Talk:World's Smallest Political Quiz

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Whoever keeps copying and pasting: Please stop. It doesn't matter if you have permission, content on Wikipedia should be originally written. If someone wishes to read the official site for the quiz, they will do so, and an appropriate link should be placed.

Furthermore, the content isn't NPOV and seems only to advertise and praise the quiz.--Aleron235 03:18, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I have spoken to Liberty4u and he understands why original material is better than copied material. He wants to use the copied material as a basis to develop original material and said he will do so. Please give him some time to do that. Danny 03:47, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• Sure, just as long as he doesn't do it on the main article page, for presentation's sake. Although I'm quite guilty of doing on-the-fly editing as well, for a piece that large, it would be advisable to write up a draft somewhere else first rather than taking up so much space with copied text. He could use this talk page, a subpage on his userpage, or a plethora of other places to draft an addition to the article.--Aleron235 04:29, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

I will start adding things in slowly. On this revision, some of the vague language was removed. There are many groups that use the quiz, so I removed the sentence that the Libertarian Party used it. I saw no purpose in singling them out. The sentence that included that it only had limited acceptence was conjecture with no support and seemed contrary to the Washington Post quote. A quote section was added with three quotes. Liberty4u 04:40, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

Some of the sentences were opinion and unverifiable:

The quiz has been criticized beacause it can trick respondents who are not actually libertarian into thinking they are.

• Sources are needed that substantiate this claim with verifiable evidence.

The questions are phrased in such a way as to encourage a "yes" response,

• This is opinion and needs verifiable sources.

Liberty4u 17:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

The wording of any quiz introduces bias towards a certain set of answers. In this case, certain answers to the quiz are held to correspond with libertarian beliefs (and other answer sets correspond to other beliefs). Although the phrasing and correlation appears to be reasonable, most people taking the quiz won't look much further than the simple question. Rephrase the questions would cause people to answer differently. Consider:

• "Government should not censor speech, press, media or Internet" becomes "People should be free to trade child pornography on the Internet"
• "End corporate welfare. No government handouts to business" becomes "Government should use financial incentives to encourage economic growth"
• "Military service should be voluntary. There should be no draft" becomes "It should be the duty of every citizen to defend the nation when it is attacked."

Each of these statements is either more or less equal or a sub-instance of the actual question, but the answers, for the majority of people, will be quite different. Is it really necessary to scientifically prove this bias? It would seem to be self evident.

--172.159.235.213 12:43, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

A quiz with all "yes" responses results in being placed at the height of the libertarian corner.

• This is true and was left in.

The questions also seem to appeal to youth and frequent Internet users, focusing on topics they tend to feel strongly about (and will often give a "yes" response to in the context of the quiz).

• This is subjective opinion. The word "seem" is not objective. The assertion may not true. The quiz questions were developed over a 20 year period. Most of the questions predate the use on the Internet. No demographics are collected with the online quiz. The only scientifically administered survey was done by Portrait of America in 2000. A summary of results are on the web at http://www.theadvocates.org/library/poll-results.html . The summary does not do an age breakdown. Maybe the data was collected that could show if youth are more likely to answer "yes" than non-youth.

Liberty4u 17:58, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• • Yes, these are opinions. They are sourced and paraphrased from the criticism page linked in References. As long as they are marked as criticism and not in the factual part of the article, there's nothing wrong with having them.--Aleron235 23:42, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• • Advocates for Self-Government is a site that promotes libertarianism, pure and simple. Perhaps we should merge this topic into Advocates for Self Government. Shoehorn 23:11, 7 February 2006 (UTC)

• • • The quiz itself has had millions of people take it. People may know about the Quiz but not know about the Advocates. This is just like people knowing who a rock star is, but not be able to name the record company that publishes their work. Liberty4u 15:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

420 schools

Regarding this passage: "The quiz has been used in 420 schools in the United States as a way for instructors to give their students the opportunity to find out where they lean politically." The National Center for Education Statistics indicates there are around 130,000 schools in the US. Around 29,000 are private. 420 schools amounts to 0.3% of schools. As such, I don't see much point to the claim, other than trying to provide some authenticity to the quiz, which the Advocates for Self Gov't site can do without the help of Wikipedia. Shoehorn 05:53, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• You may be right on this, but I think that it needs more discussion first. A bestselling book that sells 1,000,000 copies is only being purchased by 0.3% of the people in the U.S. So the 0.3% statistic, although interesting, is not a valid way to determine the popularity. Let's talk! Liberty4u 15:16, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

• My school used it, but only to discuss how tests like this can be slanted toward a political ideology. I wonder how many of those 420 schools use it in that way rather than the way that The Advocates intend it to be? Beggarsbanquet (talk) 07:19, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Libertarianism infobox

I'm referring to this if you're unaware. Considering this quiz has a heavy libertarian bent and is sponsored by a libertarian organization, the infobox could be applied to this page. I'd like some other opinions though before making the edit.--Aleron235 20:48, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

First let me say to Aleron235, that my bumbling around as a Newbie may have been frustrating to you. I apologize. Looking back as a totally experienced expert (wink, wink) and no longer a newbie (year right), I concur with many of your actions. And if, in the unlikely event that I make another newbie mistake, I hope that you will continue to correct my mistakes.

Now for my comments on the libertarian infobox. I do not think it should appear on the page. The quiz, and this page, should not be biased. If it is added, it may appear to be there because of bias. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Liberty4u (talk • contribs)

I Agree with the proposal; the Libertarianism infobox would be perfectly appropriate. Liberty4u, the quiz is biased, whether you think it 'should' be or not; the questions are loaded, and the site it appears on is unashamedly pro-Libertarian. According to the quiz results, 2/3rds of people are either Libertarian or Centrist? Come on. FiggyBee 23:41, 29 May 2006 (UTC)

Criticism

The final sentence in the criticism section (Also welfare for business is scored as a liberal opinion instead of a conservative one. [6]) has two problems with it. For one, the citation does not actually exist, there are only 5 citations listed at the bottom of the page. Secondly, the statement is true: the quiz scores ending corporate welfare as economically conservative and pro-corporate welfare as economically liberal. But, this is a valid distinction and not backwards as the sentence implies.67.186.29.165 (talk) 07:46, 11 February 2008 (UTC)

The statement "In addition, each "agree" answer correlates to a 20% increase in corresponding score along either the personal axis or the economic axis, thus encouraging a positive response for a higher score." is not accurate. The 20% increase is accurate, but the increase does not encourage a positive response since the scoring system and the 20% increase is unknown to the quiz taker until after the questions are answered. Liberty4u 14:06, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

But after the quiz is taken, the user can see that agreeing with the statements gives a higher score, possibly encouraging them to retake the test, and certainly attempting to persuade them that the libertarian viewpoint is somehow better than their original view. Shoehorn 18:47, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

How does a CNN poll refute the "valid concern" of bias because in 2004, Iraq placed 4th out of 7 issues? Already out of date, I'd say.

I have felt that this sentence doesn't belong. The previous sentence has two things that make me uncomfortable: 1) No citiation is ever given to the claim, 2) the assumption is that foreign policy is a "social issue". I will make the modest proposal that both sentences be removed from Criticism section, but still leave in the first sentence. Liberty4u 17:41, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Some of the criticisms seem quite weak. It would be better to use footnotes to indicate that each specific claim is sourced. -DoctorW 22:42, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

As it stands, the main critic the article cites is a certain "Mark Rupright" who self-published an article whose main point is that the questions favor "yes" too much. He also asserts that he has designed questions that favor "no" more often, but I can't confirm this. So I doubt that this particular criticism is founded in reality. Shinobu (talk) 00:05, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

The other references in this article all link to the same site, which happens to be the site where the Quiz is hosted. If you are trying to make the case that Rupright's link lacks notability, I would ask that you also remove these other (primary source) references as they too are self-published. There won't be much of an article left after that. Shoehorn (talk) 06:40, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

While I agree with Shoehorn that the Mark Rupright article is probably more reliable than the stuff from The Advocates site, it is true that we need more criticism. Rupright is hardly the only person criticizing the quiz for that reason, so is there a way we could find something that is more reliable (that has citations)? Beggarsbanquet (talk) 07:21, 31 August 2008 (UTC)

Alternatives

I briefly edited the Criticism section but removed my changes because I am not sure that they were NPOV. There is presently no talk about similar quizzes (e.g. the political compass, political survey). Should there be another section for alternatives to the quiz? Similar multi-axis political quizzes tend to be more thorough and do not have some of the elements that evoke criticism of W'sSPQ. (for the political compass: a zero set in the center rather in the 0%-100% from statist to libertarian; it is not oriented in a biased direction, i.e. libertarian being "top" of the chart; different quadrants are equally represented on political compass website; straight yes's don't yield a particular extreme). Obviously saying this would be biased toward other quizzes, but it seems like there should be more acknowledgment of alternatives.Jwpitts (talk) 05:09, 30 December 2007 (UTC)

Is the quiz free of charge?

I want everyone who likes to take the quiz (include me) if the quiz is free of charge (i.e. you'll pay nothing). Indicate it as soon as possible. Thank you. More Questions? See my talk page. -Pika ten10 (talk) 07:00, 2 February 2008 (UTC)

Criticism

I am not a published source so of course this can not be included in the article, but it can not go without mention here about how incredibly US orientated the quiz is: even the choice of words in the questions, let alone the definitions of the categories of the individual personality types, betrays its origin. Whilst not a critical criticism (if you see what I mean) it should be bourne in mind. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 119.224.1.162 (talk) 10:48, 30 September 2008 (UTC)

Over a year ago, somebody removed the criticism section on the grounds that the site was "self published" and thus not reliable. The relevant diff is here: [1] . Thoughts? Kansan (talk) 14:20, 11 May 2011 (UTC)

Some people are taking this too seriously

The world's smallest political quiz is designed as a marketing tool for the Libertarian party, it's not meant to be an objective measure, just to introduce people to the Nolan chart and libertarian ideas. After people take the quiz, they're then able to go and look at the Libertarian platform or statement of principles and they can either agree or disagree with it. The criticism that it isn't accurate is sort of besides the point, because it's not meant to be. I have larger problems with the Nolan chart, which libertarians believe is a good representation of people's political beliefs, while I don't. Brianshapiro

It's obviously not meant to be objective, but it's certainly claimed to be.

The goal of the Quiz is to give a fast, fun, and accurate assessment of a person's overall political views, and to place those views on a new multi-spectrum "political map" that is far more accurate, insightful, and thorough than older political guidelines (such as the "left-right" line).

This article should explicitly state that the "quiz" is specifically designed for Americans

The quiz is obviously aimed at Americans but the article does not say so. For many (most?) non-Americans some of the questions are either moot or don't make much sense. For example; I'm South African, we've had Identity documents since before Moses was a baby, there is absolutely zero controversy or opposition to them from any political organisation in the country (at least since the end of Apartheid). Any South African opposed to the existence of IDs would be labeled a nutcase rather than a libertarian. Roger (talk) 12:14, 22 March 2012 (UTC)

File:Worlds-Smallest-Political-Quiz.svg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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Merge with Nolan Chart

Any reason why this article shouldn't be merged with Nolan Chart? They cover essentially the exact same material. Nwebster84 (talk) 01:05, 23 September 2014 (UTC)

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