Fort Wayne, Indiana wants to know about your religion, and they have chosen the highly scientific method of … an internet poll. And you know what those are worth!
Question: Do you identify with some form of the Christian religion?
Yes, and my faith is important to me. 62%
No. I’m religious but in a personal way. 10%
No. I’m of another faith. 1%
No. I’m an atheist or agnostic. 27%
Well, they asked. Let ’em know what the answer is.
Extra Hyperlink closing tag in there PZ
No link, no crash!
And no “
Ah, internet polling, why can’t i quit you!
Seriously, is there a worse way to actually accrue information about any particular subject? Possibly those people in the mall with the clipboards. It’s so funny when you see them and they see you, and then you start to play the game of avoiding them while they are wandering towards you…
Use this link:
http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/editorial/poll/
Nice that is started that high at 27%
http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/editorial/poll/
Theres the link for those that don’t know how to dig through the HTML to find it.
Pharyngula commenters: the interactive html validator.
link works fine now
Hilarious… atheist/agnostic now up to 50%.
I left a message that I was brought up Catholic, but couldn’t ignore my brain long enough to stay that way.
You know, internet polls are of some value, mainly in finding out how the more activist portion of one’s readership might be.
Otoh, most people don’t actually understand what these polls indicate. So what the newspaper wants to find out (what the noisy part of its readership thinks) ends up being taken as a survey of what people at large think.
Hence the value in crashing polls, even though I don’t especially like doing it.
Glen D
http://tinyurl.com/6mb592
I’m a HUGE hit at parties.
atheist/agnostic now up to 75%
You’ve got one of those tee-shirts with <body> on the front and </body> on the back, don’t you?
#10 …now at 70%!!! er…do you think they’re going to sus something?
Well, the godless are now way ahead!
Well yeah, because of the bacon!
Vote splitting once again; 1 category for Yes, 3 categories for No.
“Other faith” is still at 1%. I wonder who that guy is? (Wouldn’t expect to find many “other faiths” in Indiana.)
As of 0930 PDT – atheist or agnostic up to 81%.
No, I know just enough to get by and just little enough to royally screw up a webpage if I’m left alone with it for too long.
Up to 83% now!
Not because of the sausage?
i crash polls, religiously…
can somebody make me a t-shirt of that pls?
can mail to:
TGI-IT
Geyssendorfferweg 47
3088GJ Rotterdam
The Netherlands
Poll crashing tip:
To prevent the poll website manager from learning the URL of the referring website, copy the link to the clipboard and then paste it into your browser address field.
To copy the link to the clipboard:
Right click on the link and,
In MS IE select “Copy Shortcut”
In Firefox select “Copy Link Location”
ZING!
Oh, wait…
Hm, atheist is at 24%. Maybe I’ll have to consider moving to Indiana (not).
What, no TimeCube option? Maybe that’s subsumed by the “Other” category . . . .
Voted. Atheism somewhere in the 80s (which would also be a great compilation album title, says me).
It’s interesting: we know that internet polls are ridiculous, but I wonder if, on their end they know that? Do internet poll originators really say, “Wow, sure are a lot of atheists out there,” or is it just about generating site traffic and subsequent ad revenue?
No kings,
Robert
Crashing polls is fun, but the initial 27% atheist/agnostic is both heartening and surprising.
I see from previous posts that 24% sucks. Looks like the other side mobilized their minions. Pound for pound I’m sure we’re outnumbered, but perhaps not brain cell to brain cell.
I think it was in the nineties when I just hit the site.
This isn’t particularly religion related, but all should check out the mental flatline of stupidity behind whomever wrote this poll on Lou Dobbs’ site. It’s so badly written, I’m not even sure which way to vote to crash it… it’s on the new DHS right-wing hate report, btw.
http://loudobbs.tv.cnn.com/
hhhmmm are we getting beaten back?
Someone else is counter crashing – atheist/agnostic is down to 49% and Xian is up to 39%.
To vote again, clear and disable FortWayne.com cookies.
Dang, in two minutes we’re back to winning 63% to 27%.
I call BS. There’s something hinky going on here with the poll results.
I voted, and the results were Christian 54%/Atheist31%. Then, looking at the comments I saw people posting about the godless heathen quotient being much higher than that. I voted again using a different browser and pasting the link to hide the referral site about thirty seconds after the first. That time the poll said Christian 34%/Atheist56%.
Yep, counter-crash is obviously underway.
That or the website itself is screwing with it.
It’s happened before.
By disabling their cookies in Firefox, I’m now able to vote repeatably. I think I’ve managed to bring it back to 74/19 in our favor.
I need a life. :)
Something fishy is happening with that poll.
I voted and the “No. I’m an atheist or agnostic” was at 86%; I immediately reloaded the page (http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/editorial/poll/results.php) and the no option dropped to 57%…
Careful, if it seems like godlessness is too common in Indiana they might decide they don’t need a bus campaign http://richarddawkins.net/article,3738,n,n
The swings back and forth are just too wild and quick. This isn’t someone counter-crashing. Something else is going on here. 31% – 56% – 80% in the span of two minutes.
This is funny. Pure speculation on my part, but I’m guessing somewhere out there are a group of earnest true believers trying to “rescue” the poll results in the name of their one true supernatural being, whereas the atheist commentators at Pharyngula drifted over as an exercise in demonstrating how ridiculous internet polls are (granted, it is a chance to voice an atheist presence, but not in a meaningful metric).
One group is responding to the poll out of belief. Another group is responding to the poll out of the knowledge that responding to the poll demonstrates that internet polls can be rendered useless, and that internet polls are not measures of actual demographics.
All the while, Fort Wayne site hits keeps climbing, and they’re probably praying . . . for poll responders to click the ad links.
lol, this is what I get for posting/musing about a poll right after statistics class!
No kings,
Robert
In a manner of speaking. The other way of looking at it is that the creotards have embraced our philosophy about online polls (“online polls are stupid and invalid”), and are assisting us in making the poll look ridiculous.
Either way, we didn’t start it :o)
the poll has gone to hell…
Wow! The results are now 65% atheist or agnostic! This will scare the Christian fundies to death!
Dahan @#34 and Rev BDC @#35,
I think the total vote count is so low that even a few votes either way is making huge changes in the percentages.
Right now 86/10 in our favor.
Sweet pharyngulation. I guess the 1% is pastifarian?
Actually, I think it’s more interesting to watch how quickly the comments section here is filling up. There were a dozen when I surfed on over and that was only a couple minutes ago.
LightingRose,
You may be correct. After seeing the huge swing, I made an assumption. Even though this is totally meaningless, it’ll be interesting to watch non-the-less.
Typical pharyngulization seems to be couple thousand of votes or more, so depending on how typical this crashing (or how far into it) is that’s a lot to overcome with simple swings of a few votes. Though more than likely you are correct as this hasn’t been up too long.
My goodness! This “Fort Wayne” place sounds like heaven on earth! (The heaven where you get to eat chocolate all day, every day and not gain weight, not the floaty-angel-worshipping-the-narcissistic-madman-all-day heaven) Since Internet polls are always right, I can safely conclude that ninety percent of the people living there are free of religion.
Omigosh! 10:12 am PDT and it is 90% Atheist.
Doh! Do ya think they’ll know they’ve been pharyngulated?
Waydude #4
Are you still here?
My son and his similarly nerdy friend would dress in dark pants and dress shirts with clipboards aloft. At the local community college they would pretend to be surveying students, especially the females.
They would start off with innocuous questions about food and transportation preferences. But, lo, they would soon be able to get answers to questions about sexual history, etc, by maintaining completely neutral voice and demeanor.
Oh, those bad boys.
90%. I can’t find how to read the comments, they must have sensed PZ’s fine Italian hand.
hmm, this needs a
Yes, but it’s not important to me
option
how can we read the comments?????????/
I see no sign of any wild vote swings when logging in from Europe. It’s currently 92% and has been rising the last hour. Shouldn’t we consider switching to the pastafarian option – #3 – to make it look as if the xtians are actually in third place?
I hope somebody takes the numbers seriously, and thinks Fort Wayne is the home of the heathen. They might, since there are a bunch of people around here that think boring little Joplin, Missouri, has homosexuals for almost half its residents.
93%! I love these polls, PZ. However petty it might be, it gives me a tiny little thrill to know that not only are we exacerbating the christian voters out there, but we’re also letting any fence-sitters know that we are here!
Even given that internet polls aren’t worth the electrons their made of, the paper left off the choice
“Yes, but my faith isn’t particularly important to me.”
I know lots of church members who aren’t particularly “faithful”.
Arrgghh! edit last post “they’re” made of. I hate it when I do that.
93% in our favor after only 6 minutes after posting. Nice work!
Hmpf! Don’t think it went the way they anticipated!!
This is so cool; I’m from Fort Wayne!
And I used to write for the paper sponsoring this poll. Small world indeed.
I agree with John M. #55 – occasionally toss a vote to “other”. Wouldn’t that give the xtians pause to see high numbers in both “atheist” and “other”.
Even better “other” is an unknown I can see Fort Waynites losing sleep worrying; “Are they Raelians, Muslims,…oh my God, don’t let them be Scientologists.”
Why do I get such satisfaction from crashing those polls? It was up to 94% when I voted!
I cant see the results…
I was interested too about how to read the comments. on the News-Sentinel home page there is a link to “Last poll results”.
When you click on that link you get this page – and after I saw it the first time, I even went and registered for the site thinking that had something to do with it – it didn’t.
PAST EDITORIAL POLL
Question: Do you identify with some form of the Christian religion?
Yes. votes: 0 0%
Yes.
Comments:
And that’s it. Weird.
Fort Wayne could use help in the realm of rationality. It is home to a particularly whack-job misogynist seminary of the Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod. Yes, I know there are several redundancies in that last sentence.
Maybe it’s my browser playing up, but this is what I get for results:
http://img10.imageshack.us/img10/354/wtfmmr.jpg
27% is actually pretty encouraging for that area. In some ways it might have been nice to see what level that figure would rise or set to on its own.
Smidgy @69 – I went and registered for the site and logged in under both IE and Firefox. Same results.
Huh. The poll results I saw were as follows:
Yes, and my faith is important to me. 2%
No. I’m religious but in a personal way. 2%
No. I’m of another faith. 4%
No. I’m an atheist or agnostic. 91%
Very interesting.
Wow. I never would have thought Fort Wayne, Indiana was 92% atheist or agnostic.
I think we killed it. Somebody poke at it see if it moves.
02% atheist… Who would have known that Fort Wayne was the atheist’s Mecca…
marcus @ 74 – “I think we killed it. Somebody poke at it see if it moves.”
Oh yeah, it’s always funny to poke at it with a stick to see if it’s really dead or not. Until, that it is, it rears it’s ugly head. And in the blink of an eye shoots upward thrusting it’s daggerous fangs deep into your naughty bits. Spasm after spasm of venom drains from it’s teeth causing almost instant necrosis of the parts you hold most dear.
Sorry marcus, you feel free to poke it all you want. I’ll stand over here behind you and to the right covering my loins with the stray garbage can lid I picked up.
Yeah, like they say…it’s all fun and games until you lose some naughty bits…and then it fucking hilarious!
“Yeah, like they say…it’s all fun and games until you lose some naughty bits…and then it fucking hilarious!”
Or as we used to say (growing up in Iowa), “she’s so ugly, I wouldn’t fuck her with your dick.”
Yep, counter-crash is obviously underway.
I know nobody care (nor should they) but this little nihilist only votes once – no matter what – and, only then, as he thinks he chooses.
It’s surprising how many nonreligious folks there are in Fort Wayne. FreeThought Fort Wayne is trying to do its part to raise awareness and change public attitudes about nonbelievers here in the City of Churches.
I love Pharyngu-Raids!
As a Fort Wayner, (thanks for your sympathies) I think this is particularly funny. It is unfortunate though, that now I can’t get an idea of what the breakdown of atheists/agnostics is in this city. Oh well, I guess if they are doing an internet poll, they should expect something like this. (-:
Looks like you can go direct to the poll results (at least, this URL worked):
http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/editorial/poll/results.php
Andy @82 –
We’re sorry Mr. Welfle. We was really just having fun and got carried away. But I really don’t think you should expect valid results even if PZ hadn’t forced, er told us, about the poll.
Please show your love of the FSM and vote multiple times for “another faith” ;)
Andy @#82,
If the webmistress is smart, she logged all the IP addresses along with the votes, and could use that info to weed out the non-locals.
The only time I was ever in Ft. Wayne was last year. I drove up to see and here Robert Price discuss how his intense study of the bible led him directly to atheism. Therefore, I already associate Ft. Wayne with rationality. With all of us “contributing” to their poll, the city will seem like a new center of enlightenment!
Wow, way to crash a poll. As of 5 p.m. PDT:
Yes, and my faith is important to me. 1%
No. I’m religious but in a personal way. 2%
No. I’m of another faith. 11%
No. I’m an atheist or agnostic. 86%
And another one bites the dust.
86% of Ft. Wayne is atheist or agnostic? Wow, I’m moving there.
Having visited the place a large number of times, let me retract that.
If the poll was some way to show how godly the place was…
FAIL.
Okay, I doubt it was, but sometimes I wonder why these polls are put up at all on the internet.
LightningRose @86,
True that. I didn’t really expect the polls to be accurate, anyway.
Danno1943 @87,
We were glad to have you there! That was part of the FreeThought Fort Wayne group lecture series. (Click my name for a link to the FFW site)
Whoo-hoo! The editorial editor at the News-Sentinel blogged about the poll crashing!
http://fwnextweb1.fortwayne.com/ns/editorial/oa/?p=7661#comment-10345
Ah, Fort Wayne, my home town. The buckle of the Bible Belt. Where the “In God We Trust” license plates outnumber the normal plates.
I’m headed there tomorrow, and will greet the folks at the News Sentinel for you.
Andy @92, it’s the most good-natured response I’ve ever seen to a Pharyngulization.
Synopsis:
Kudos!
@81
Hahaha, you’re so right – this *is* a raid. The guild is Pharyngula and this was our daily.
A World of Warcraft reference, for those of you who have a life.
Voted!
Current percentages:
Do you identify with some form of the Christian religion?
Xian – 1%
Religiot 1 – 2%
Religiot 2 – 10%
Atheist/Agnostic – 86%
I reckon next time we find a poll like this we should try to keep the other non-xtian option up as well.
A result like Xtian: 1%, wishy-washy: 2%, other faith: 48%, athiest: 49% could make a few heads pop in an interesting way. Back it up with lots of comments about Odin, Thor and Loki.
Just a suggestion…
“MRev. Kenneth White, Jnr. Says:
April 15th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Leo they have been twitting it like mad…. thanks to your post I finally voted on the thing and here is my response to the poll”
PW – I would like it noted for the record that all though I am a geek of the highest order, I have never “twittered”, not shall I “twitter”.
Be warned, if you leave yourself open on an internet poll concerning science or the equality of rights to all citizens, we will be there. It is not our fault if you personally choose to be ignorant. We will be there. It is not our fault if you choose be circumvent fact in the name of faith. We will be there.
You think they’d stop doing internet polls like this, simply because of how often it seems that PZM crashes them.
Isn’t it pissing anyone else off that “atheist” and “agnostic” have been lumped together into one category?
It basically means these people aren’t interested in actual faith or philosophical beliefs at all; only in what deity people associate themselves with. No definable single deity = all the same, for them.
Well, I for one am not a fence sitter! *grump*
Absolutely OT, but had to share:
Truth, in matters of religion, is simply the opinion that has survived. -Oscar Wilde
@ 68: I grew up in the Missouri Synod church (by grew up, I mean I went to a K-8 Lutheran school, but my family never went to church). I’m ashamed to say that it hadn’t crossed my mind to read up on this particular splinter of xian since I left the church, but your comment about them reminded me of a lot of reasons I left the church as soon as I graduated at 12. Thanks :)
Also, poor Fort Wayne had no idea what it was getting itself into with this poll. HA!
Looks like we are the only ones voting folks.
Results as of 2010 MDT
Yes, and my faith is important to me. 2%
No. I’m religious but in a personal way. 2%
No. I’m of another faith. 9%
No. I’m an atheist or agnostic. 88%
Did anybody else submit a comment?
The News Sentinel had a column on the editorial page today (the 18th) basically blaming Freethought Fort Wayne, our local freethinkers group, for multiple voting. Those guys (the N-S) are complete tools. The column stresses how wrong the results are and how religious we ‘mericans are.
Here’s the aforementioned column from News Sentinel
Of note:
It takes serious computer geeks to disable cookies? Methinks their editor needs to take a computer literacy class.
Fort Wayne? Rational? Don’t make me laugh. I’m about the only sane person in this entire damn city. The editorial pages are swamped, day in and day out, with the kind of crap that makes me wish my hair were longer so I could tear it out in frustration. I live in about the only neighborhood in this city where one could find a decent number of Obama signs during the election – and someone stole my neighbor’s sign anyway (he later put up a hand-made sign saying “you might’ve stolen my sign, but I’m still voting Obama”).
Hell, there was a douchebag rally here yesterday, and Alan “we gotta stop TEH BAMATERRIST ‘cuz he whooped my ass in the Senate race in ’04” Keyes was their keynote speaker. I was tempted to show up with the police in tow to arrest him for threatening the President, but I also figured the police around here would just encourage his crazy ass.
I have made the big time. The editor of the Fort Wayne newspaper thinks I’m a “serious computer geek.” I’ll sleep happy tonight knowing that there’s someone more ignorant about computer geekishness than me.