Aro Census 2020

[AUREA]

This year, AUREA is leading the new Aro Census: a community-wide survey of people on the aromantic spectrum. The purpose of the census is to gain knowledge and through this, a better understanding of the aromantic community.

Participation is limited to persons identifying on the aromantic spectrum. If you are interested in potentially participating, follow this link for more information: https://forms.gle/zvit4Yvjfy6N1gGW7.

We'd like to reach aromantic people who aren't in touch with aro communities through social media, so please share with others who may be interested.

[Coyote]

Thanks for posting this. I've sent this to a PF mutual so it could be posted to the PF Aromantic community and also sent the link to a couple of other friends besides. One of them encountered some issues though, so I'm reporting those here on their behalf:

• "Do you consider yourself aromantic (on the aromantic spectrum)?"
  • Related to this way of defining "aromantic" as a term, they told me this:
  • "if any kind of arospec descriptor or orientation == aromantic, full stop, and if relating to arospec stuff to the extent that you disidentify with alloromanticism in any way == arospec, then I am unclear what 'partly, relate more to aromantic than alloromantic' is looking for"
• "Do you consider yourself cognitively/intellectually disabled?"
  • They were confused about separating this from the neurodivergence question.
  • It's unclear what exactly this question is asking about, and it's also unclear whether the conditions covered by this question are supposed to be mutually exclusive with the following questions on mental health issues and neurodivergence.
  • International issues, ex. "learning disability" as a term is defined differently in different countries.
• "When you asked someone out, have you often felt uncomfortable in a way that felt different from expected nervousness?"
  • Answer options here included always options, usually options, and a never option.
  • No option given for sometimes one way, sometimes another/no particular pattern.
• Some of the sex questions:
  • "I've had sex with one or more..."
  • "I usually have/had sex with one or more..."
  • "This question applies to a pattern of sex life over an extended period of time, not sex with multiple partners at a time. I usually have/had sex..."
  • Given the last one, they weren't sure what the difference was supposed to be between the first two.

[nonmerci]

Answer sent!

[Guest time-is-ticking]

if i live on the country-side, what do i choose? i don't live in a village.

[AUREA]

1 hour ago, Guest time-is-ticking said:

if i live on the country-side, what do i choose? i don't live in a village.

Please do choose village still, because it is the smallest option we have

[LauraG]

Suggestion for the future: please include "neither yes nor no" as an option on future surveys whenever there's a yes/no/unsure question (for me personally, this was an issue on the "is your partnership romantic" question, but I'm sure it will be a thing for others on other questions)

In general, the survey questions are difficult to answer as someone who doesn't find "romance" to be a personally useful category, but also I recognize it's really hard to write questions that accommodate that.

Edit: just realized there's an option to add feedback at the end of the survey - whoops!

Anyway, congrats about getting this out! It's exciting!

Edited March 30, 2020 by LauraG

[Mark]

On 3/29/2020 at 9:38 PM, Coyote said:

• • International issues, ex. "learning disability" as a term is defined differently in different countries.

This is also the case with racial categories and terms to describe urban areas. Including, those such as Singapore, where the country comprises a single city state.
 

On 3/29/2020 at 10:10 PM, Guest time-is-ticking said:

if i live on the country-side, what do i choose? i don't live in a village.

This seems an odd omission. Since I'd have expected those preparing the survey to be familiar with countries, such as the USA, which have a huge range of population density. With both isolated single dwellings and huge cities.

The caveat to always include an "other" option applies here.
There also may be people who live on ships, military bases, etc.

[AUREA]

Thank you @Coyote @LauraG and @Mark for your feedback.

On 3/29/2020 at 10:38 PM, Coyote said:

"Do you consider yourself aromantic (on the aromantic spectrum)?"

• Related to this way of defining "aromantic" as a term, they told me this:
• "if any kind of arospec descriptor or orientation == aromantic, full stop, and if relating to arospec stuff to the extent that you disidentify with alloromanticism in any way == arospec, then I am unclear what 'partly, relate more to aromantic than alloromantic' is looking for"

 

We'll try to straighten it out logically, though we wanted the option for an answer for people who do feel that way.

On 3/29/2020 at 10:38 PM, Coyote said:

"Do you consider yourself cognitively/intellectually disabled?"

• They were confused about separating this from the neurodivergence question.
• It's unclear what exactly this question is asking about, and it's also unclear whether the conditions covered by this question are supposed to be mutually exclusive with the following questions on mental health issues and neurodivergence.

 

We'll define those terms in the next edition - intellectual disability, neurodivergence and mental illnesses.

On 3/29/2020 at 10:38 PM, Coyote said:

"When you asked someone out, have you often felt uncomfortable in a way that felt different from expected nervousness?"

• Answer options here included always options, usually options, and a never option.
• No option given for sometimes one way, sometimes another/no particular pattern.

 

Noted, we'll include some middle ground options.

On 3/29/2020 at 10:38 PM, Coyote said:

Some of the sex questions:

• "I've had sex with one or more..."
• "I usually have/had sex with one or more..."
• "This question applies to a pattern of sex life over an extended period of time, not sex with multiple partners at a time. I usually have/had sex..."
• Given the last one, they weren't sure what the difference was supposed to be between the first two.

 

First was meant to ask about the entirety of sexual history - all partners in relation to the participant, the second is meant to capture more common patterns in the person's sexual life. Those are based on the participant's relationships with  the people they have sex with. The last one asks how many people participants usually have sex with at a time.

On 3/30/2020 at 4:45 AM, LauraG said:

Suggestion for the future: please include "neither yes nor no" as an option on future surveys whenever there's a yes/no/unsure question (for me personally, this was an issue on the "is your partnership romantic" question, but I'm sure it will be a thing for others on other questions)

We'll add that.

4 hours ago, Mark said:

This is also the case with racial categories and terms to describe urban areas. Including, those such as Singapore, where the country comprises a single city state.

This may prove impossible to correct in a survey that's meant to be international.

4 hours ago, Mark said:

This seems an odd omission. Since I'd have expected those preparing the survey to be familiar with countries, such as the USA, which have a huge range of population density. With both isolated single dwellings and huge cities.

There are names assigned to each category, such as village or big city, but almost all categories also have objective, numerical brackets. Village (less than 999 people) covers single dwellings.

4 hours ago, Mark said:

The caveat to always include an "other" option applies here.
There also may be people who live on ships, military bases, etc.

We'll add that.

[Acecream]

Heyyy I read somewhere that it's planned to make another aro census for 2022... does someone know when it will come?

[AromanticAardvark]

I don't, but it does say on the form for translators/other volunteers that they would be getting data for the next 4-5 months (after the form closed on April 8), so that plus a month to work on the data/formatting it to release means it probably won't come until the end of October at least

[Storm_leopardcat]

Hmm, no 2021 survey? Or 2022 survey? 

[Nagito]

On 11/27/2022 at 12:20 PM, Storm_leopardcat said:

Hmm, no 2021 survey? Or 2022 survey? 

If I remember it well, the surveys take place once each two years.

[Storm_leopardcat]

27 minutes ago, Jigen said:

If I remember it well, the surveys take place once each two years.

Thank you.

If so, where is this year's census?

[Nagito]

19 minutes ago, Storm_leopardcat said:

If so, where is this year's census?

I remember they were looking for volunteers and I don't have more informations.

[AUREA]

@Storm_leopardcat @Jigen

Thank you for taking so much interest in the Aro Census! The next census is currently in the process of being translated into different languages. We are hoping to have the survey out by either December 2022 or January 2023, but because AUREA is an all volunteer organization it may take a little longer than planned. We appreciate everyone's patience and understanding as we complete the survey. 

If you want to follow the progress of the census you can check our website or follow our newsletter and social media for updates and the release of the next survey.

Edited November 30, 2022 by AUREA

[Acecream]

2 minutes ago, AUREA said:

@Storm_leopardcat @Jigen

Thank you for taking so much interest in the Aro Census! The next census is currently in the process of being translated into different languages. We are hoping to have the survey out by either December 2022 or January 2023, but because AUREA is an all volunteer organization it may take a little longer than planned. We appreciate everyone's patience and understanding as we complete the survey. 

If you want to follow the progress of the census you can check our website or follow our newsletter and social media for updates and the release of the next survey.

looking forward to it, thank you for your response!😊

[A User]

6 minutes ago, AUREA said:

@Storm_leopardcat @Jigen

Thank you for taking so much interest in the Aro Census! The next census is currently in the process of being translated into different languages. We are hoping to have the survey out by either December 2022 or January 2023, but because AUREA is an all volunteer organization it may take a little longer than planned. We appreciate everyone's patience and understanding as we complete the survey. 

If you want to follow the progress of the census you can check our website or follow our newsletter and social media for updates and the release of the next survey.

awesome!

[Storm_leopardcat]

12 hours ago, AUREA said:

@Storm_leopardcat @Jigen

Thank you for taking so much interest in the Aro Census! The next census is currently in the process of being translated into different languages. We are hoping to have the survey out by either December 2022 or January 2023, but because AUREA is an all volunteer organization it may take a little longer than planned. We appreciate everyone's patience and understanding as we complete the survey. 

If you want to follow the progress of the census you can check our website or follow our newsletter and social media for updates and the release of the next survey.

Thank you so much, for responding so quickly, and informing us! I am glad to hear the survey is still going to happen, and much earlier (relatively) than I thought it would be!

Which languages is it being translated in? Perhaps you could ask for volunteers for AUREA, or for (translating) the survey, over here?

[AUREA]

On 12/1/2022 at 2:52 AM, Storm_leopardcat said:

Thank you so much, for responding so quickly, and informing us! I am glad to hear the survey is still going to happen, and much earlier (relatively) than I thought it would be!

Which languages is it being translated in? Perhaps you could ask for volunteers for AUREA, or for (translating) the survey, over here?

Thank you so much for your engagement with the Aro Census! We're working on translating the survey into 21 different languages and are fortunate enough to have most of the volunteers we need already. For anyone who's interested in volunteering we are still looking for additional support in translating  Catalan, Mandarin, French, Greek, Italian, Norwegian, Philippine languages, Portuguese, Russian, Malay, Ukrainian and Bahasa Indonesian. You can apply to help with translation here.

If you're interested in volunteering with AUREA, but don't speak any of these languages you can see updates about our volunteer needs by following our social media or checking our volunteer page! 

Edited December 2, 2022 by AUREA