Readers have their say

In case you missed the recent Slightly Humorous reader survey, sorry, it is too late to cast your vote. Better luck next time. But we can learn many important things from the results of the survey, which tied with a previous survey for the lowest number of respondents. The first is, never put out a poll right before a major holiday. Turkey brain has already set in, and no one can remember to vote.

With only four readers voting, you might wonder how we can make any conclusions when we did not reach our scientific sample of 6.3874932 voters. The answer is complicated, but basically, the reason is that we can do whatever we want.

The good news is that 75% of respondents said they actually read 100% of any given blog post. 25% read just half. Adding 75 and 100 and 25 and half, we get 250%, which means that people are reading more of a post than is actually there. (We are able to extrapolate these figures thanks to our specialized, secondhand knowledge from Joe's Fuzzy Math course, in which numbers are just suggestions.)

"Random words" did not appear to be a popular method of reading the blog, although we think it might prove more interesting in some cases. Perhaps in the future, as a scientific experiment (or when we run out of things to talk about), we will create a blog consisting entirely of words pulled at random from a variety of blog posts, including other people's.

No one indicated that they read only the first and last words of a blog post. This means that my mother did not vote. Reading only the beginning and ending is her approach to all written materials, including recipes, which makes for some interesting dining experiences.

The next question on the survey was "What topics would you like to read about in this blog?" Surprisingly, no one chose politics or pets. We surmise -- although it is difficult to know with certainty -- that this is because these choices did not appear.

The number one choice of topic was "Joe's math homework on Poisson processes." We are mystified at this, although we surmise two reasons it was so popular: People misread it and were intrigued at the idea of reading about poison processes -- which makes them very suspect -- OR, Joe voted several times. No doubt he would like someone to give him answers to those Poisson process questions.

The adventures of the Prissy Princess and the Gallant Hero came in second in the desired topic category, showing either the enduring popularity of these characters or the limited choice of answers for this question. We choose to believe the first reason.

In contrast, only one respondent noted a desire to read more about the world outside of the Princess and Hero's castle, possibly indicating the majority's belief that there IS no such place.

Although this survey is entirely anonymous, we can surmise, from the two votes for wishing "sensitive female issues" to not appear in the blog, that at least two voters are male. And speaking of sensitive female issues -- ha! Just kidding. You're safe from such things here.

According to scientific polling standards, the final question of the survey -- "How could this blog improve?" -- really should be dismissed from the results because it did not include an obvious answer that I'm sure all our respondents would have chosen had it been an option: "This blog is perfect just as it is." But give people a chance to point out shortcomings, and they certainly will.

Votes were evenly split among "adding pictures," "letting Joe tell his side of things," and "adding new posts more often." As for pictures, you may remember the outcome of the first attempt of this blog to include pictures. If so, you will know why we do not include, and are not likely to include in the near future, pictures.

The votes for adding new posts more often is not surprising, given the reader dissatisfaction we incurred when moving to an every-other-day format, but let me point out that even some major newspapers in the country, due to poor economic times and a lack of interesting news now that the election is over, have themselves moved to fewer issues per week. Although this has nothing to do with us, I just thought I would point it out.

We are relieved that no one chose "shut down immediately" as a suggestion for improving the blog. This is definitely a sensitive female topic, especially to this particular female. We cannot help admitting, however, that secretly we had hoped someone would vote for "having someone else write the blog," and that that someone would also have volunteered to write it occasionally. And include pictures.