Full Intfiction Demographic Survey

General
1

This is Version 1 of the Intfiction demographic survey, as discussed in my thread “Intfiction demographic survey?”

The survey has been created via Discourse polls by popular demand. Please correct me if there are issues with wording or formatting. Preferably sooner rather than later, since editing any Discourse poll, even just to change the wording of the question, erases all the answers.

Every poll is optional. Every poll is anonymous, meaning people won’t see who answered what. I currently don’t have access to individual answers because it’s a Discourse survey, but I believe the .csv export feature makes individual answers available to the mods, and some questions are potentially identifying or reveal sensitive info, so be cautious. Again, anyone can skip any question for any reason.

I included a number of superfluous questions because I like doing surveys. I will answer every question, but you don’t have to. I debated a long time on which questions to include, but in the end settled on having more questions rather than less. Questions can be pared down if people think this is too much.

The survey is divided into sections. The sections at the start are the most important ones.

Results are hidden and will not be shown until the polls are closed. All polls will close on midnight at December 31, UTC. Again, though the results of the poll will be shown after they’re closed, who voted for each option will remain anonymous.

[Edit: For a question that has multiple answers, you need to press the blue Vote now! button at the bottom of the question to actually submit the answers. If you just check the boxes and move on, your answer won’t be counted.]

The Survey

Part 1: Demographics

In real life:

What is your…

Age?
  • 13-19
  • 20-29
  • 30-39
  • 40-59
  • 60+
0 voters
Gender?
  • Female
  • Male
  • Nonbinary
  • Other
0 voters
Religion? [Pick the option that best describes what you believe.]
  • Buddhist
  • Christian
  • Hindu
  • Jewish
  • Muslim
  • Mixed/Other
  • No religion
0 voters
Race? [With what race do you most identify? “Hispanic” is a term mostly used in the US referring to people whose ethnic background is from Mexico, Central America, and South America.]
  • American Indian or Alaskan Native
  • Asian or Pacific Islander
  • Black
  • Hispanic or Latino
  • Middle Eastern
  • White (non-Hispanic)
  • Multiracial or Biracial
  • Other
0 voters
Are you LGBTQIA+?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Other (questioning, unsure, technically yes but don’t identify with the label, etc.)
0 voters
Continent you live in?
  • Africa
  • Antarctica
  • Asia
  • Europe
  • Oceania
  • North America
  • South America
0 voters
How would you describe the place where you live?
  • Urban
  • Suburban
  • Rural
0 voters
Part 2: Interactive Fiction

In the interactive fiction community:

When did you become interested in interactive fiction?
  • Less than 1 year ago
  • 1-2 years ago
  • 2-5 years ago
  • 5-10 years ago
  • More than 10 years ago
0 voters
[New] Getting more granular: how many years ago did you become interested in interactive fiction?
  • Less than 1
  • 1-2 years
  • 2-5 years
  • 5-10 years
  • 10-20 years
  • 20-30 years
  • 30-40 years
  • 40+ years
0 voters
When did you first start using Intfiction?
  • Less than 1 year ago
  • 1-2 years ago
  • 2-5 years ago
  • 5-10 years ago
  • More than 10 years ago
0 voters
On a scale from 1 (only choice) to 5 (only parser), how would you classify the interactive fiction games you play?
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
0 voters
On a scale from 1 (only choice) to 5 (only parser), how would you classify the interactive fiction games you create or want to create?
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
0 voters
If you create IF, which of these IF authoring systems have you used or are currently using?
  • Choicescript
  • Inform 6
  • Inform 7
  • Ink
  • TADS
  • Twine
  • Other parser system
  • Other choice system
  • Other system
  • Your own custom authoring system
0 voters
Have you ever entered a game into IFComp or Spring Thing?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
How many interactive fiction games have you released, in total?
  • None
  • 1
  • 2-5
  • 5-15
  • More than 15
0 voters
How often do you go to the Intfiction forum?
  • Almost never
  • Monthly
  • Weekly
  • Daily
0 voters

[Edit: If you don’t use IFDB at all, and never go there, pick “Almost never”.]

How often do you go to IFDB?
  • Almost never
  • Monthly
  • Weekly
  • Daily
0 voters
How often do you go on ifMUD?
  • Never/Don’t have an account
  • Almost never
  • Monthly
  • Weekly
  • Daily
0 voters
How did you discover the Intfiction forum?
  • Search engine (Google, DuckDuckGo, etc.)
  • Social media
  • Recommended by a friend
  • IFDB
  • Spring Thing
  • IFComp
  • Neo-Interactives
  • Other
  • Don’t remember
0 voters
What device(s) do you mainly play interactive fiction games with?
  • Personal computer (laptop or desktop)
  • Smartphone
  • Tablet (for example, an iPad)
  • Other
0 voters
Part 3: Demographics, Extraordinarily Optional Edition

These questions get a little personal. Again, I want to emphasize that all questions are optional. If the forum wants me to remove any question, I can do so.

In real life:

Do you own at least one car?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
Are you currently married?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
Do you have any children?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
Are you currently employed in what you consider to be a STEM (science, technology, engineering or math) job?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters

[Edit: I can’t change the wording of the actual question below, but I want to clarify that the intent of the question is to ask “Do you have a post-secondary degree?” or “Do you have an academic degree obtained from any form of education beyond high school or your local equivalent of high school?” For example, an associate’s degree in nursing would count.]

Do you have a degree in higher education?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
What is your sexual orientation?
  • Heterosexual
  • Homosexual
  • Bisexual or Pansexual
  • Asexual
  • Other
0 voters
How many languages do you have basic fluency in? This includes conlangs such as Toki Pona.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5 or more
0 voters
Which of the top 10 most spoken languages in the world, according to Wikipedia, do you know?
  • English
  • Mandarin Chinese
  • Hindi
  • Spanish
  • Modern Standard Arabic
  • French
  • Bengali
  • Portuguese
  • Russian
  • Indonesian
0 voters
Are you trans?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Other (questioning, unsure, technically yes but don’t identify with the label, etc.)
0 voters
Are you neurodivergent?
  • Yes
  • No
  • Other (questioning, unsure, technically yes but don’t identify with the label, etc.)
0 voters
How would you describe your current economic class?
  • Poor
  • Working-to-lower-middle class
  • Middle class
  • Upper middle class
  • Upper class
0 voters
Do you have your own laptop or desktop computer?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
Do you have your own smartphone?
  • Yes
  • No
0 voters
Part 4: Fun Questions

For fun:

Would you cooperate or defect in the prisoner’s dilemma?
  • Cooperate
  • Defect
0 voters

dress
dress256×389 75.5 KB

Is the dress in the above photo black and blue or white and gold?
  • Black and blue
  • White and gold
  • Other (other color combination, can see both, etc)
  • Unapplicable because I cannot see the colors in the photo, or cannot see the photo
0 voters
Oh no! A runaway trolley is going to run over five random members of the Intfiction forum who are tied to the tracks! Luckily for you, you’re next to a lever that, when pulled, will switch the trolley to another track. Unluckily for you, the lever is cursed, and when you press it, a hungry grue will emerge from the shadows and eat a different random member of the Intfiction forum. (It could be you!) Pulling the lever will sacrifice that random user to the grue in exchange for saving the lives of five random Intfiction forum members. Would you pull the lever?
  • Pull the lever
  • Don’t pull the lever
0 voters
Suppose that there is a free experience machine that can give anyone all the experiences they desire. It can stimulate a human’s brain to make them believe they’re living out their perfect, ideal life. You can plug into the machine for the rest of your human lifespan, for no monetary cost, and live the life of your dreams. Anyone else who’s plugged into the machine at the same time can also interact with you, though you can terminate this interaction at any time should you choose. All the time, you will be floating in a tank with electrodes attached to your brain. Would you plug into the machine?
  • No, and I’d cut ties with anyone who supported use of the machine
  • No
  • Yes, but only occasionally
  • Yes, I’d try it out and become addicted to it after originally promising myself to only use it occasionally, culminating in spending the rest of my life inside the machine
  • Yes, I would immediately try it out with no hesitation and spend the rest of my life in there
0 voters
Scenario A: You’ve been working on a complex IF project for years. It’s not quite done yet, but you’ve gotten sick of working on it and feel it’s mostly a gigantic waste of time. Would you rather hastily get it into a playable state and submit it somewhere, maybe to an IF event, or put it aside to be finished and released later, which might be years down the line or never?
  • Hastily get it into a playable state and submit it somewhere
  • Finish and release it later, or never
0 voters
Scenario B: Similarly, you’ve finished a complex IF project after working on it exclusively for years. Would you rather submit it to something as soon as possible, or wait a few months so you can look over it with fresh eyes and make sure it’s really perfect?
  • As soon as possible
  • Wait a few months
0 voters

[Edit: For the below question, Minecraft fanfiction fans should replace “Minecraft” with another franchise they’re somewhat familiar with but aren’t really interested in.]

Scenario C: Would you rather spend years on something that’s not exactly to your tastes, such as Minecraft fanfiction, if you knew it was guaranteed to get thousands of likes, or would you prefer to spend it on something radical, personal and obscure that a dozen people at most would see? We all know it’s a spectrum, but given a choice between these two binary options, which would you pick?
  • Thousands of likes
  • Something a dozen people will see at most
0 voters

And there we go. This survey may have more questions than a Choicescript character creation menu, but at least you’re done with it now. Unless you decide to go back and change your answers, of course.

17 Likes
2

Fun, thanks for pulling this together!

The higher education question confused me a bit - I would read “a degree in higher education” as like a masters in education, but from context I think the intent is to ask about college/university completion, like a post-secondary degree?

3 Likes
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Yeah, an alternative wording would be “Do you have a post-secondary degree?” or “Do you have a degree obtained from any form of education beyond high school or your local equivalent of high school?” Should’ve had clearer wording there, my bad. I can’t update the poll question itself, but I can add something before it.

3 Likes
4

The tech was confusing to me. I think you have to click the blue button on each question that can have multiple answers, right?

5

Yep, for a question that has multiple answers, you need to press the blue Vote now! button at the bottom of the question to actually submit the answers. You can’t just check the boxes and move on. I’ll add something about that to the first post as well.

6

A funny question to ask on the “niche unprofitable games” forum!

11 Likes
7

The three scenarios at the end are questions I’ve thought about a fair amount, which is why I included them. It’s hard for me to say definitively which option I would pick. For that last question, I’d like to say the second option, but every day I wonder what would happen if I started churning out an endless supply of Among Us animations like there’s no tomorrow. I could win the admiration of an army of eight-year-olds.

4 Likes
8

Poll update: I realized I didn’t account for the respondent never going to IFDB in the IFDB question. People who don’t use the site at all can just put “Almost never”.

I also added another question to the IF section about ifMUD.

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On behalf of the mods, I’d also like to note—we by necessity have access to various types of personally identifying information about users (email, IP address, etc), but we only use it for moderation purposes (like blocking someone’s IP if they post spam), not for anything else. I don’t know if we can access individual people’s responses to polls, but even if we can, we have no intention of de-anonymizing or doxxing anyone; the intent of this poll is to be anonymous, and I can’t think of any reason why we’d ever need to circumvent that.

10 Likes
10

“When did you become interested in IF” – for this crowd, surely you want the range to go up to fifty years…

(I did not become interested in IF fifty years ago. It was more like 47.)

18 Likes
11

I’m thinking for me it was about 44 years ago, when my dad brought home stories of Colossal Cave from work. But I didn’t actually play my first text adventure until maybe 41 years ago.

1 Like
12

45 years ago for me this very month, when my Dad borrowed an Apple II from work over Christmas 1980, and I discovered Colossal Cave Adventure. I was just posting about this poll question on Bluesky and Mastodon, and wishing I could give a much higher number in my answer!

2 Likes
13

You make an excellent point. l should’ve added in more options, sorry, but I really didn’t think about it. Since I can’t change the options now without erasing all the previous answers, I’ll keep it like this and make a note to offer more options if I do something like this again.

1 Like
14

Oh yeah, I completely trust the mods of this forum and trust that they would never do anything untoward with the data. I didn’t mean to imply they’d start doxxing people or anything of that sort, sorry if that line came across wrong.

I mostly added it in because of Hanon’s post about Discourse’s .csv export feature in the first “Intfiction demographic survey?” thread. Hanon said the mods could potentially send the exported .csv of answers to me. When I tried to look up exactly what the exported .csv would look like while creating this survey, it seemed like it would include individual answers.

I don’t know if the .csv actually includes individual answers, since I was only skimming the document. Even if it did, the mods would be perfectly within rights to refuse to create the .csv and send the .csv to me, or to anonymize it first by removing sensitive questions. The survey isn’t over yet, at any rate, so those are considerations for later.

1 Like
15

When you ask about “becoming interested in IF” does that question mean “interactive fiction software” or would gamebooks count? Because the answer is very different.

16

I guess the answer depends on what you yourself would consider IF. Something doesn’t have to be specifically tied to this community to count as IF, but if you feel like gamebooks are too separate to qualify, it’s your call. I don’t have much experience with gamebooks, so I can’t say myself.

17

47 for me too.

1 Like
18

A dozen people? I’m not ready for that level of fame & acclaim!

6 Likes
19

Given the public response to that one question in just the first day, it might honestly be worth removing it and adding a new version!

1 Like
20

Didn’t understand some of your questions. I think you were aiming at a younger generation as I don’t understand some(most) of your abbreviations/acronyms. Others made no sense at all and I skipped them.

I disagree that Oceania is a continent too. It’s a region.

1 Like