Poll shows Yawdies do not support each other

We ran a poll for about 10 days on Yowlink.com entitled “Do West Indians support their own?”  The poll was open to all visitors to Yowlink.com (members and guests). Results were startling to me.  Now mind you, this poll is not scientific in the very least but you will see what I mean in a moment.

The No Category

In what I call the “No Category”, we had the following breakdown:

18% – Definitely No -> nothing needs to be said here
2% – Only for negative stuff -> if you support me only for negative stuff you don’t support me.
28% – Only when we are winning  -> bandwagonist, follow-fashion monkey, two-faced?
9% – Depends on ethnic background -> separatist, racist, “ethnicist”, suffer from mental slavery?

So that’s 57% of voters who think West Indians do not support each other.   57% !!!  That’s frightening! 

The “Sometimes” Category

In the “Sometimes” Category, we have the following breakdown

28% – Not often enough -> good but not good enough?  In other words, room for improvement.

The Yes Category

15% – Definitely Yes – nothing else needs to be said here.

Interpretation of Results

I reiterate, this poll is not scientific in the very least so we may interpret the results differently.  However, the fact is that 18% responded “Definitely No” compared to 15% saying “Definitely Yes”.  57% was somewhat negative to negative vs. 43% that was somewhat positive to positive.

My Little Corner

In my little corner, I see instances of every poll answer from Definitely Yes to Definitely No.  However, I see a larger percentage of West Indians supporting each other.  In the case of the Haitian Earthquake situation, I saw many Jamaicans rising to the occasion and were willing to do anything to help.  Yet, some who could help chose not to.

But Polls Don’t Lie

Again, not a scientific poll, but the numbers don’t lie… that much, do they?  We have visitors with ties to multiple Caribbean countries taking the poll and they came up with 53% – 43%  on the “no side”.

The Yowlink Experience

Let me share some of our experiences with Yawdies since starting Yowlink.com just over 2 months ago.  Keep in mind, we introduce Yowlink as “… a NEW FREE network for Yawdies (people with ties to the English-speaking Caribbean and Haiti), and we are looking for people to sign in and give us feedback.  Tell friends to do the same…”

• invited comedian extraordinaire, Mr. Oliver Samuels.   He came on, mainly to support Yowlink (a free Caribbean venture).  Please visit his page and big him up.
• invited about 10 friends/acquaintances to visit Yowlink during the American football superbowl, give me feedback, and sign up.  Three signed up but only 1 is active.  2 visited the page and claimed they didn’t know what to do when I asked them for feedback.  The others didn’t visit and haven’t responded.

Because yowlink.com is a registered facebook application, we have a facebook account  [Yowlink Sup] tied to the facebook development.  The admins use that login to “spread the word about Yowlink” so to speak.  The idea is to get people 16 (minimum age) and older with ties to all the different West Indian nations and Haiti on this site.   We want all islands represented, Belize, and Guyana.  We want all age groups represented.  We want all ethnic groups represented, etc. 

Nobody has an obligation to visit nor log into Yowlink.  That’s clear.  In fact, some of my friends haven’t joined yet and some relatives…   If you build it they will come… eventually.

Again, to these facebook “friends” of Yowlink Sup, we sent 1 message and a followup to each, with something along the lines of “Hi ____.  Please take 2 minutes to look at  our NEW FREE network for Yawdies (people with ties to the English-speaking Caribbean and Haiti). We are looking for people to sign in and give us feedback.  Since you have a facebook account, you can jut click the blue [f connect] button to sign in and see all the features.  Thanks.”

• The majority (~95%) did not reply to my original message nor the follow-up ( often via facebook chat when they are online ).
• About 2% (facebook chat) said they were on the verge of signing up but never did.
• One guy (facebook chat) asked me to hang on while he look at the site.  10-20 seconds later, he replied to me “I was expecting more.”  What on earth did he look at in 10-20 seconds?  Hilarious. 
• Another said he wanted to see what I look like and liked the picture but didn’t really look at the rest of the site.  Funny stuff!
• Another told us that she was logging into Yowlink.com during the chat.  15 minutes later she logged off of facebook and never went on to Yowlink.  That’s someone C.Sharpe knows very well so that will be an interesting conversation.
• Another said, “Hang on a second.  I’m looking.”  2-3 minutes later, he returned and said “Did you create this site?  It’s amazing!”  He had already looked at enough of the site, logged in, joined a group.  He made a couple recommendations  also. This is one of three very good ones from facebook.
• One girl said yesterday, “I am not interesting in what you are selling.”  I was speechless.  Wow!!!!

So, it’s safe to say most of these “friends” of Yowlink Sup are not truly friends.  That’s the facebook way.

You want more comedy, see the following post by “Jamaican Man” and the follow up by “C. Sharpe” at http://yowlink.com/2010/01/10/yawdies-are-you-lazy/#comments .  They should be the last 2 posts.  Here’s the gist .  Jamaican Man took the poll and said

 “… and will say that the majority of Jamaicans (can’t speak for other West Indians) do not support their own…”

He gave reasons… good reasons, I might add for his opinion.  Some I even will agree with. 

C. Sharpe responded, “… I believe you have some great points which should be in a post of it’s own, but alas, you are not registered on this site either. This is the issue we face. We have great people of West Indian origin. They come on here, play the online games, look around a bit, etc., but do not register and thus, cannot do 70% of what registered people can do.”

A few long-time facebook users said, and the other admins agree, that Yowlink at 2 months is eons beyond where facebook was at 1 year, in terms of layout, features, etc.  But, we are quick to remind them that we are not facebook and do not intend to be facebook. 

My Poll Answer

It wouldn’t be fair if I didn’t tell you what my vote on the poll was.  It was “Not often enough”, and I wasn’t even thinking about Yowlink itself.  Yowlink will be fine.  We are new and have the support of an increasing number of people.   A friend of mine voited “Only when we are winning” after I did and, in retrospect, I think that should’ve been my vote as well.

Back on topic, did the polls lie?

Peta-Gaye signing out.  Talk to mi nuh.