Filibuster readers' survey- results!

For seven days I held an opinion survey open to any readers of Filibuster who cared enough to fill it out.
I closed it after 450 people participated, as that seemed like a large enough number to get a fairly decent cross-section of the readership. Let's see the results.

This was not a terribly interesting question to ask. I was mostly curious as to how many very recent viewers I had gained in the last short while. Apparently not many, the majority of you have been with me for a year or more. So I clearly have a steady "base."

I guess this doesn't surprise me, I always assumed most of my readers came from the US, but I did think the split would be a tad more even. Unfortunately I can't really change my subject matter to cater to the majority demographic. Because I am published in a few Canadian publications I will always need to keep my content somewhat Canada-centric. Still, a lot of you remarked that you liked "learning about Canadian events" from me, so clearly Canadian content is not a big deal.

The next question was the most interesting. "How would you describe your political views?"

I made a special pie chart to graph the results.

It surprises me the spread is so even; virtually a three-way tie between conservatives, liberals, and independents. I don't have an ideologically-defined reader "base," which is good. Sometimes when I draw things I worry about offending people, and turning readers off. I often draw on the assumption a lot of my readers are quite conservative, but this is apparently not the case.

In the "comments" bit a few people remarked that I should have had a category for "libertarian." I basically consider libertarians "very conservative" though I am well aware they dislike being lumped into such categories.

I'd like to think that the majority of people who occupy the "transcend" category are generally moderates, rather than radicals of one type or another.

Now this is a somewhat interesting result. The majority think I'm conservative, while 34% think I'm neutral. So I'm not very polarizing.

I wonder if the 34% who find me neutral are the 34% of conservative readers...

I am a bit surprised seven people consider me "very liberal." I considered not even having that category because I didn't think anyone would agree.

My guide to Canada is twice as popular as anything else, which is good, because I put twice as much effort into that as anything else.

All the other sections are almost evenly popular... even the writings, which I personally consider the weakest section.

The Nintendo censorship essay seems to be quite a hit. It's been linked to by a bunch of non-political sites over the years, much like my greatest video games ever chart. I'm glad to see the leaders in uniform thing is popular as well. I update that section a lot. .

I realize now I forgot to have a column for "history." I'll just assume that part is good enough as it is. "Culture and Society" is clearly something y'all want to learn more about, so I will do my best to expand that section.

Now here's a polarizing issue. I don't really know how to respond to such an indecisive result, other than perhaps just continue the status quo of doing mostly political stuff with the odd "other" now and then. I have a significant "other" thing I'm working on that I may have time to release soon.

While I am glad you guys want the most expensive thing, you also want the thing that is the most complicated to make. I have no idea how to go about making a book.

Canada remains popular. I am thinking I probably will release another shirt soon, as my last ones sold pretty well. Before I do I think I will propose a few designs and let you people tell me which one you like best.

The 10th question was just a call for "other comments." Here are some of the interesting ones:

Some webcomics have a system to show how far along the next comic is, and I think that something like that would be great for seeing when the site is going to be updated.

I think this is a cool idea. As some of you noted, my updating can be a bit sporadic at times, especially lately. I am busy with school and work and things, so it can be hard to stick to a set schedule. I try to just get three toons a week done, though clearly my intended MWF schedule is only very loosely followed.

Include more Mexico on your cartoons

I got a lot of variations on this. People always wanted me to draw more about their countries.

I wish you'd bring back the Character's section. It always made me laugh.

Haha, I forgot all about that part. A while ago I used to have a characters section that was written as a sort of parody of character pages on other webcomic sites. I think it got lost when the page was redesigned, but bringing it back is a fun idea.

A suggestion would be to have a comic grouping feature... By country and that sort of thing.

I want to implement a Google search feature, like some other sites have. Does anyone know how to do this?

Half of your achieve doesn't seem to show up.

A bunch of people pointed this out. I will get around to fixing the ancient comics very soon.

I could have missed it (it wouldn't be the first time), but I think a forum would be cool. I think it'd be fun to discuss some of the political cartoons you draw. It might just end up degrading to a quagmire of bias and flamewars...but I think it might be worth a shot.

A forum would be cool, but it's easier said than done. Maintaining an effective forum requires administrators and monitoring and all the rest... I can barely monitor my own email inbox.

You could fix the "Articles" button on the homepage. That enlarged gray bar underneath it bugs the Hell outta me.

It bugs me too, but I can never seem to figure out exactly what's wrong.

You might try more integration of your own stuff. For instance, when you mention the Governor-General in the comments of any specific cartoon, you might link the phrase to your section on the Governor-Generals...

Very good idea.

I would really like chart of the Canadian military.

How bout doing stuff about conspiracies?

More Holland Guide!

All fun ideas as well.

Thanks to everyone who participated in my survey. It has provided some very valuable feedback, and I really enjoyed reading your comments.

-J.J.

wart_mamu@yahoo.com