Nextdoor.com's polls: A lesson in psychometrics, crankiness

If you are unaware, Nextdoor.com is a social network that brings together total strangers because they live in the same neighborhood. And it validates your identity and your address, so even though you don't really know these people, you know where they live, what their name is, and maybe even what they look like as you have the option to upload a photo.

Needless to say, it is a train wreck. Sure, people do give away free stuff, seek out recommendations for home improvements, etc. But it is mostly complaining or non-computer-savvy people using computers.

One of the things you can do is create a poll. Or, more often, totally screw up a poll. Here are some of my favorites. In the captions, I have given some ideas of how they could be used as examples in RM or psychomtrics.

This is actually a pretty good scale.

A lesson in human factors/ease of user interface use?

Response options are lacking and open to interpretation.

Sometimes, you don't need a poll at all.

No one likes open response options in their data, but sometimes they are necessary.

Leading response options.

Don't build your scale while you are tired.

How could these scale anchors be improved upon? I like the percentages but what about the wording?

I think this is a pretty good scale. Those are all the reasons to love Nextdoor, and they included an "other" option

Good response options are mutually exclusive.

Comments

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