About a week ago, I launched a poll on our site with the idea of getting feedback from readers on some questions that have been floating around in my head for a while, such as whether people would rather get one or two hand jobs from Phro. The poll is now closed, and as promised, I’m now reporting the results.
To be honest, this post is superfluous, since the polling software allowed anyone who filled out the poll to see the cumulative results, but most of you have probably forgotten about the poll anyway, so what the hell.
I found some of the results quite surprising, though others confirmed what I already suspected. Some of the results have given me food for thought about possible changes to the site, but since I move even more slowly than the beloved though sinister lorises here at the NCS compound, I don’t think you’ll be seeing any dramatic changes anytime soon.
Before getting to the results, I noticed that we had widely varying participation in the poll, depending on the question. I guess I should be happy that anyone bothered to fill out the poll at all, though many people obviously didn’t answer every question. And of course I have no way of knowing how many people had the attitude of our very own DGR, who apparently checked off every choice on every question, with this helpful comment: “I CHECKED ALL THE ANSWERS WHENEVER I COULD. FUCK YOUR POLL.” I will be docking DGR’s pay beginning tomorrow. So yeah, I make no claim that the poll results have any statistical validity.
I should also note that we got 126 comments on the original post about the poll, and even taking into account that I probably wrote half of them, that’s still got to be close to a record for our site. I got as much out of the comments as I did out of the poll results. They were a lot more entertaining, too. So, anyway, here are the results, with a few thoughts about each one:
QUESTION #1
I would like Phro to:
And the winner, with 37.13% of the vote, is the panda-raping, elephant-dong thing, handily winning out over getting Phro to write more NCS posts, though people apparently prefer him writing more than leaving their sisters alone. Fortunately, only 5.91% of voters want him to use more polite language, though this is more than the number of people who want one hand job from him.
I’ve alerted the zoos in the Tokyo region to double their guard on the pandas.
QUESTION #2
I find out about new NCS posts . . .
This one really surprised me. It turns out that with all the attention I and the other writers pay to Facebook, more than half of the poll respondents (51.61%) just visit the site and look for new posts. I was pretty happy to see that, since we now know that our Facebook page posts only reach about 25% of our Facebook fans.
However, I must say that I’m nervous about the fact that 11.47% of people are in telepathic communication with the lorises. I just need to warn you not to believe what any of them tell you about me, especially not the one with the black ribbons in her hair and the pretty mouth.
QUESTION #3
My Top 3 favorite genres of metal are (pick up to 3 choices):
This is another set of answers that surprised me. I sure didn’t expect to see progressive metal with a solid plurality of the votes (16.42%). I was also surprised to see the popularity of brutal death / slam — with more votes than stoner, grind, crust/d-beat, metalcore, and deathcore, and almost tied with thrash.
This question, by the way, got one of the highest participation levels in the poll.
QUESTION #4
(Pick the answer that comes closest to being true for you). On average, I visit NCS . . .
This was another set of answers that surprised me — and it was a very pleasant surprise. Of the people who responded to this question, almost half (47.03%) visit our site every day, and almost a third (29.66%) stop by every 2 or 3 days. Â Very cool.
QUESTION #5
Should we add DISQUS as an option for you to use in leaving comments?
The vast majority of people obviously don’t really care whether we add DISQUS or not. Of course, I realized too late that I should have asked people to answer this question only if they like to leave comments, so it’s kind of hard for me to know what to make of this. More people who expressed a preference requested DISQUS than those who didn’t.
As one of the commenters pointed out, DISQUS has been criticized in the past because of privacy concerns (see this), and I’m really not eager to facilitate that kind of shit — though I know privacy is a rapidly disappearing concept anyway.
QUESTION #6
(Select any of the answers below that apply to you). I visit NCS for . . .
This question got the biggest participation from people who answered the poll. I guessed that the album/EP reviews, news, and features would be the most popular things we do, so no big surprises here. I was happy to see that there’s at least some support for the THAT’S METAL! posts, since I enjoy putting them together. And I clearly need to get off my ass and revive the MISCELLANY series.
Also, everyone who voted for the last choice will get two hand jobs from Phro and a fond wish from me.
QUESTION #7
NCS doesn’t publish negative reviews, focusing instead on music we can recommend. How do you feel about that?
To be honest, I was looking for some validation here, since I’m pretty strongly wedded to the philosophy behind the way we typically do things. So, it was nice to see 60.44% of respondents supporting the status quo. On the other hand, nearly 40% of respondents said they’d like to see negative reviews as well as positive ones, which is a significant minority.
To be honest, stubborn fuck that I am, this is one area where I’m unlikely to change, regardless of popular demand.
QUESTION #8
Which of the following statements best represents your view of NCS?
I really appreciate everyone’s honesty here. I can now tell everyone I know that almost 45% of our readers would kill themselves if I stopped blogging, and that even those who could somehow find a reason to live without us still think NCS is the best and greatest metal blog there is.
I’m truly touched by this genuine, unsolicited outpouring of love and support, and I just want to tell each and every one of you that I love and support you, too, and that you are the most intelligent and perceptive judges of literary talent that any writers could ever find in their wildest dreams, and that all of us here at NCS are truly blessed for having found you, though perhaps not as blessed as you are for having found us.
38 Responses to “THE NCS READERS POLL: RESULTS”
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As a scientist, my analysis of the statistics is thus:
Question 1 – we don’t have enough people with sisters, which is why Phro left to start his own blog.
Question 2 – we have a loyal fan base of sadomasochists who simply don’t know any better.
Question 3 – Progressive black metal is clearly the way to go.
Question 4 – Our loyal readers also don’t have jobs/families/hobbies of their own.
Question 4 (continued) – all our loyal readers are in fact Phro.
Question 5 – No one should be allowed to comment except me, as Phro’s opinion doesn’t matter.
Question 6 – You clearly left out The Synn Report out of jealousy and the correct belief that it’s the only reason anyone comes here.
Question 7 – (Serious answer #1) I do make sure to be pretty critical and negative about ASPECTS of albums when they come up, but I try and do so constructively. Plus I give you my list of “Disappointing” albums at the end of the year. So shut your goddamn pieholes.
Question 8 – Again… all these answers are from Phro.
Well, I didn’t really LEAVE. I just split my time talking about penises between here and there.
But yes, I pretty much AM you’re only loyal reader. All the other readers are dick puppets. Which is why the are so few sisters.
I omitted The Synn Report to spare you the psychic scarring that would have resulted from seeing it come in behind my answers to spam e-mail.
To be fair, I did check both prog and death metal to try and create some sort of prog-death to cover bands like In Mourning and Opeth, although I could just highlight the fact that I really like In Mourning and Opeth. Also the brutal-death thing is interesting, I know I’ve emailed you a couple groups as I came across them because I figrued the NCS readerbase would dig on it. Melodeath being second highest was interesting, though.
There’s going to be confounding factors though. There’s a big crossover between melodic death metal and metalcore, even deathcore, and thrash, so that could have contributed to the higher vote score.
And I would assume that lots of people consider “djent” to be progressive, when what they mean is “tech-demo elevator music”. So that will skew that as well.
Not surprised in the least that Prog (which I assume covered techdeath), Melodeath and Brutal Death were popular…You can tell just by the number of comments articles about Gojira, Insomnium and Dying Fetus seem to generate.
In fact Im really surprised Black metal was so high. I figured BDM would have been far more likely to be in the number three slot
Looking back….we should have had a folk/viking/pagan option on there as well
Well fuck. I can’t believe I didn’t include folk/viking/pagan. I guess we’ll have to start all over. But that will give me a chance to add some new questions, such as whether people would rather have black font on a white background, with red pandas instead of red skulls.
Can we have red panda skulls..because that would get my vote?
How about flaming red panda demons gnawing on screaming skulls?
One of those things should probably have a disproportionately large erection as well.
You mean like the one in that photo of you doing the giant panda?
I shall have to fire up my panda cloning machine, then.
You would not believe how long it took to collect the skulls for the current background. There aren’t as many usable samples in a graveyard as you might think.
You must have raided every graveyard in the Great Lakes region. Also, please don’t tell Phro you have a panda cloning machine.
YOU KNOW I CAN READ ANY DAMN COMMENT I WANT, RIGHT?
GIMME PANDA CLONES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Don’t get DISQUS. For reasons I don’t want to go into, the main computer that I use to read blogs from has old software, and there’s nothing I can do about that. Google keeps telling me I should upgrade to a modern browser. I can’t, on this computer. The result is that I’m unable to comment on sites that have DISQUS, e.g., HBIH.
I’m so lazy I still haven’t figured out whether it’s possible to add DISQUS as an alternative but not a replacement for the current Comment system — but I’m not feeling very motivated about DISQUS.
There isn’t. And I’ve soured a bit on Disqus as well. It doesn’t like to play nicely with WordPress’ comments system.
Well, I think that pretty much puts the stake in the heart of the DISQUS idea as far as I’m concerned.
I Visit the site every single day Kickass stuff you’ve got going here, and a lot of research done on everything you guys write.- from India \m/
Thanks man, cheers to India.
I’m not afraid to say I can’t live without visiting NCS everyday!!!! This has become my favorite blog for various reasons and all the cool shit in here!!! So hope for the best!!!! Plus I would like to see phro raped a panda hehehe
The people have spoken. I found this chart helpful. I wonder what the Phro/panda cross-breeding program will produce.
http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m5kw49te421qk2jwqo1_500.jpg
Here’s your Phro-raped panda!
http://www.phrometal.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/PandaMoeeeeeee.jpg
nothing beats a Happy Panda!!!!! 🙂
I chose black metal, brutal death/slam and the last one with all the names (although, with the final choice I’m not sure if you were including bestial black death like Archgoat and similar bands, but I do enjoy the weird… for lack of a better word, progginess of the other bands you mentioned that I suppose would also include stuff like Wolvhammer, et al. Also, I don’t want DISQUS.
It would be nice, when introducing posts on bands, if, right out of the gate, you stated what genre they are in. Such as stating, “Jizzguzzling Hipster Satans are a black metal band from Generic-stan* So, right from the start, your readers can decide if they care to keep reading or not. Personally, I hate almost all black metal bands you post about, but it isn’t always easy to tell its a black metal band until I’ve read through a good chunk of the post. I just use black metal as an example….Letting your readers know what category a band fits into lets us save time and not read about something in which we will have no interest. Thanks
This is why I altered the Synn Report to have the “Recommended for fans of:” bit at the start instead of (inexplicably?!) at the end.
I would argue that this ambivalence is one of the greatest strengths of NCS. Although each Contributor has particlular tastes and genre niches, they really get going when they effectively describe why that particular band was interesting enough for them to warrant the creation of the article in the first place.
Although black metal is not my prefered style, I have read a number of articles featuring a black metal band that I ended up listening to in regular rotation. So, for example, while I could guess that a BadWolf post probably involves Black Metal, the fact that I enjoy his work enough and trust in him taking the time to write means that there is a substantial chance I could enjoy the band in question. The freedom from outright labels allows us to go along for the ride.
I get where you’re coming from, and I don’t intentionally try to hide the ball when I write reviews, but on the other hand I’m often reluctant to slap short-hand labels on albums because they often don’t really capture the nuances of the sound very well. And as VyceVictus says (above), it seems to me that it might prevent some readers from exploring something they might wind up enjoying, even if it’s not their preferred style.
I appreciate what all of your are saying and I fully understand your opinions. However, I can’t help but reply, “just give me what I want.” I don’t have much free time to explore. Just save me the hassle, damn you!
I spend at least 3 hours a day reading NCS. More if I’m at work because I usually have nothing better to do. My job must be largely unnecessary to the economic well-being of my place of residence.
Damn dude! That’s awesome. Thank you!
I am/was surprised at the lack of folk metal as an option for favourite subgenres. This site tends to be more folk metal friendly than others.
There’s a good reason why that option wasn’t listed: I fucked up.
I know that I’m like really, really behind in commenting on this post. The reasons for that are many and sundry though. Between slaying the angry, fire-wielding Christian hordes and cleaning the NCS pigeon aeronaut poop off of my goddamned t-shirt, (I only have fucking one) my time has become more scarce than usual. Anyhow, I would just like to say that the readership of this site are a bunch of fucking Melo-somethin’ lovin’ pussies. How the motherfuck did Grindcore come in so low? I feel betrayed. You people desire MELODY? Descent SONG WRITING? Would you say that you enjoy PENTATONICS? MAJOR SCALES? THE GRANDPA’S GUITARS? They are for the pussies and the grandpas, I think you knows its.
Well that was fun. Everybody go listen to Death of Self. Wonderful, IN NO WAY FUCKING MELODIC grind from the burning hills of Colorado. I s’pose it also bares mentioning that Death of Self is the brainchild of the front man/guitarist of Cling to the Trees of a Forest Fire who are also, by the way, not fucking melodic.
Clinging. Fuck
CTTTOAFF are fuckable awesomeness. I will shove anything they make in my ear holes.
Thanks for the comments. And by the way, I included Death of Self in this post a couple months ago:
https://www.nocleansinging.com/2012/05/14/abs-and-death-of-self/
And you’re a good man for that, sir.