YACK on: Quiz
Grant Sanders
We have taken a number of online quizzes on YACKon.com lately. They are good fun, and they always reveal something interesting about the quiz taker. There was a quiz to see what kind of personality YACKers have. Apparently, according to a test known as The Meyers-Briggs Survey, there are over a dozen different kinds of personalities and each one is suited for a specific kind of job. Human Resources people like to give these quizzes to better understand the types of tasks for which job applicants are best suited. As if asking, "So what do you like to do for work?" isn't enough. For many people on YACKon.com this test told them things they already knew - if they were more inclined to be leaders or followers or people that did all the work but took none of the credit. It told me something I already knew, too. I'm a geek.

Another test we took told us where we stood on the political spectrum, graphed on two axis - from left to right, economically and from Libertarian to Totalitarian, socially. When you plot the results of such a test, you end up as a dot on a four-quadrant graph, and you can see where you stand in relation to famous political figures in history. This was a more interesting test from my perspective because it showed that most of the people who are on YACKon.com are more left and more libertarian like Gandhi and Nelson Mandela. With a few exceptions who shared the upper right quadrant with Margaret Thatcher and George Bush (Right/Totalitarian) or the upper left quadrant with Joseph Stalin and Robert Mugabe (Left/Totalitarian), I found out I was farther left and more of a libertarian than a lot pf people who I considered left-wing types while I always considered myself a middle-of-the-road moderate. Surprise!

These quizzes are fun to take. A nice diversion. But I think they are lacking in one simple area: they don't tell us much about us as a community. What we need is a quiz, the results of which can be plotted on a graph between "Real Nantucketer" and "Resident" on the X-axis and between "Seasonal" and "Yearround" on the Y-axis. Here are some of the questions I would propose:

1. Can you open a half bushel of scallops in under a half hour? Five points. Ten if you can do it without subtracting the time for sips of beer. Fifteen if you're sipping beer and opening at 10 a.m. daily.

2. What effect do you feel Walter Beinecke had on Nantucket? Saved it: ten Points. Ruined it: ten points. Who's Walter Beinecke?: zero points.

3. Give yourself one point for every minute you've sat on a bench downtown on average per day for the past 10 years.

4. Beach Nourishment in 'Sconset is a… Good idea: five points. Bad idea: five points. I have no opinion: zero points.

5. Cobblestones are the best paving material for the historic district. Agree: ten points. Disagree: five points. Agree because you own a car repair shop: fifteen points. Disagree because you're selling cobblestones on eBay for $80 a piece and more cobbles will devalue the market: twenty points.

6. In reference to the film "Last Call," you receive ten points if you've seen it, fifteen if you were in it, twenty-five points if you still have scars from the time you got thrown through the plate glass window at the Bosun's Locker.

7. Favorite Henry's sub: Egg Salad, ten points. Turkey, five points. Roast beef with herb and garlic cheese, five points. Chicken burrito with everything, zero points

8. When it comes to coming and going from Nantucket: You remember sailing on the Nobska for four+ hours, ten points. You can remember taking the Uncatena, five points. You haven't left the island in twenty-three years, thirty points.

9. Failure to yield at the rotary should be punishable by: Afine of $100, five points. Anight in jail, ten points. Having rotten fruit thrown at you, fifteen points. Being made to hold a large sheet of plywood there to calm traffic, 20 points.

10. The boat in the harbor named Miss China is: An eyesore, five points. Anod to the island's working waterfront, five points. Home, fifty points.

11. The best thing to do in the winter is: The spelling bee, ten points. Move to Florida, ten points. Walk the Land Bank's wonderful system of trails, ten points. Drive around town late at night looking for "loose" cobblestones to sell on eBay for $80 each, five points.

12. With regard to the "Good old days" on Nantucket: Ten points if you remember them. Five points if you don't remember them because you were not here then. Twenty points if you don't remember them because you were here then.

Your score: Add up the points, divide that number by 100 and multiply it by the number of years you have lived here. Graph your results on the X-axis with negative numbers to the left and positive to the right (Y-axis questions will appear in a later column). Then take a digital photo of your score and share it on YACKon. For all to see. No cheating.

YACK On. I

Grant Sanders is the host of YACK, The Nantucket Online Community at www.yackon.com and he studied for the online political quiz by attending as many BOS meetings as he can. His views are his alone and do not necessarily reflect the editorial stance of The Nantucket Independent. Or his wife.