Do you think the number of survey responses mightâve peaked in 2021 and 2024 and are now trending downward? What might be causing that? Hesitation to disclose nonbinary status? Different usage of social media over the years leading to fewer people seeing the survey or to fewer people clicking on it?
Okay, so, I am showing this graph with the HUGE CAVEAT that
this is just a very rough estimate and i have no idea what's going to actually happen
So my guess is that we MAY, PERHAPS, end up with a final participant number in the low 30,000s.
The thing is, this number goes up and down based on all kinds of unknowable things, all working in combination, and I have varying amounts of control over any of them.
Things I can control: E.g. how much time and energy I have available to put into promotion within the first 24 hours (and throughout the rest of the month), launch date and time of day, whether and how long the survey stays open past the planned closing date.
Things I can control somewhat: E.g. whether the survey works properly.
Things I cannot control: E.g. whether the survey goes viral, whether Big Name Queers help with promotion while it's open, whether people's inboxes think the mailing list emails are spam.
This year, I'm trying out a new survey provider. This contributes to us having technical issues within the first 48 hours, which means probably more people giving up mid-survey, and definitely me having to divert time and energy from promotion into technical work behind-the-scenes. The behind-the-scenes UI being very different to what I'm used to has also had a knock-on effect on my promotional work.
No matter what, people speculate on why the survey is getting more or fewer responses than usual. I remember a time when it was booming and people were discussing whether it might be because I posted it during term time and academic people were sending it to their colleagues and classmates and students and so on. Ultimately, there are so many different kinds of people participating from so many different timezones and cultures that it just isn't possible to know.
But I think my main take on this question is: I think it is way too soon to speculate about whether survey participation has "peaked" and is trending downward. There's only been one complete year since the record number of responses!
Readers who want to mess around with this extremely meta data may wish to send the survey to their favourite Big Name Queers, and/or promote the survey on several platforms and in innovative ways!
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