It is my impression that the various identifiable American group repesentation in GD, GQ, and the PIt which I frequent does not match the degree of representation of these groups in the general population.
Liberals, homosexuals, Jews, and post secondary graduates appear to be over represented on the Dope.
Mexican and Black Americans, Christian fundamentalists, conservatives and women appear to be under represented.
I suspect the reason for this is that the forums I mentioned are heavily focused on national and global issues that are more relevant to the the former groups.
No.
Just kidding. The tone of the Straight Dope column is one of irreverence, which is more likely to attract liberals (more willing to criticize the status quo) than conservatives. Liberals being a contentious bunch, though, they quickly turn against each other with entertaining results.
The Doper community, to begin with, is limited to people who:
Have regular access to Internet-linked computers.
Know how to use same.
Are fluent and literate in English (and can type).
Have a certain level of interest in intellectual matters (defining that term broadly enough to encompass things we discuss in IMHO, MPSIMS and the Pit).
Are aware of the SDMB’s existence.
Have a credit card to pay the subscription fee.
#5 is a key filtering condition. Most of us, I think, knew about Cecil’s newspaper column before we learned about the SDMB, and the column is published mainly in alternate weekly newspapers in major cities, so there’s some selection bias against people who live in the countryside or very far out in the exurbs – how significant that bias is would require some actual stats.
And there are probably other conditions I haven’t thought of.
Are able and willing to hold their own in a discussion. Someone with shoddy reasoning often gets frustrated and leaves. The position doesn’t matter as much as the ability to defend it.
American citizen here, but born in El Salvador, English is my second language.
Don’t forget the “willing to be ignorant bias”. Just today, a coworker recommended “ear candles”! to another coworker suffering from a clogged ear because of a cold.
I had a chance to tell the one suffering to go see a doctor, but I fear she has ears for the one proposing quack remedies. Point being that I don’t think the candle coworker would like to see one of her cherished “remedies” be thrashed on a message board, I’m glad those kind of people are under represented here.
I wish in real life those kind of people were under represented!
Libertarians like me (moderate) are way overrepresented here for some reason. I didn’t come here for that but here we are. I guess you could call us a kind of conservative. There are plenty of economic conservatives around (especially by world standards) but not many social ones.
I’ve also found (purely anecdotal impressions) that Libertarians, moderate and radical, seems to be overrepresented in (1) SF fandom and (2) tech fields, especially computers/IT. What can we make of that?
