Poll Results

Thanks for participating everyone! It’s been over a week since I posted the polls, and votes have slowed to a crawl. I’d like to go over the results, some interesting observations, and some things I’ve done already based on the results. As a disclaimer, I’m assuming the votes are representative of my viewers as a whole for this discussion, even though I know this is not true. These polls suffer from both Volunteer Bias (those with certain opinions are more likely to vote than those with other opinions) and Selection Bias (readers who read the Afterword chapter are likely to view things differently than readers who skipped it). But this is the data I have, and I don’t have any better tools for gathering peoples’ thoughts, so let’s review the data available!

Poll 1: How did you view the Spoilers chapter in Part 7?

When I first posted the Spoilers chapter, I expected a low view count. This corresponds well with the ~18% (15 votes) of readers who voted that they were worried enough about the content to read the spoilers. ~39% (32 votes) of readers didn’t view the Spoilers chapter at all. That’s ~57% of readers who interacted with the Spoilers chapter in a way that I expected. But ~43% did something I didn’t expect. In particular, ~32% actively sought out the spoilers when I labeled them as such. I thought everyone universally hated spoilers! Apparently not. These results, combined with the results in Poll 2 below, convinced me to delete the Spoilers chapter entirely. The list of “red flag” kinks was moved into the Caution Tape chapter, and the spoilers have been turned to space dust.

Poll 2: How did you feel about the tone of Part 7?

Overall, ~74% (70 votes) of readers confirmed my suspicions that Part 7 was more serious than usual. However, ~74% (70 votes) also felt that a warning chapter was not necessary. That’s good, since it means I didn’t go too far overboard with the differing tone. The ~25% (24 votes) who did think a warning chapter is justified are enough to convince me to leave it around. I did, however, adjust the language in the warning chapter to be much more lax, in order to communicate that it’s really not that bad.

Poll 3: How did you feel about Part 7’s POV switch?

~55% (50 votes) of readers like the POV switch. Not terrible, but not impressive ;). At least half my readers liked it, but half doesn’t seem like a very good goal. If half of all people who read my story liked it, I’d be ecstatic. But this poll was targeted at people who already like the story, at least enough to read to the Afterword chapter. And of that group, it seems 45% didn’t like the POV switch for some reason or another. ~21% (19 votes) of readers were not open to the idea of a POV switch to begin with, though most at least found it tolerable. ~24% (22 votes) of readers were open to the idea of a POV switch, but weren’t terribly impressed with the way I executed it. This includes those who replied, “I’m neutral.” Perhaps it’s because I didn’t slap a label somewhere to clearly mark when the POV was switching? I’ve already added a note to the chapter titles where POVs switch, but I get the impression it’s not that simple.

Poll 4: Which characters do you like?

~90% (99 votes) of readers like Emilia. Every other character is generally unlikable, having received less than 50% of votes, and over half of them are completely irredeemable, as less than 33% of people like them at all. …Or at least, that’s what the data says. I’m sure people are just being very discerning about which characters they vote for, despite the invitation to vote for as many characters as they want. Still, some tiers can be seen among the characters.

• S tier – Emilia
• A tier – Nurse Joy, Officer Jenny, Misty, Samantha
• B tier – Professor Stump, Master Kim, Charlotte
• C tier – Gina, Lorelei, Grey, Sabrina, Lt. Surge
• D tier – Janine, Erika, Sally, Julie

I think I’ve gained some useful insight from this. I won’t ramble too much about it because nobody wants to read about me dissecting each character and trying to figure out why they got more or fewer votes than other characters. I’d probably get it wrong anyway. But the results are, at the very least, interesting. Even if they’re not anything I can act on.