, and 46 (52%) like some simulation but also personal creativity, down from 69% last year. Only 13% wanted a complex simulation, up from 11.5% last year. Fantasy remained largely unchanged from the previous year’s results, however, with 50% in favour, 49% against (18% of those thinking it stupid) and only one person without an opinion. The religion results were fairly evenly split – including an interesting call to “Convert to the Catologion Faith NOW infidels...” – perhaps we should replace Omism with Catalogianism on next year’s survey. The secessionist question raised some interesting responses too – 15% of respondents were secessionists, and a further 22% wished them luck; but 31% think they’re sadly deluded and 30% think they’re stupid. Not as interesting, however, as the question on simulationists. With 62 people from the MCS, you would suspect at least 62 simulationists. Only 39 of us are/plan to become simulationists, and 20 people think us deluded or crazy. I think the answers were best summed up in this ‘Other’ response – “I don't understand the question.” Accordingly, the results on the question “Are you Simulationists, Seccessionist, Neither or Both?” can probably be discounted, though at least 49 people identifying as simulationist, 8 as secessionist, 10 as “Both”, and 21 as “Neither”. Even something very strange is going on, or a lot of people have completely missed the periodic secessionist/simulationist discussions on MCS.
Only 14 people (16%) claim any UN style thing is a YAMO; a combined 29 people (33%) are interested or desparate; and 51% would consider it if it proved itself. Is this connected with the rise of the SC and OAM? We’ll see as we get to nation specific results later. Finally, on the question of economics, 38 respondents (43%) think them fun but tending to not work out, 17 (19%) think every nation should have one, and 14 (16%) prefer a simulated economy to a real one. On the matter of economic unification, a majority of respondents (56%) favour a mix of national and multinational economies, and 16% think nations should share a currency and bank (SCUE, anyone?). Another respondent likes both.
In terms of national ratings, most were fairly similar, so I’ll just draw attention to a few patterns. Ocia was overwhelming underloved, with a mean value just above 2, and 20 respondents putting a 1. With 37 0’s, they clearly aren’t a riot on the international scene anymore. Shireroth was the opposite, with a mean of 3.68, the highest recorded, and only 6 0’s, the lowest amount. Remember that 3 is neutral, so a mean above 3 is good; and 0 (not counted when calculating the mean) indicates “I don’t know.” With that in mind, Shireroth was the best known nation of those recorded – most other nations recorded over 20 0’s. Lovely was a surprise, with results similar to those of Ocias, though slightly better. With 22 0’s, this is a further indication that their heyday as the poster boy of micronationalism is over. On the organisational front, only the MNN got a mean rating above 3 (3.24), and unsurprisingly, the least well known thing was the AMU, with 42 0’s.
I fully intend to point out some interesting results from the sorted data; but as this analysis has taken me far longer than intended already, I’ll leave that for another day.
Finally, the matter of the release of the results. As has been mentioned several times, the results this year included several identifying questions to allow a deeper analysis. Unfortunately, they also make it very easy to identify individual respondents, something we said the results would not be used for. Accordingly, the raw data will not be released this year. However, we have prepared a detailed aggregation of the results, included that of individual subsamples sorted by macronational country, age, micronational community and micronational country, and a separate page for Dutch micronationalists. In the case of micronational country, countries with three or more citizens responding have been included. These results are available here.
And last year’s results can be found here.
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
- dr-spangle
- Technical Advisor
- Posts: 13072
- Joined: Wed May 30, 2007 12:20 pm
- Contact:
Re: Survey Results 2010
Graphs man, make some graphs!
If you want I can quickly hack up a pie chart code (by that I mean I already have one, I'll make it usable )
[POSTBOX]
Factuality: One, the graphs code does most certainly exist
Opinions: First part contains an opinion, that this needs more graphs
Joking: Quite high, said with an air of fun
Emotion:
Spelling & Grammar: Rather high
Research Sources: 2 : http://dr-spangle.is-a-geek.com/Graphs/ ... ph.php?D=1 http://dr-spangle.is-a-geek.com/Graphs/ ... ph.php?D=2
[/POSTBOX]
If you want I can quickly hack up a pie chart code (by that I mean I already have one, I'll make it usable )
[POSTBOX]
Factuality: One, the graphs code does most certainly exist
Opinions: First part contains an opinion, that this needs more graphs
Joking: Quite high, said with an air of fun
Emotion:
Spelling & Grammar: Rather high
Research Sources: 2 : http://dr-spangle.is-a-geek.com/Graphs/ ... ph.php?D=1 http://dr-spangle.is-a-geek.com/Graphs/ ... ph.php?D=2
[/POSTBOX]
-
- Posts: 5024
- Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2007 8:34 pm
- Location: Novatainia
- Contact:
Re: Survey Results 2010
I thought about that, but at the time I was too rushed to do so. You're very welcome to make up graphs if you want.
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
- dr-spangle
- Technical Advisor
- Posts: 13072
- Joined: Wed May 30, 2007 12:20 pm
- Contact:
Re: Survey Results 2010
I'll pass, maybe next year ask me about it and I can maybe hack up a nice PHP system up for you, a form which feeds into a database that can feed out some graphs in real time?
[POSTBOX]
Factuality: Quite high, I can do this, and might well do so if you ask next year.
Opinions: It's my opinion that this would be a nice way of doing it.
Joking: None really
Emotion:
Spelling & Grammar: High, probably quite decent
Research Sources: None
[/POSTBOX]
[POSTBOX]
Factuality: Quite high, I can do this, and might well do so if you ask next year.
Opinions: It's my opinion that this would be a nice way of doing it.
Joking: None really
Emotion:
Spelling & Grammar: High, probably quite decent
Research Sources: None
[/POSTBOX]
-
- Posts: 5024
- Joined: Sun Jun 24, 2007 8:34 pm
- Location: Novatainia
- Contact:
Re: Survey Results 2010
Shouldn't be too hard, google forms did it, I just (as I said above) don't feel comfortable releasing the full results so can't make the doc with the pretty graphs in viewable.
Andreas
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander
"He showed up three or four years ago and accidentally took over the micronational world by being way more competent and enthusiastic than everyone else. Now he sort of rules us all, but it's a benevolent sort of thing, as far as we know."
~Scott Alexander