LibriVox Average Age Survey

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Petra
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Post by Petra »

Hello everyone!

A few days ago, a topic in the Suggestions forum brought up the question of the demographics of the LibriVox volunteer pool. I jumped at the chance to create some spreadsheet magic, and worked out the LibriVox Average Age Spreadsheet, to which someone kindly added boxes that show the minimum, maximum and median ages of the entered dates as well.

I would love it if anyone who wants to goes in and adds their age. I've tried to make the process as simple and safe as possible, but please do not feel pressured to enter yourself in the spreadsheet if you feel the slightest bit uncomfortable with it. We are NOT collecting actual birthday dates and we are NOT collecting the names of those who want their age to be counted.


There is a brief explanation of how the calculations work at the top of the document, but I shall explain it more thoroughly here:
- First go to column C (pink) and enter the first of January of the year you were born in the form 1/1/YYYY. This is for anonymity and safety reasons.
- Then go to column D (green) and select the box immediately above the line you just entered your own birth year in. Click on the little square in the lower right hand corner and drag it down. This copies a formula that calculates your approximate age. Please DO NOT change any numbers because they are different to your current age! This spreadsheet will update automatically every year which means that until it's your birthday, the age shown WILL be wrong. We don't care about this because we only want a general idea.
- You do not need to do anything more than these two steps. Column B automatically takes the age from the "number cruncher" in column D.
- The sum of the numbers in column B is calculated in the "Total age" box at the top. This is then divided by the number of entries, which is calculated from column C. This average is shown in the big yellow box at the top.
- Some awesome volunteer has added functions that find the minimum, maximum and median ages entered. This information can be found next to the yellow box at the top.


I will be maintaining this spreadsheet for a while at least, making sure that everything is entered correctly and works reasonably smoothly. (And of course eagerly checking the average age!)


Questions and comments are welcome in this thread. Again, please note that we are not forcing anybody to take part in this, and that we are not wanting to know each volunteer's age in particular. It's meant as a fun thing for those of us who are interested in statistics. :D
annise
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Post by annise »

I stickied it so it would stay near the top - if you want it de stickied just say
kayray
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Post by kayray »

Very cool :)
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jollyrogered
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Post by jollyrogered »

Just entered.

This reminds me, didnt we use to have a map where we pinned ourselves? Is that still floating around?
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aradlaw
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Post by aradlaw »

Neat concept Petra, but I can't seem to follow simple instructions. :roll:
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Petra
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Post by Petra »

Thanks. :) And that's okay - I'm checking in regularly to see if everything's working, and it's easy for me to fix stuff (since I know how the system works, having designed it and all ;) ).
Cori
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Post by Cori »

jollyrogered wrote:This reminds me, didnt we use to have a map where we pinned ourselves? Is that still floating around?
We did, but it stopped working a year or two back. Before that it worked badly for some years, but then the entire service was withdrawn by whoever provided it, IIRC. And, as Anne noted elsewhere, it was mostly newcomers who added themselves, often as their only activity here, so it wasn't super-representative of regulars. :D
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J_N
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Post by J_N »

interesting... added mine :)

on a side note: the youngest librivoxers are probably the children reading for Heidi in the Drama section (somewhere below 10 years)... I think it's great that this project spans so many generations :9:
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Kikisaulite
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Post by Kikisaulite »

Interesting! Added mine and it made the average age drop half a year. :lol:
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knotyouraveragejo
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Post by knotyouraveragejo »

Somehow I don't think we have two people who are 113.... :lol:
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Petra
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Post by Petra »

knotyouraveragejo wrote:Somehow I don't think we have two people who are 113.... :lol:
That is why we need to list a specific date, and not just a year (e.g. 1/1/1999 instead of just 1999). I haven't figured out why, but with the formula as it is, it does something weird if only the year is entered. I bet it's logical (yay maths) but it's beyond me. ;)
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Post by J_N »

if no date is entered at all "Excel" (or whatever it's called in google) assumes the year to be 1900 (no idea why) which results in 113

Edit: no... wait... that should result in 112... hm... now I am confused... :hmm:

Edit2: ok... that's what excel does (assume 1900) which results in 112... so apparently google assumes 1899... :)
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catchpenny
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Post by catchpenny »

I think I broke it.
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Petra
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Post by Petra »

Yes. ;) Luckily it's not expensive china or anything, so it's easily fixable. I've got it up and running again already. And thank you for telling me! It might have been a while until I noticed otherwise.
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Post by catrose »

Just incase anyone think's I've done this wrong, lines 80 and 81 do have the same year of birth/age. I can't tell you who the other one is (confidentiality) , but if you look at my profile, you can tell that I'm the first one :)
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