The second annual "ATS Membership Satisfaction Survey" has had 500 responses so far. While we expect to get more, that is a significant enough
sampling to being drawing conclusions. And the biggest conclusion we can draw is that really, everyone is pretty happy. We've all see episodes of
dramatic member grousing and complaints, but the overwhelming numbers indicate, that for two years in a row, the general membership of ATS is very
happy with their digital home.
Back in 2003, we ran two separate surveys as compared to this year's single-survey. Also, after two weeks, only 381 people responded to the 2003
survey (our daily members visiting ATS were 1/3 what they are now). At the time, 381 was very good.
The first question,
"Please give us your overall impression of AboveTopSecret.com's discussion board, and be as accurate as possible"
indicated your broad satisfaction with ATS in general. And the results are nearly the same as 2003... over 83% in 2004 said ATS is among the best
boards they've seen, if not the best (32%).
The nest question,
"Please give us your general opinion of the overall membership of the Abovetopsecret.com message board" provides some
insight as to what you think of your fellow members. Well, apparently we all like each other very much. For two years in a row, more than 75% of you
think the ATS Membership is between very-good and beyond comparison.
Another gauge of your opinion of the other members is in your responses to
"On the whole, how would you rate the overall quality of the material
posted by other members on ATS". In 2004, you seem to think the average quality of member contributions has increased.
With a growing board, more stress among staff, and episodes of general mayhem, we thought this question,
"What do you feel best describes your
opinon of the way ATS/BTS is managed" might change this year. Well, we did have the expected change, but it was extremely minor. In 2003, 70.6%
of you thought our staff either had the wisdom of Solomon, or were fair and even-handed. In 2004, that number fell to 60%. But the different was
nearly made up in the "average" response.
And finally, this question,
"Please pick the statement that best describes your response to this: I think all the newbies posting the same topics
over and over again really hurt overall quality" provided an interesting surprise. In 2004, you're a bit more tolerant of new members posting
repeats of old topics. This might be explained by the general psychology of the board in 2003. Back then, we were just beginning to experience what
would be our massive growth, and some old-time members were simply unable to cope with various aspects of how ATS was growing. Now, with nearly
4-times the average daily users, a more diverse group is moving to embrace the sometimes repetitive contributions of the newcomers.
These are a look at the more important questions. The results of all the multiple choice answers can be seen here:
www.abovetopsecret.com...
EDIT: Fixed image link.
[edit on 8-9-2004 by Kano]