mysociety
Zeitgeist survey of users on topics
At the retreat one of the things mentioned in our theory of change meeting was that we haven't used the Zeitgeist stats on wtt to measure impact and we also don't know what people are generally emailing their MPs about. This could be an interesting small piece of research to do, and could be done by simply adding a question to the "has your MP replied?" Survey we already send out.
We could only ask about the general topic, for example "housing support" "immigration support" "campaign" or similar.
The option answers that immediately spring to mind for me are; Housing support Immigration support Directed from a campaign Writing on behalf of family member or friend Writing about voting record Writing about something MP said in parliament Education Support accessing services Inviting rep to attend something
@MyfanwyNixon will probably think of a few more!
I do like this idea but being cynical I can already see some potential pitfalls.
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The current questionnaire (and the one that preceded it) brought endless comments from people who felt it didn't fit their circumstance. If this one is more complex then it'll presumably get more comments.
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I can see it getting difficult if there are too many options - so maybe wider categories? I suppose these could then lead on to sub-issues.
Like:
- Asking MP to vote in a certain way, help get the law changed, or lend support to a cause -> pick from: environmental policy/fiscal policy/human rights policy/immigration policy/housing policy/parliamentary policy/other (please state) - there are loads of possibilities here; we'd probably want to think harder about what categories to include.
- Asking for help with a local issue -> pick from: planning/parking/business/schools/tourism/highways/heritage/other (again, needs some further thought)
- Asking for help or advice with a personal issue (your own or on behalf of another) - suggest we don't probe any further than that
- To comment on the MP's conduct or record > the way they've voted/something they've said in parliament/something they've said in the media/something they've done
- A general point about the world or the UK
- Inviting MP to an event
- Other (optionally state what it was)
- We should allow people to tick more than one box.
- We should make it clear why we are asking - because, in tandem with the stats about whether MPs have replied, we can build a picture of which topics might be getting neglected. If we can anonymise the results, even better?
- Put it in the calendar to check what the most common 'other's are every 6 months or so, and add them to the list.
Also see #wtt-stats on Slack for more discussion of the idea of a zeitgeist rather than the table we've done in the past.
Also - half-joking - this would be an opportunity to send back an auto-response with 'you wrote to your MP about WHAT? Actually that question was better suited to your local councillors'.
I suppose more sensibly, after some time we could write a nice blog post about what quantity of mail for MPs would actually be better suited for a different recipient.