[mrbodoia]

Regarding political categories on signup: I can try to provide some examples. In some sense though, I think that it should be based less on specific stances (do you support gun control? more taxes or less?) and more on your gut feeling. So if you don't have a strong feeling of being on either the left or the right, it's probably safe to select neither.

However, the analysis paralysis you mention was also something that my friends pointed out when they tried it, so I will try to come up with a way of helping people choose a "side".

There's no RSS feed at the moment, unfortunately - but I can put that on the list of features to add!

[lapis_fenrir]

> So if you don't have a strong feeling of being on either the left or the right, it's probably safe to select neither.

I think the issue with this is that a lot of people in the USA who thought of themselves as firmly "on the right" prior to the events of 2016/2017, will now be forced to choose "neither" because they are disgusted with the current administration's impending meltdown, even though they still consider themselves the opposite of the "left".

Then you have people like me; I'm not a centrist (I don't think), but I have views peppered across the spectrum. I am pro-choice in reproduction rights, I am firmly and proudly pro-2nd Amendment, I believe strongly in LGBT equality, religious freedom for all religions (even the ones that give me the shivers), I feel there should be an easier but at the same time more secure path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and legal immigrants alike.

I believe in small, efficient, non-intrusive government that serves all the people, not just select groups and ideologies. I am vehemently against government surveillance of its own citizens for any reason. I think getting rid of Obamacare is stupid; improve it, don't scrap it. I think we should reduce our military presence in countries that don't want us policing them, yet stand ready to defend countries that truly need our help when they are attacked by their enemies. I believe the 1st Amendment is vital to the continued freedom of our nation, and I despise our current president for attempting to chill free speech and free press.

I believe if you're going to give tax breaks to small businesses (which I think is a good thing to do), you need to also raise the minimum wage so some of those savings can go towards improving the quality of life for employees of those businesses.

So what am I? I'm "right" on a few issues, "left" on others, and somewhere else entirely on yet other issues. I voted Libertarian again this term because it's the closest to my own values, yet I don't agree with everything Libertarian either.

In short, I think you need a few more options than just Left, Right, and Neither.

[mrbodoia]

I would classify you as "neither". However, I acknowledge that this category is likely to be a lot less ideologically homogeneous than the other categories (though as you point out, the right has become less cohesive lately as well).

I think part of the issue here is that "neither" is not a very appealing group name. People like yourself have devoted a lot of thought to each of their various political stances, and I imagine its not very exciting to have all of that nuance summed up by the label "neither". I'm going to try to rethink the best way to name the categories and present them at signup.

However, I don't know that allowing more options would solve the problem. The intention of the three groups is not to put each person in a group with ideologically identical people, but to create a broad partition of the users to try and get a little more signal out of their votes.

[laretluval]

What's wrong with selecting neither? You seem like a pretty straightforward Neither to me.

If there are too many options, then the low-probability tags will proliferate, and people will tune them out as noise.

[mrbodoia]

Yes, this was my intention with the three categories. I was hoping to find the right balance between too few categories (can't distinguish between ideological opposites) and too many categories (no meaningful signal from each category).