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12 minutes ago, Robin Kiyori said:

the most standard survery question in the world?

The most standard survey question in the United States, not in the world.
Since SL is also populated by the rest of the world, I and many others were simply wondering how come an analytics company hasn't taken this into account.

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Just now, Tama Suki said:

The most standard survey question in the United States, not in the world.
Since SL is also populated by the rest of the world, I and many others were simply wondering how come an analytics company hasn't taken this into account.

Im not american so nice try

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23 minutes ago, Robin Kiyori said:

Are we really losing our collective  kittens over the most standard survery question in the world?

it's not a standard survey, it's the first part of a study, a selection tool. And using that with questions about your color / heritage ?....
Jeez thats sick in this time we live in.

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I've noticed this about Americans, that when they compare their country with others, it's always (and I do mean ALWAYS!) done by a very simplistic area size comparison.

They judge other countries not by population, culture, history or economy, but only by physical country size.

And if a country is found to be smaller than theirs, this somehow equates in their American psyche as something "inferior" and something to be ridiculed and joked about. It's a very strange mentality.

So on this strange comparison scale, Russia, Canada and China are bigger countries than the US, so this then means those countries are not only larger, but also superior to the US too ?!

I blame the consumer and advertisement culture that exists in the US, the people there have long been indoctrinated by their media and retail industries to believe that bigger = better.

I also believe that their school system is to blame, their children's education regarding world geography and history is laughable and almost exclusively focused on their own country alone.

And on terms of population, Americans only account for 4% of the world's total human population, with 96% living in other "inferior" countries. And barely any Americans even own a passport or have visited another country that does not border the US.

The US even has amusement parks like DisneyWorld or Las Vegas that build often incorrect and outdated stereotypical "replicas" of countries or their landmarks for their people to experience other countries without even having to leave US soil, from which they also form strange opinions about real countries they may never visit.

Edited by SarahKB7 Koskinen
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1 hour ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

I've noticed this about Americans, that when they compare their country with others, it's always (and i mean ALWAYS!) done by a very simplistic area size comparison.

They judge other countries not by population, culture, history or economy, but only by physical country size.

And if a country is found to be smaller than theirs, this somehow equates in their American psyche as something "inferior" and something to be ridiculed and joked about. It's a very strange mentality.

So on this strange comparison scale, Russia, Canada and China are bigger countries than the US, so this then means those countries are not only larger, but also superior to the US too ?!

I blame the consumer and advertisement culture that exists in the US, the people there have long been indoctrinated by their media and retail industries to believe that bigger = better. 

I also believe that their school system is to blame, their children's education regarding world geography and history is almost exclusively focused on their own country alone.

And on terms of population, Americans only account for 4% of the world's total human population, with 96% living in other "inferior" countries. And barely any Americans even own a passport or have visited another country that does not border the US.

The US even has amusement parks like DisneyWorld or Las Vegas that build often incorrect and outdated "replicas" of countries or their landmarks for their people to experience without even having to leave US soil, from which they also form opinions about real countries they may never visit.

So, you're saying that Americans jump to conclusions and base things on vague opinions and stereotypes instead of actual knowledge and research?

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As I understand it, questionnaires like this are intended to allow marketing consultants to make long-term predictions about customer behaviour in general  that are more accurate than simple guesswork.     For this, they don't need the sort of granularity that I might want to apply when trying to make predictions (and often getting them wrong) about whether a friend might enjoy a particular book, or like SL or something.   In fact, that level of granularity probably simply confuses matters.

If the questions work to give LL's marketing people the data they need for the particular purpose they have in mind, then that's all that matters.

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6 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

If the questions work to give LL's marketing people the data they need for the particular purpose they have in mind, then that's all that matters.

The problem is that if a lot of the surveys went to people outside the United States of America, asking for US-centric demographic data won't give them usable data.

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10 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

The problem is that if a lot of the surveys went to people outside the United States of America, asking for US-centric demographic data won't give them usable data.

How do you know that, though, unless you know what sort of predictions have been made in the past using this sort questionnaire on particular populations, and how accurate they are?    That's information I certainly don't have.

 

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4 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

I've noticed this about Americans, that when they compare their country with others, it's always (and i mean ALWAYS!) done by a very simplistic area size comparison.

They judge other countries not by population, culture, history or economy, but only by physical country size.

And if a country is found to be smaller than theirs, this somehow equates in their American psyche as something "inferior" and something to be ridiculed and joked about. It's a very strange mentality.

So on this strange comparison scale, Russia, Canada and China are bigger countries than the US, so this then means those countries are not only larger, but also superior to the US too ?!

I blame the consumer and advertisement culture that exists in the US, the people there have long been indoctrinated by their media and retail industries to believe that bigger = better. 

I also believe that their school system is to blame, their children's education regarding world geography and history is almost exclusively focused on their own country alone.

And on terms of population, Americans only account for 4% of the world's total human population, with 96% living in other "inferior" countries. And barely any Americans even own a passport or have visited another country that does not border the US.

The US even has amusement parks like DisneyWorld or Las Vegas that build often incorrect and outdated "replicas" of countries or their landmarks for their people to experience without even having to leave US soil, from which they also form strange opinions about real countries they may never visit.

Well some of them do have a tendency to do that but fact is that countries thanks to Capitalism barely matter these days, you can be wealthy and choose to live in California or Sydney or Copenhagen*, money is money everywhere and those are just comfy places to socialize/do business. (Of course if someone is poor then sure there is a tendency to care about country sizes, population, skin color blah blah. )

Anyway this is an MMORPG/Online World and such things are insignificant, also most think that EU and Europe is the same so.. /yawns

(*Fan fact: According to the 2022 Healthy Lifestyle Cities Report, Copenhagen is among the top cities in the world to lead a healthy and happy lifestyle. Vienna topped the list ahead of Dubai, Copenhagen, Frankfurt and Amsterdam, while Helsinki, Berlin, Stockholm, Fukuoka and Geneva completed the top 10. )

Edited by Nick0678
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7 minutes ago, Innula Zenovka said:

How do you know that, though, unless you know what sort of predictions have been made in the past using this sort questionnaire on particular populations, and how accurate they are?    That's information I certainly don't have.

 

A few weeks ago there was a minor info-bubble about an article that stated, "In the United States, Asian women have a higher median income then White men." This was meant as "proof" that the United States was the Land of Opportunity and sex and race didn't matter.

There wasn't a whole lot of information about how these numbers were arrived at and tested. As it happens, in the United States people of Asian descent tend to be clustered in certain areas, and a lot of those areas have higher median incomes for everyone. Meanwhile, White people are more evenly distributed, and in particular are most of the population in areas that have lower median income for everyone then the areas that tend to have large Asian population. If the article didn't correct for location, it could be "correct" even if Asian women had lower median incomes then White men in the areas that they are concentrated in.

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19 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

A few weeks ago there was a minor info-bubble about an article that stated, "In the United States, Asian women have a higher median income then White men." This was meant as "proof" that the United States was the Land of Opportunity and sex and race didn't matter.

There wasn't a whole lot of information about how these numbers were arrived at and tested. As it happens, in the United States people of Asian descent tend to be clustered in certain areas, and a lot of those areas have higher median incomes for everyone. Meanwhile, White people are more evenly distributed, and in particular are most of the population in areas that have lower median income for everyone then the areas that tend to have large Asian population. If the article didn't correct for location, it could be "correct" even if Asian women had lower median incomes then White men in the areas that they are concentrated in.

Yes, but generally these surveys are conducted for people who want to see results that are reflected in the bottom line.   What others make make of particular "infobubbles" is a completely different matter.

Have you read Daniel Kahneman's Noise?  That casts a very interesting light on the topic, and certainly caused me to revise my views.

Edited by Innula Zenovka
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3 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

And barely any Americans even own a passport or have visited another country that does not border the US.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-42586638

Actually the percentage of Americans with passports is higher than even I, as an American, would have thought off the top of my head. Which is why I decided to look for actual figures instead of pulling it out of part of my anatomy. (And I even used a non-US source...)

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8 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Because that's the term that's used in the United States, which is where I was referring to, and "Caucasian" has always been dubious as far as accuracy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race

A generic "white" I think is much worse than a term considered obsolete.
However, as I said earlier I do not allow myself to judge because I understand well that it is not racism but simply a cultural issue alien to my culture and that it is difficult for me to understand.
I think the point of Alvin's argument (which I share) is that a company that does market research and polling should take into consideration that its poll is aimed at an audience that has no idea of American standards and that surely it could interpret that type of module in a controversial way.

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2 hours ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

The problem is that if a lot of the surveys went to people outside the United States of America, asking for US-centric demographic data won't give them usable data.

Not disagreeing with you just wanted to point out that there are hundreds out of the roughly 4 million First Nations people that do not live in the US (many weren't born in the US/had children overseas). Like David Little Elk. Last I knew he was still living in Germany.

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2 hours ago, Innula Zenovka said:

Yes, but generally these surveys are conducted for people who want to see results that are reflected in the bottom line. 

Let's say there's a company that makes food for dogs and cats. They want to learn what cat owners think. So, they hire an outside firm to make a survey and give them their mailing list.

But the outside firm doesn't realize that their client makes food for dogs also. So they send a cat-specific survey without checking to see if the respondents actually have a cat. In this case, the "noise" of the survey percentages will become deafening. 

I'm not a Linden Lab hater by any means, but they're a small company and they've made mistakes before. It may be possible that the survey was meant only for US residents and the non-US residents getting it were a small anomaly, but I'm not going to rule out a major mess-up either.

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58 minutes ago, Theresa Tennyson said:

Let's say there's a company that makes food for dogs and cats. They want to learn what cat owners think. So, they hire an outside firm to make a survey and give them their mailing list.

But the outside firm doesn't realize that their client makes food for dogs also. So they send a cat-specific survey without checking to see if the respondents actually have a cat. In this case, the "noise" of the survey percentages will become deafening. 

I'm not a Linden Lab hater by any means, but they're a small company and they've made mistakes before. It may be possible that the survey was meant only for US residents and the non-US residents getting it were a small anomaly, but I'm not going to rule out a major mess-up either.

Instead I think it is a much more serious mistake. I'm not saying this because I'm a hater.
I have neither the time nor the desire to be in RL, imagine if I want to be in this forum.
As far as I am concerned, they have made a very serious misstep and I hope that action will be taken also because I am happy to put my money into this "game".

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I hope this is the right place to put this if not my apologies, Im a posting virgin. Yes I know...anyway if Lindens could put a piece of code in the Linden purchasing page what the cost would be in my own currency instead of USD. Now you find the damage after you've already paid for the Lindens because of all calculations done to USD. What do you think?

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3 minutes ago, JoeBlow420 said:

I hope this is the right place to put this if not my apologies, Im a posting virgin. Yes I know...anyway if Lindens could put a piece of code in the Linden purchasing page what the cost would be in my own currency instead of USD. Now you find the damage after you've already paid for the Lindens because of all calculations done to USD. What do you think?

@Kristin Linden or one of the other Lindens can explain it better than the rest of us could.

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I'd actually like an alternative SL viewer for Standard English (aka British & Commonwealth English), so that it doesn't constantly irritate me with its hardwired US spellings of meter, color, harbor etc.

1920px-Commonwealth_of_Nations.svg.png

Dark Blue = Commonwealth nations.  Orange = Standard English, but not in Commonwealth.  Light Blue = British Overseas Territories (within Commonwealth).

Oh and L$ to become L£ too.... 😜

Edited by SarahKB7 Koskinen
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4 hours ago, SarahKB7 Koskinen said:

I'd actually like an alternative SL viewer for Standard English (aka British & Commonwealth English), so that it doesn't constantly irritate me with its hardwired US spellings of meter, color, harbor etc.

1920px-Commonwealth_of_Nations.svg.png

Dark Blue = Commonwealth nations.  Orange = Standard English, but not in Commonwealth.  Light Blue = British Overseas Territories (within Commonwealth).

Oh and L$ to become L£ too.... 😜

I am sure there are many others that would like currencies automatically changed to their local currency to be as easy as choosing a language. 

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19 minutes ago, Cinnamon Mistwood said:

I am sure there are many others that would like currencies automatically changed to their local currency to be as easy as choosing a language. 

Pizza is distributed all over the world. So why not use pizza as a planetary currency?

pizzamondo.png

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