While I love the idea of somehow being able to survey JWs, due to the nature of an online survey we really can't say what the numbers on the survey tell us because there is no way to know who was responding or why or to control for any variables.
The results of the 2012 survey are published, and the new 2013 survey is now online!
by cedars 45 Replies latest jw friends
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Hermano
Great work Cedars!
These two figures are very telling:
- Three quarters of former Witness voters say they are being shunned by JW family members
- 84% of inactive Witness voters would leave the organization if shunning were abolished
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Juan Viejo2
Entirely Possible -
You are absolutely right. The Global Surveys only tally the results for those who would go to JWSurvey. Who would they be? Readers of my sites, Freeminds, and JWN mostly. At the same time, the survey is well represented on Google search for anyone looking to find it. It is no accident that Cedar's site is named JWSurvey.org.
We don't have the luxury of being able to focus a survey like political surveys where phone numbers are sorted by congressional districts and voter registrations. We can't send a copy to the Watchtower and ask them to send our survey out to all members. Our only way to advertise and recruit participants is by doing exactly what we are doing here and on our other websites.
Knowing that the survey does have some limitations and might not pass muster with the New York Times or the Wall Street Journal doesn't negate the great and useful information that we can glean from it.
I get emails and phone calls from many current and former JWs who, when involved in conversation, will often share their opinions with me about certain issues. More often than not, unless it is the rare caller who is so blinded and set in cult ways that seeing TTATT is impossible for them, most would probably fit comfortably within the majority results of the Global Survey.
Knowing its weaknesses actually help us in the long run to adjust the meaning of the results. The only sad thing is that so many current JWs who might participate will never know that it exists and won't find it. We'd love their input - but are unlikely to get it.
JV
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smiddy
Good job Cedars
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00DAD
Great work Cedars!
How many people participated?
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Gojira_101
Nice work Cedars! I felt really scared to take the survey because I was just barely starting to wake up, but I did it anyways and now that I think about it....some of my answers to the questions have changed. Guess I will be taking the new survey.
I'm just curious about the numbers of the active ones. Is there a way for us to know exactly how many active JW's took the survey? I'm not calling into question your stats or anything like that...I'm just curious how many active JW's took the survey. If there were 10 active people (I know there were way more than that) and 50% said "..."....that's only 5 people. I hope this makes sense and I'm not trying to be knit picky...I'm very curious if we can know how many active JW's took it?
Thanks.
G
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whathappened
I took the survey earlier today, Cedars. Thanks for your efforts.
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Lozza Aussie
Hi Cedars just tried to complete survey and couldnt. Webpage message said your last request is still being processed. This went on for along time and prevented me from continuing What should I do? I only got half way through.
Lozza Aussie
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LoisLane looking for Superman
Cedars and Juan, Wow, The fruition of a year's work, hot off the press! Thank you so much for compiling this helpful information. So many insightful questions. I was one of the volunteers, too.
Just Lois
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cedars
Thanks to everyone for the kind remarks! I've woken up this morning and counted 79 who have taken the 2013 survey already. Not bad considering it's been online for only about 12 hours!
EntirelyPossible - I hear what you're saying, but at the very least the online survey allows us to quantify just how many dissenters there are against the Watchtower, and how these ones feel. The survey's very existence proves that the Governing Body does not enjoy unanimous support and loyalty among the brothers.
00DAD - 1,488 voters participated in the 2012 survey, although this number could be even higher. Because not all questions are mandatory, we take the peak number of votes for a question in each category, and take that as our number of voters in that category. However, that number could be higher, because some won't have voted on the "peak" question but voted on other questions. Still, I would rather understate the numbers than overstate them.
Gojira_101 - thanks so much for taking our survey, even if it was an intimidating experience for you! We have tried to make the survey less intimidating by requiring less information from voters when they are signing up. As to your question, 294 active Witnesses participated in the 2012 survey. This number included 36 serving elders and 13 anointed memorial partakers.
Lozza Aussie - I'm sorry you had problems signing up. Please email me at [email protected] and we'll see what we can do for you.
Cedars