You can help UPDATE the World’s Smallest Political Quiz

A message from Mike Sertic, President, on progress, plans, and how you can help make those plans a reality. Dear Advocates Supporter, Are you like me? I want more people to understand and appreciate libertarianism — even if they don’t yet fully agree with it.  If so, I need your help. I bet you’ve used the WSPQ (World’s Smallest Political Quiz) — a.k.a., “The Quiz.” You helped someone plot their results on the Nolan Chart as the kick-off to a libertarian conversation. That’s why…

I want you to help me replace OLD Quiz Questions with NEW Quiz Questions.

You can open a new tab and reference the online-version of the WSPQ as you help me with this task. The Quiz is an educational device. It’s also a “lead generation” tool. Lead generation is a technique for generating interest in a product. And if you think about it, libertarianism is a product designed to provide a specific set of social benefits.

The Quiz is an excellent way to create interest in libertarianism.

WSPQ = Lead Generation But for many people, it’s been a long time since they used the WSPQ to kick off a personal conversation about libertarianism.

• Maybe that’s because they thought The Quiz is so “20th century.”
• Perhaps the decline in personal usage of The Quiz is our fault, here at The Advocates.

In my role as the president of The Advocates (Advocates for Self-Government), I’m in a position to see things you don’t. Indeed… I’ve been combing over the data. People take The Quiz. Patterns emerge from the results. Here are the most surprising things I’ve learned: The Quiz still works, and it works wonderfully with young people. 

1. We’re getting nearly 40,000 Quiz-takers per month.
2. Thousands of teachers find it very useful. Despite the headlines that all the kids are now socialists, we’re still finding libertarians in the classroom!

That is amazing when you consider that “lead generation” is an entire industry. Nearly every business is looking for more prospects. And “marketing experts” abound, selling the latest “secret sauce.” Here we have a tool that has performed well in the past – and continues to perform in the present. Not enough libertarians realize what you NOW know. It’s part of my job to change the impression – to let everyone know that The Quiz still works! Is the WSPQ stuck in the past? Turns out, the answer is YES. But we know how to fix that! First, it’s obvious that some questions are a bit dated and modern questions might be missing. You will likely find it interesting that…

1. The WSPQ was created in 1987 by Marshall Fritz.
2. In 1998, Sharon and Jimmy Harris supervised a thorough review of The Quiz. They improved some word choices but kept existing questions.
3. Here in 2020, I’m asking for your input to help write new questions to test.

Two questions appear OUTDATED, issues of a bygone time that no longer grab the lapels of an ideologue. Those two statements appear on the Survey, where you can supply your suggestion. Second, my degree is in economics, so I applied a regression analysis. The personal liberties questions must accurately predict a left-liberal lean and the economic questions should lead to a right-conservative result. But the regressions showed that two of the questions lacked SATISFACTORY CORRELATION. In fact, each Quiz statement must achieve three things, simultaneously. I’ve listed all three objectives on the Survey. It turns out that two of those questions don’t predict that Quiz-taker’s ideological leanings. Those two statements also appear on the Survey, where you can submit your replacement idea. We’re considering replacements. Why? Because we want The Quiz to be as accurate as possible. We’re also trying to build a fantastic funnel for libertarian persuasion. The Persuasion Funnel The word “funnel” is jargon for a simple idea: There are steps in a sales process from lead generation to completing the sale. The goal is to move as many prospects as possible down to the conversion point. For our entire history, we’ve had fantastic lead generation. But we haven’t had a systematic closing process – a quantifiable, consistently applied system for “moving Quiz-takers in a libertarian direction.” That’s why… In our previous progress report, our Board Chair introduced you to tools we’re building for our Advocates sales funnel. The most dramatic and important of these was the QEP (Quiz Engagement Program). He told you…

• 23 million people have taken The Quiz since we put it online in 1996.
• For the next 23 million Quiz-takers we’re implementing a systematic program to “talk up” libertarianism.
• These pro-libertarian messages (“engagements”) will be based on the Quiz-taker’s Nolan Chart position. For example, if they score Right (conservative), we might explain the virtues of libertarianism using traditional tones and values.
• We’ll move people in our direction – sometimes a little and sometimes a lot. We’re going to measure the results of various messages. My analysis will, of course, include regressions!

Why are we updating The Quiz now? The truth of the matter is that we believe we can do better when it matters most. During every presidential election, we see far more Quiz-takers. Therefore, each question should be pertinent and reflect how issues have evolved over time. Relevant questions are alluring and easy to answer. They tap current emotional fevers. Outdated questions are abstract, requiring more effort by the Quiz-taker. On top of that relevance and simplicity, we want the user to value the result – and that’s why I’ve conducted those regressions. These improvements will cause the Updated Quiz to spread farther and faster than the current Quiz can. That’s where you come in…

• We’ve already begun working with our programming firm on the testing.
• I’ve also reached out to a professional econometrician to dive deeper into the analytics and find the very best questions.

What should those questions be? You’ll find our survey includes simple instructions on how to write a question for the WSPQ. You could become a part of history here! So please fill out the survey and submit it. We might use your question in an upcoming test. After you fill out the survey, please consider a contribution to the Advocates for Self-Government. It’s tax-deductible. We’re already able to cover the costs involved in the testing platform, thanks to the response to our last letter. Your present support will enable us to robustly test a variety of questions. Here’s how… The key expenditure in the testing process is advertising. The more people who come to take the test-version of The Quiz — possibly even to test your question — the more confidence we can have in the resulting analytics. The Quiz, as you’ve known it, will continue to run on its own, generating nearly 40,000 events each month. We will be conducting this Test on a special, temporary platform. To generate a valid sample – a statistically sufficient number of Quiz-takers – we anticipate investing 95 cents for each Quiz-taker.

• Your creative input means we’re leaving no stone unturned to find good questions.
• Your financial support means we’ve tested to ensure that we’ve chosen the best questions.

That’s why every 95 cents you send will be used to generate another Quiz-taker. That can be a generous one-time contribution. But recurring pledges are especially helpful. Monthly pledges are a high-leverage way for a donor of modest means to help The Advocates make consistent, long-range plans. The result will be a lead generation system that’s prepared for the electoral season in 2020. Mike Sertic, President Advocates for Self-Government P.S. Please use the survey to give us your Quiz Questions. And don’t forget your contribution is tax-deductible if you itemize.