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From: Graeme Thomas <graeme@graemet.demon.co.uk>
Date: Sun, 18 Jan 1998 20:12:33 +0000
Subject: UK Questionnaire results.
Message-id: <Q7dm0RAxImw0EwJd@graemet.demon.co.uk>

In the December APSP newsletter we included a questionnaire for people to let us know their views. The questionanire was returned with members' renewal payments, so this is an opportunity for us to garner information. Full details of the analysis of the questionnaire will come in a future newsletter, when we get more of the replies.

Of 324 renewals, we received 223 replies to the questionnaire. Not all members responded to all questions. (I gather that not everyone realized that the sheet of paper had questions on both sides. Most of these answered the questions of the obverse, but one managed to answer the questions on the reverse.) Two of the questions were on choice of lexicon and choice of penalty for challenges.

In the "lexicon" question, "OSW3" refers to the current book, while "OSW4" is the updated version corresponding to the 1998 edition of Chambers Dictionary. "SOWPODS" is the combination of either of these plus the NSA word list. The question was conditional on a suitable reference work being available.

OSW3:     24
OSW4:     80
SOWPODS: 106

In the "penalty" question, the choices given were (a) free; (b) 5 points; (c) 10 points; (d) one minute; (e) "dingle", i.e. one free incorrect challenge, then lose a turn; (f) "double", i.e. lose a turn; (g) other. Almost all who picked "other" suggested one free challenge, and then lose points.

(a) 151

(b)   7
(c) 16
(d)   6
(e)   7
(f) 20 (g) 11
Graeme Thomas