Send to a Friend

phoenyx's avatar

How could I have asked this question without biasing the answers?

Asked by phoenyx (7401points) May 31st, 2008

A while ago I came across a website I didn’t quite know what to make of. A little googling led me to a New York Times interview with the authors of the site. They had specifically written the site as racial satire with the intent of getting people to recognize their own racism and to encourage discussion about it. I wondered if the site actually had that effect; if people would understand the satire and react how the authors intended. I figured if I asked something like: “Do you understand this site is satire? Do you want to talk about racism now?” it wouldn’t really give me the answer. Instead I asked “What do you think of this site?”, provided a link, and left if at that. It was flagged and removed soon after (and rightly so).

Do you every worry that how you’re asking a question is biasing the answers that you’ll get?

Should I just avoid asking questions that have a private agenda?
(like this one probably did, I now realize)

Using Fluther

or

Using Email

Separate multiple emails with commas.
We’ll only use these emails for this message.