Greensboro’s Political Compass
By Anthony | February 19th, 2006 | 10:49 pmLast week I posted a link to politicalcompass.org, a site with a quiz that expands on the traditional “left vs. rightâ€? political spectrum. Several local Greensboro-area bloggers took the quiz and posted their results. I’ve plotted them on a handy dandy chart to see how everyone compares:
An explanation of the chart can be found at the Political Compass website. If you are a local blogger or blog commenter and would like to be included on the chart, take the quiz and post your results in the comments section.
I was going to make the chart into an image map so that clicking on the names would take you to the associated blog, but I don’t have time to do it at the moment. If anyone wants to write the image map code and send it to me I’ll update the post, otherwise I’ll try to get to making them links eventually. In the meantime, here are some normal text-based links to everyone:
David Boyd, Ginger Bush, Cara Michele, Fecund Stench, Jon Lowder, Sue Polinsky, PotatoStew, Roch Smith, Jeff Sykes
Thanks to David Boyd for helping to compile the results.
Update: The graph is now updated with an image map, so you can click the names on it to visit everyone’s respective site. Thanks to Roch for writing the image map code.
February 20th, 2006 at 3:13 am
hey stew.
i took this 6 months ago and my results didn’t change much:
Economic Left/Right: -5.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.90
February 20th, 2006 at 7:29 am
That’s awesome PS. Looks great.
February 20th, 2006 at 7:35 am
Greensboro Political Compass
Potato Stew has built a graphic showing where local folks fall in the political spectrum. You can take the quiz here.
February 20th, 2006 at 7:47 am
Not where I would have put myself.
February 20th, 2006 at 7:48 am
Oh, and for any of my dad’s golfing or academic buddies who might be reading, the Roch Smith on the graph is Roch Smith, Jr.
February 20th, 2006 at 8:16 am
Seems about right to me, Roch Jr. I’m right next to you: Economic Left/Right: 1.00; Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.67.
I think CaraMichele is going to have to come to terms with her inner Liberal.
February 20th, 2006 at 9:25 am
Another centrist here: Economic L/R: -2 Social Lib/Auth: -1.51
Interesting.
February 20th, 2006 at 10:35 am
Yep, no surprises here.
Economic Left/Right: -8.00
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.92
February 20th, 2006 at 10:59 am
I did it again with no distractions and came to center just a little more!
Economic Left/Right: -7.13
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.56
I’m still looking like the radical of the bunch, eh?
February 20th, 2006 at 11:17 am
L, that’s Che territory.
February 20th, 2006 at 11:28 am
Nah, I’m wrong. Che would be positive on the Libertarian/Authoritarian score. You’re OK. Phew.
February 20th, 2006 at 12:49 pm
Yeah, I guess my moderate talk has been all for show.
February 20th, 2006 at 2:12 pm
That was thoroughly enjoyable; thanks for the link.
My results:
Economic Left/Right: -7.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.90
I’m a little ashamed of how rarely I update my blog, but the link has been supplied.
Regards.
February 20th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
I surprised even myself….
-5 economic
-7.03 for social, etc.
February 20th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Economic Left/Right: -5.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.41
I’m in Gandhi territory… Who would of guessed, I was aiming for Hitler.
February 20th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
I’m slipping. How am I supposed to be a mililtant omnivore when I am sliding like this.
Economic Left/Right: -4.50
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.05
February 20th, 2006 at 4:31 pm
This was kind of cool.
My results:
Economic Left/Right: -2.38
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -3.54
I’m right near the Dalai Lama and ghandi…. I don’t think these tests are always 100% accurate. I’m quite conservative on some issues although everyone knows I’m quite liberal on many also.
February 20th, 2006 at 6:23 pm
PotatoStew,
That was fun. I e-mailed you my page. Unless I misunderstand, I am dead in the middle, right at ground zero -00 00. Don’t know what that means about me.
February 20th, 2006 at 9:50 pm
Potatoe Stew,
I didn’t trust my udnerstanding so I did it again. I could tell I was answering some things a little differently, and I expect I would each time according to my mood, and got
Economic Left/Right: 0.25
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -0.46
Still pretty close to 00 and 00.
I think that’s pretty close to me. And it puts me right on top of Roch, no pun intended of course.
Joel
February 20th, 2006 at 10:38 pm
Wow… thanks for playing along everyone! I think I’m going to have to use a smaller font size for the next revision. The graph has been updated with an image map (sent by Roch The Younger), so you can click the names on it now.
A few thoughts:
I’m most surprised by Roch and Joel’s scores I think … I would have expected them to be a bit farther to the left and right respectively. They’re both very reasonable people however, so I suppose the middle is fitting. I’m relieved to see that there are several people further to the bottom left than I am – I was starting to feel a bit extreme.
Matt, I agree that the test most likely isn’t extremely accurate. One thing that I think it doesn’t account for that would probably make a difference in several people’s scores is personal conduct. For example, regarding a few of the social questions, there were answers I gave that put me well into the libertarian side of things. However, my own personal conduct in some of those areas probably fits more closely with a traditionally “conservative” viewpoint, but that doesn’t get reflected in the results. I do think it’s probably a good exercise to show a general trend or comparision between different people, as we’re doing here.
February 20th, 2006 at 10:57 pm
Thats pretty neat. I took the test myself, and landed about 1 to the left, and five up. This really freaked out my dad, who commented I was closer to Adolf Hitler than anyone else. But I agree with you in saying this test is obviously not that acurate.
February 21st, 2006 at 10:06 am
“However, my own personal conduct in some of those areas probably fits more closely with a traditionally “conservativeâ€? viewpoint, but that doesn’t get reflected in the results.”
Ditto here – nobody would call me personally a sexual libertine, and I am not an atheist, but my answers reflected the fact that I don’t believe that sexual or religious issues should be controlled by government. I’ll bet that’s the case for a lot of people on the liberal side.
February 21st, 2006 at 10:49 am
Stew:
That was a great link over at Cone’s site. I think the graphic is well done. Thanks for the effort. I think the questions were very probing and caused one to examine their beliefs. I could have answered differently on several categories (globalization, drugs, morality) depending on what time of day it was. As I answered the questions, I had to think how do I feel about this now, how did I feel about it when I was 20, I will I feel about it when my son is 12, etc.
The Atlantic’s February issue had a great section on the culture war in America and a similar graphic that plotted out the 12 Tribes of the political spectrum. I recommend it highly if you can still find one at the store or library. I don’t know if it is online.
Jeff
February 21st, 2006 at 11:23 am
PotatoStew,
Do you think you’ll do a new map soon to include the new people who have done the test? It’s kind of fun.
Joel
February 21st, 2006 at 11:26 am
Yep, pretty soon. I’ll try to do it tonight, or tomorrow night for sure.
February 21st, 2006 at 12:12 pm
Thanks alot. I am lonely over here.
February 21st, 2006 at 12:14 pm
[…] Potato Stew at Plead the First has the results of the Political Compass questionaire for some of us. […]
February 21st, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Heh. I landed somewhere pretty much right above Ghandi last time I took it, but I didn’t bother posting the score. Needless to say, I’m no Ghandi.
This definitely proves one single fact though…. bloggers in general are more left-oriented. Oh wait… wasn’t that already proven? Hahahaha. Sorry. It’s been a long day.
February 21st, 2006 at 1:54 pm
What have I learned from the graph? There is much work to be done.
February 21st, 2006 at 1:57 pm
Indeed there is David! You’re going to need to undergo some major attitude adjustments to move yourself into more sensible areas of the graph. 🙂
February 21st, 2006 at 9:30 pm
DW, I emailed PotatoStew my exact numbers, which keep me left but move me up a bit. I think he is replotting and adding folks. As for my “inner liberal,” (LOL) after blog discussions with Ed and others, and after taking multitudinous online tests (some for real, some really funny), and after much thought, I’ve concluded that I’m very conservative on social issues and apparently liberal (and didn’t even know it!) on fiscal/economic issues. I’m contentedly conflicted. 🙂
February 21st, 2006 at 9:58 pm
[…] Thanks to everyone who added their results in the earlier thread. I was right – a smaller font size was definitely necessary. I made some other minor changes to the graph, including adjusting Cara Michele’s marker to reflect her actual score, which she sent to me via email. Everyone else should be in the correct spot, so let me know if you see any mistakes. […]
February 22nd, 2006 at 11:30 am
Quite neat. My results put me at -2.13 on the economic left/right scale, and -4.46 on the social libertarian/authoritarian scale.
February 22nd, 2006 at 2:11 pm
Economic: -7.25
Social: -6.62
February 23rd, 2006 at 1:16 pm
I thought I was pretty liberal, but scored only -3.5, -3.74, which seems pretty close to the average for gso bloggers. Can you average the results people have submitted?