For me, the novelty of this tool has worn off. You have to select "answers" to all kinds of specific issues, even when you don't know any details or care about something.
Like "we should stop burning coal" - obviously we should, as fast as possible. But stopping tomorrow won't work, neither will treating every part of the country the same way. Is this the most urgent measure we can do for climate?
You just can't answer these questions without extensive research or following the usual news cycle. It comes back to clicking the answers you heard from your favorite party, around the sensational issues they're always discussing.
I don't know why you're downvoted, because you're right.
If you check the detail answers from parties on Wahl-O-Mat, you can often see this:
Party A: "We agree, but only if x"
Party B: "We disagree, because we want Y, which is similar"
And both actually want the same, but with a simple "yes/no" answer, this isn't accurately reflected.
The questions are often dumbed down and you actually do need a lot of background information. With many questions, my answer is "it depends" or "I don't know enough".
But for every question, you can choose 'I don't know'. There is a button for exactly that kind of situation at the bottom, only called 'Next thesis/question'. Then, when you finished, you can still read the answers and think about it.
Wahl-O-Mat isn't there to simply tell who you have to vote. It should make you think, maybe reevaluate your priorities and views but in the end, it's a list of questions where you can compare all parties answers. You just have to ignore the percentage match.
This is why creating these tools is difficult. This formulation shouldn't make it into the tool if you can have two parties agreeing but having opposite answers. The question should be reformulated to allow it.
We must also remember that while the tools obviously won't be the end of the story, they are still helpful. It might mean that I just have to read the party programs and watch interviews with a handful of parties instead of 10 of them.
It should be compared to other alternatives of the same effort (voting the same as your parents, going with a gut feeling, ...).
I actually skipped or voted neutral on several important macro questions because I hadn't made up my mind yet, such as how to deal with national debt. However, I have an opinion on comparatively simple issues such as the use of inclusive language. The result was that tiny culture war parties lead the list in my Wahl-o-Mat results. Technically correct, but not great because this is the process that leads to polarization about fringe issues.
> For me, the novelty of this tool has worn off. You have to select "answers" to all kinds of specific issues, even when you don't know any details or care about something.
Actually, you can just skip the answer. But this is a big fail (or intentional?) of Wahl-o-mat, because the interface is focused on letting the people choose, while hiding the skip-option in plain sight. A similar problem is that they have no explanation given to each question.
I can only assume this is on purpose to let the people answer honestly, even if they just randomly use their gut-feeling.
Like "we should stop burning coal" - obviously we should, as fast as possible. But stopping tomorrow won't work, neither will treating every part of the country the same way. Is this the most urgent measure we can do for climate?
You just can't answer these questions without extensive research or following the usual news cycle. It comes back to clicking the answers you heard from your favorite party, around the sensational issues they're always discussing.