To: Royal Ontario Museum

Hi,

I attempted to participate in your on-line survey, "Please help us improve our website", however I made the mistake of selecting "Yes" for question 3, "Are you or is anyone in your household employed by: A market research company or department, An advertising agency, A public relations firm, News media, An arts, cultural or entertainment organization, A website development firm or interactive agency".

I answered truthfully, because I thought it is a fair and valid question that should be factored into the survey results. But the next screen advised: "We're sorry, but your answer disqualifies you from completing this survey. Thank you.", and that was that.

Why on earth would you not want *free* input from media and cultural professionals?

This strikes me as very silly (not to mention rude) -- so yes, clearly you do need professional help with your web site.

For what it's worth, my partner and I are ROM members.

Thanks
:-{)

> The Royal Ontario Museum is conducting a survey to help us redevelop
> the museum's website.
> Your answers will remain strictly confidential and will be used for
> research purposes only.
> The survey should take about 15 minutes. At the end, as a current
> Member, you will have the option to be entered into a draw to win your
> next year's renewal for free. (If the winner is a ROM Member at the
> Patron level, he/she will instead be able to designate a non-Member to
> receive a free year's Individual or Family Membership.)
> Thank you for your participation. Your input as a Member is greatly
> appreciated. To begin, please click below.

Maybe it's to deal with 'conflict of interests' issues. Although it won't be very successful in sifting out liars.

 

Would have been better to let you carry on answering questions and then allow your results to be filtered out.

"Maybe it's to deal with 'conflict of interests' issues"

 

I realize that was the likely (or plausible) motive, but that could have easily been addressed by asking the right questions. Amateurs...

Not only that, but the coverage of #3 id so broad that they're be doing themselves a disfavour by neglecting everyone.

 

Sounds like a bunch of fucking hammer chewers. If it were me, I'd cancel my membership and use the money more fruitfully.

I realise it's a conflict of interest thing but ... if the results were anonymised (I assume they were?) then there's no real need to protect from that. And anyone who wishes to abuse their position (the museum's web designers for example) could do so either way.

Rampant fucking idiocy.

Suffice to say, I didn't join for the fucking web site (which is ok enuf, I suppose). The museum's collections are awesome, world class stuff. Anyhow, I've got a couple of months left on it, and we just joined the AGO, so may give the ROM a rest for a year or two after frequent visitations (it's nice and handy to work, so I pop in during my lunch break 2-3 times a month). I'm an abject museum junkie...

Agreed. Really fucking stupid marketing. Even if they wanted to bin submissions from a particular demographic for whatever reason, they should just have done so quietly, after submission.

_ I have a pirated copy of Front Page.

_ I took a class in HTLM.

_ Nike $50, Rolex $75, Viagra $5.

All good reasons for you to be banished from decent society.