Political Compass - Ng Bbs History

[lapis]

Back in days long past, there was a young website called Newgrounds.com which featured a BBS that enabled users to have unpleasant shouting matches with one another in order to determine who was better at Internet arguing and life in general. In the same period of time there was a website called The Political Compass whose raison d'être was to let people take a test that showed them where they stood politically in a two-dimensional spectrum. It didn't take long for people from Newgrounds to take the test and post the results on the BBS. It's 2008 now and people have been taking the test for about 7 years (as far as I know). A free afternoon for me resulted in the following compilation of political compass test results of users of these forums, some still active, others not.

I managed to find the following threads and put the results in the data sheets, there are probably still a few or even many others out there but I'm only human:

conservtive or liberal
Left or right?
My political standing.
Political Quiz Time!!!11
where do you stand?
Political Compass
The Political Compass
Political Compass by Krykos
Return of the political compass.
Your Political Compass
The Political Compass Test
The Political Compass (2004)
Political Compass (2003)
The Political Compass (2003)
Political Compass (2001)

I only noticed that this thread had been created after making the .gifs, so I added the names and results of the Generalites that posted in it to the end of the last data sheet.

Notes:
I'm sure you'd have figured this out by yourselves but the ordering of the table is as such: first the name of the poster, then the name of the thread, then the date, then the left/right score and then the libertarian/authoritarian score. I've replaced the decimals in these scores with commas because it looks better that way (yes, it does).

Some results might be bogus, like JMHX scoring a perfect [0,0] at some point, and I put JakeHero's results under the name GunCrave because they're the same guy anyway. The two 'political standing' threads contained a lot of posts by wretches who only posted a graph and not their exact scores so I simply guessed the numbers in those cases.

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The average is [-2.386862245, -2.679795918] but it's a biased estimate because posters who took the test x times are also counted x times. Still, the average BBS poster leans to the left/libertarian side.

Now please post hilarious comments about how much of a Stalinist/Thatcherite/etc <insert username here> is.

and I'll accept no accountability if someone's life/reputation is ruined due to a mistake in the data

[lapis]

Sheet 5

[Christopherr]

Slap me up on there?

I never got the pic last time I did it, so I didn't bother to do it again until now.

[AapoJoki]

Great work lapis! Looks very interesting. People who score more than +5 on the authoritarian scale really scare me...

Here is my new score:
Economic Left/Right: -8.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.05

Pretty much the same as usual. I thought my score would have changed a little, because I've started to question some of my views more and become more passionate about others. I expected to move a bit towards the economic right and libertarian "down", but the change in that direction was barely noticeable. I guess I'm more dogmatic than I'd like to be.

I could swear I've taken the test more than twice before though, but a few times I took it without bothering to post the results.

[therealsylvos]

This cool, thanks lapis.
Its really interesting to see me there.
Apparently I took the test 3 times, all about one year removed from each other.
it interesting to see that as I got older I slowly go more to right and more down on the graph.

But seriously this must have been a lot of tedious work.

[Der-Lowe]

At 7/9/08 10:37 AM, lapis wrote: 8 sheets of data

You need a hobby, lol.

Hey, I read and did all the exercises from the Microeconomics part of mah Economics book! :D

[slowerthenb4]

great job! That was a ton of data!

Economic Left/Right: -2.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.00

[lapis]

At 7/9/08 11:27 AM, Christopherr wrote: Slap me up on there?

I never got the pic last time I did it, so I didn't bother to do it again until now.

Ah crap, I didn't know that you posted in the 'My political standing' thread until your reply made me take a quick gander at your recent post history. When I was looking for data I only skimmed through the threads looking for graphs or sets of numbers that looked liked test results so I missed your post saying that you ended up close to Thatcher. I can't edit the pictures anymore but I guess people will now see your score when they scroll down.

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As a general sidenote: the dates are sometimes messed up. I meant to follow the NG dates (American standard - mm/dd/yy) so when both the day and month are below 13, or when only the day is I think it still follows the American standard but from the looks of it Microsoft Excel switched to the European standard (dd/mm/yy) whenever the day was later was bigger than the 12th, which would create an absurdity in the eyes of my (European) excel version. The year is also printed as a four-digit number in one case, so beware.

[Der-Lowe]

I'm Always Ghandi.

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -4.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.59

[lapis]

At 7/9/08 11:37 AM, AapoJoki wrote: Great work lapis!

I live to serve.

At 7/9/08 11:44 AM, therealsylvos wrote: it interesting to see that as I got older I slowly go more to right and more down on the graph.

Yeah, some went further to the left (Slizor, Elfer), others further to the right (Memorize), some from the left to the centre-left (RedSkunk) and many others remained rather constant. Proteas went from about [-4,0] to about [2,4] in two years or so.

But seriously this must have been a lot of tedious work.

7-8 hours or so on Sunday (I think), I had beer so that made it somewhat enjoyable but when I was done I was so fed up with it that I didn't post the results until today.

At 7/9/08 11:47 AM, Der-Lowe wrote: Hey, I read and did all the exercises from the Microeconomics part of mah Economics book! :D

I'd probably prefer doing this ;)

At 7/9/08 11:49 AM, slowerthenb4 wrote: great job! That was a ton of data!

Only 8 sheets.

At 7/9/08 12:07 PM, SevenSeize wrote: I've taken that before, and didn't see me. But I may have only done it once and therefore didn't show any changes.

Yeah, I only found threads that showed up when I typed 'compass' into the search bar, and if someone in those threads mentioned an earlier score and a corresponding date I searched his post history for the relevant thread and scanned that one too. I probably missed a lot of threads in which results were posted but the fruits of Google searching Newgrounds tend to vary in thoroughness and I was afraid I'd find a lot of threads that I already had in my list. I don't really feel like going through your post history to find the thread in which you posted your score :D but if you want to take the test again you can still post the results here and maybe seven years from now someone will do what I did and incorporate your results in the data.

At 7/9/08 12:27 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: I'm Always Ghandi.

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -4.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.59

I guess your economics professors didn't manage to turn you into more of a laissez-faire capitalist during the past year. You should sue them.

Then again, a lot of questions have the word 'should' in them so even if you become more (classically) liberal when it comes to big/small government policies it would only marginally show in the test.

[Memorize]

Lol, I might actually be on there more than anybody else.

[Elfer]

Interesting. I should take the test again to check on progress.

[Elfer]

Update:

Your political compass
Economic Left/Right: -7.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -8.36

More economically conservative, but with a more libertarian bent. Nothing really unexpected.

[therealsylvos]

I took it again

I still went down on the scale but this time I lost .25 on the right/left

Oh no! in about 80 years I'll be a commie.

[Christopherr]

These tests are absolutely bogus, due to their accuracy.

Look at Memorize's scores. The ratios of X to Y are so varying it's hilarious. Barely representative of his political standing.

[Bolo]

That's incredible. It must have taken forever to piece together.

Great investigative work, there.

[Der-Lowe]

At 7/9/08 12:39 PM, lapis wrote:

At 7/9/08 11:37 AM, AapoJoki wrote: Great work lapis!

I live to serve.

This is true :)

At 7/9/08 11:47 AM, Der-Lowe wrote: Hey, I read and did all the exercises from the Microeconomics part of mah Economics book! :D

I'd probably prefer doing this ;)

You're doing both :P

At 7/9/08 11:49 AM, slowerthenb4 wrote: great job! That was a ton of data!

Only 8 sheets.

He's an econometrician. He has 20 sheets of data like that for breakfast.

At 7/9/08 12:07 PM, SevenSeize wrote: I've taken that before, and didn't see me. But I may have only done it once and therefore didn't show any changes.

Yeah, I only found threads that showed up when I typed 'compass' into the search bar, and if someone in those threads mentioned an earlier score and a corresponding date I searched his post history for the relevant thread and scanned that one too.

I think I had taken the test again, but I'm always Ghandi. srsly, it's ghey.

I guess your economics professors didn't manage to turn you into more of a laissez-faire capitalist during the past year. You should sue them.

Actually, my Economics professors are waaaaaaayyyyy to the left of me. I have discussions with them, especially when it comes to global trade. Some professors in my college don't even belong to mainstream economics.
We even have seminars on communist theories.
You should read my textbooks (the ones written by Argentinians, not by evil yankee-jews). They're fun. Especially when you compare it from the jew crap they sell us from Chicago.

Then again, a lot of questions have the word 'should' in them so even if you become more (classically) liberal when it comes to big/small government policies it would only marginally show in the test.

Meh, Intro to Economics was teh caik. I should've got a 12/10 in the midterm.
We were tought the multiplier. And some people oouldn't get it. IT'S A LINEAR FUNCTION GODDAMIT.
</rant>

[n64kid]

I love Slizor being at -10, -10 and Guncrave at 10, 10.

Memorize you inconsistent disgrace!

.....and why do I only have one score posted, I've done this atleast 3 times on the BBS.....

Lapis you must have missed some threads!

[LazyDrunk]

At 7/9/08 02:56 PM, n64kid wrote: Lapis you must have missed some threads!

I thought he done did a bang-up job.

My political compass as of today:
Economic Left/Right: 1.12
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.05

[studmuffin7]

At 7/9/08 02:56 PM, n64kid wrote:
.....and why do I only have one score posted, I've done this atleast 3 times on the BBS.....

Because you touch yourself at night

-Studmuffin7

[xscoot]

Mine put me in the same place as Nelson Mandela and Gandhi. Awesome.

[n64kid]

At 7/9/08 04:48 PM, studmuffin7 wrote:

Because you touch yourself at night

Yay someone got the sexual innuendo.....

....eeeeeww.

[uhnoesanoob]

Cool test. Here's my results. I kinda saw it coming though...

[ToddM]

My result is

Economic Left/Right: 6.62

Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: 0.87

I took this test four years and now I am more Neo-liberal than centrist.

[Proteas]

At 7/9/08 12:39 PM, lapis wrote: Proteas went from about [-4,0] to about [2,4] in two years or so.

Prepare to have your minds BLOWN, fuckers.

[drDAK]

I've done it before, waay back in 2004/2005 I'm sure. But my views have changed anyways.

[Der-Lowe]

I found seven.

And another one, but nobody replied :(

[SmilezRoyale]

I think it might be better to find the average of the mean, the mode, and the median, not just the mean, to get the best idea as to what the average of this community is.

a -2,-2 score is rather impressive considering the internet leans far more to the left than that.

[K-RadPie]

*cough*

[lapis]

At 7/14/08 05:39 PM, Der-Lowe wrote: I found seven.

And another one, but nobody replied :(

Yes. Love it. Yes.

I knew that I had seen that dirty Chilean post his test results somewhere, thanks for finding the relevant thread.

Anyway, I've added the results that were in the two threads that you linked to and this thread to my humble excel-file, but posting the entire 8-sheet (probably 9-sheet by now) dataset again is a little over the top. If only someone asked me to post a few statistical values.......

At 7/14/08 07:27 PM, SmilezRoyale wrote: I think it might be better to find the average of the mean, the mode, and the median, not just the mean, to get the best idea as to what the average of this community is.

a -2,-2 score is rather impressive considering the internet leans far more to the left than that.

YES. Here's a table. The average of the mean, mode and median that you asked for is the value (mu+m+M)/3 as you could almost certainly have guessed by yourself, I've also bootstrapped a 95% confidence interval for this value. As for the rest of the table, I guess that anyone who cares about the values knows how to read the table. When there's a little T in the top right corner it means I'm transposing a matrix.

The modes are hard to determine since a lot of values have as much as two decimals so I made two histograms and took the middle value of the highest rectangle to guess the mode. I'll upload the two histograms in a later post.

Both left/right and libertarian/authoritarian aren't normally distributed (Shapiro-Wilk test rejected in both cases) but the confidence intervals that were constructed using a normal approximation were still pretty close to the ones that were constructed using a bootstrap.

Also, there's a pretty high correlation between the left/right value and the libertarian/authoritarian value, almost perfectly equal to two thirds (0.6666651). So a lot of people who are (strongly) leftist are also (strongly) libertarian and a lot of people who are (strongly) rightist are also (strongly) authoritarian. Anyway, there's a scatter plot coming up which makes it clear. I tried to plot a 3D histogram to generate an impression of what the bivariate density function might look like but the package that I was using (R) had no built-in function for this.