Board Surveys (BS)

[Ruellit]

LMAO, ROTFLMAO, hehehe

[greg s]

Bob,

I have a 'survey on surveys" up and running on the Intel board. Gave me a chance to check out the functionality and to, hopefully, see how the denizens feel about surveys. Works pretty slick!

http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board_survey_results.asp?board_id=369&Survey_Num=1

greg.
Intel board - #board-369
Grateful Dead board - #board-1329

[Rick Faurot]

I think it would be more fun if anyone could put up a survey. Or maybe just a premium feature.

[Mattu]

I think initially, it would do the survey system well to put *all* of them on the survey page...just to get the word out. Similar to Active Boards style page.

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

Well, I didn't think to add them there because they're specific to boards and the ones on that page are site-wide.

I think it'd be a good idea to add them, though. I'll have to figure out some kind of filtering criteria, though, like maybe the 20 board surveys with the most responses in one section and the 20 newest ones in another section.

It's tough to estimate the impact of this on the site (kinda like how I'm still amazed at how many hits per day that little anagram.asp gets), but unless I'm thinking too highly of it, I expect this little addition to impact the site to the tune of about a 10-25% increase in total hits. Cheap hits, too. As long as I get the indexing scheme right, there's not a lot of data involved in these surveys, so the servers can probably dish up hundreds of thousands of them per day and not flinch.

Edit: Looks like I missed my guess on how many people would use the Menu Buttons interface. Currently 54. But hardly anyone even knows it's there yet. A lot more people will notice the surveys in a short time and I expect a lot of them will get added.

So far, there have been 38 survey answers submitted. I expect it be in the thousands by the end of the week.

[Rick Faurot]

Hey, how come the new surveys don't show up on the Surveys Menu?

Ps I'm disappointed you didn't crash the site at least once with this.

[Mattu]

This has a lot of potential. Good idea all around.

[Mattu]

Dude, not funny.

Ok. LOL!

[Bob Zumbrunnen]

First thing on the agenda: How to use it. It's not terribly easy or intuitive (for the Moderator) and that'll be addressed.

To start a new Survey, do the following:

1. Hit the "Manage" link on your board.

2. Hit the "Surveys" link. NOTE: Hit this only if you're the main moderator. Assistants can't use this link, and I think I've got it set up to log anyone out who tries to use this and isn't the main moderator of the board they're doing it on.

3. Hit "Add Survey". You'll get a screen where you can add basic survey data and up to 5 questions and their possible answers.

4. Put in a Title for the survey in the "Survey Name" field. Avoid using the word "Survey" in the name because this title will later have the word "Survey" added to it when users are viewing survey choices.

5. In the Survey Header field, type a description or premise or anything you want that gives an explanation of what this survey is about or trying to measure or accomplish.

6. If I were you, I'd leave the "Survey Active" box unchecked for now so you can review your Survey before users can access it. If you know it's golden already, check that box and as soon as it's submitted, users will be able to see and participate in your survey.

7. The next fields are for questions and answers. The left column is for the question and the right is for the answer choices. For each one, type the question in the left column and the list of possible answers, separated by commas, in the right column.

For example, I might enter a question that reads:

"Which of the following do you think is the closest to what this stock price will be at the end of June?"

and answer choices that read:

"$1,$2,$3,$4,$5,$10,$15,$20,$30,$40,$50+"

Note the format for the answers. This is the part that'll cause people the most trouble. Each possible answer to the survey must be separated with a comma. Spaces are allowed, but if you enter them, they'll be part of the selectable answer.

Each possible answer you enter will be presented as an option in a dropdown box when people take the survey.

Don't enter anything like "No Opinion" or "I don't know" as an answer choice because any and all surveys automatically include "No Answer" as a possible choice.

Once you've done this with up to 5 questions, click the "Save Changes" button and you'll be taken back to the Survey Management screen and you should see the name of your survey plus and "Edit" link and a "Delete" link. I won't bother explaining these.

Now that you've added your Survey, time to try it out. This part applies both to moderators and non-moderators who want to participate.

If you're at the Survey Management Screen (hmmmm.... Need to add that text to that screen), click "Return to Board" then "Back to Main Board" so you'll see your board the way users do.

1. Click Surveys. This displays a list of all surveys available on the board.

2. For each survey you haven't taken yet, you'll see "Take Survey". If you've already taken it, you'll see the date and time you took it and "View Results".

3. Click "Take Survey" and make sure everything looks alright. If it doesn't and you're the moderator, note any changes you need to make then go back and edit the survey.

A few additional items to note about Board Surveys.

1. Though the survey "knows" whether or not a particular person has taken it, it doesn't know what anyone's answers are. The confirmation that they took the survey is stored separately from the answers, and the answers don't contain anything specific to the person who took the survey. Nobody, not even I, can see, for example, that IH Admin(Matt) said the stock would be at $50+.

2. Each person can only take any particular survey once. Of course, you can view the results as much as you like.

3. I've made provisions in the database for surveys to have beginning and ending dates, but haven't implemented them yet. It will eventually be possible for a survey to accept no more submissions but still show its results.

4. Surveys don't now and never will accept freeform answers. That's what message boards are for. So make sure you include all the answers you want to make available.

5. Once a person has taken a survey, they can't retake it, so get all the answers into your survey right away. If you add an answer choice later, people won't have that answer choice available to them.

I've already got certain changes planned (not allowing editing after 10 people have taken the survey, allowing the moderator to see the survey the way users will see it before activating it, etc) and will be reading this board for suggested changes.

Have fun with it.

2.

[Ruellit]

Survey number 2!
http://www.investorshub.com/boards/board_surveymenu.asp?board_id=866

[Tatari Gami]

http://www.investorshub.com/boards/do_board_survey.asp?board_id=788&Survey_Num=1

[Rick Faurot]

Grub