Why do most SC users seem to hate essay questions?

I have no idea whatsoever.

Because usually (not always) essay questions are a sign that either the question is not well suited to this interface or has not been thought-out enough to come up with options. Essay questions don't provide any interesting breakdown of opinions. Sometimes they work and I like them. Often they don't work for me and I don't.

I don't like to much typing.

It involves actually writing instead of a simple click with the mouse.

Don't have the time to give thoughtful answers

An essay question can not be properly tabulated. It is as far from the realm of an actual survey as you can come and still be asking a question.

Brian - most essay questions that I've seen on here don't make good use of the form of the "survey". Surveys are best at providing a count of people who go for various options. That's why it's important to think about the options and provide a good spectrum of them; if you don't then the information you get back as a result isn't very useful. Likewise, the information you get back as the result of an essay question isn't very survey-like. Generally you'd be better off using email or netnews or some chat system or bbs to express whatever it is you're trying to express with an essay question on SC.

I think it's because they can't be answered quickly, and they're either very LITE topics, or very HEAVY topics. When I have time, I answer them in-depth. If I don't have time, I gloss over them. But I always try to give them a fair shake in the ratings....
And by the way I think that some essay questions could better be put as multiple choice, but some essay questions are best done as essay questions and there's no way around it...

because they don't make that satisfying ka-boom sound when you flush them.

They don't?

I use SC at work between tasks... if it takes me more than half a minute to answer a survey, I don't bother answering it until I have some free time... this may eventually become 'never'. Heavy questions generally result in my wanting to add a comment... which means more time, so I usually don't answer them. Essay questions require a comment to be answered, which has a very good chance of it not being worth answering. But, I don't hate them.

I'm not fond of them for two reasons: it is harder to categorize results, and most people won't bother to answer them. This is the instant age; it has got to be QUICK!

This is not a chat room.

It is easier to simply check of selected
answers from a list of them than to write
out and explain your own answer.

because

Hey, I had an idea for another web-site: Answer Central (or something like that). Anyone can enter a question into the system, and then anyone else can answer it. I figured it's just like Survey Central, but all questions are essays and the point is to leverage the user base for the answer to whatever you need to know. As the database grows, it becomes a powerful reference tool. ...and it might be fun to browse and or discuss various answers. Perhaps a system by which the best answer can be flagged would be needed. Ah... if only I had more free time... The potentials of public collaborative web-based databases are endless!

bill - I have software that will write it for you :)

ummmm... I almost have software that will anyway...

They cannot be completed by use of the mouse alone.

ah.. begging for a bad rating.. interesting.
My take on this would be that there are very few questions that you can't come up with at least a couple options for. If they don't it kind of implies that the creator didn't put as much thought into the question as he/she could have.

because my cat doesn't like it when i use the keyboard.

duh duh duh du--oh, nevermind.

lara - so true! My cat allows me to use the mouse as long as I'm rubbing his head with the other hand. I can also do quick single character key strokes with my mouse hand if he's not looking. If I ever dare to put both hands on the keyboard, he stands up and looks me in the face. If I persist, he walks away, usually walking over the keyboard. If I pet him for a while, I can often get him to be sleepy enough that he lets me type. It's tricky, but I'm getting better at it.

steve, "This is not a chat room"? That's just foolish. Of course it's a chat room - with surveys to set off the threads. You yourself spend plenty of time responding to comments with further coments - that's chatting.

And with the exception of the ease-of-use argument (made, weirdly enough, by several of the SCers whose names I recognize as common commentors), all those that have pointed out supposed failings of essay-only questions have failed to note that *this* survey seems to suffer from none of them! It is neither too 'lite' nor deep, it's topical, it has been answered by a typical number of SCers, and it's collecting good useful data (and btw, a 'survey' has nothing to do with a *choice* of options, the word simply means the collecting of data for analysis through questions or observations).

After all the slamming that Brain (often rightfully, imo) takes for playing popularity games, it would seem that there is a fair measure of hypocrisy here and that people are going out of their way to find fault with a consise, interesting, useful survey - perhaps because of who submitted it.

Bad form.

I don't hate essay questions, I hate the people who make them.

anonymous: And I hate people who hate people for no apparent reason.

I wasn't aware that SC users seem to hate essay questions.

UG!

For the same reason as bill and lara. My cat bites me when I use the keyboard.

Lazy sods.

I don't know.

I don't know. I like essay questions.