A little help, please

lotusmirage · Post by **lotusmirage** » September 10th, 2004, 9:07 pm

I'm working on a report on origami for one of my college classes, so I'd like to request everyone's help for a quick survey. How long has everyone been paperfolding? Any response is appreciated, thanks!

Post by **TheRealChris** » September 10th, 2004, 9:27 pm

what is this leading to? I mean, what informations would you like to gather?

I have been folding for a couple of years, when I was a little boy. but the only origami sources were the few (poor) books in our public library. I stopped folding, because I was heavily unsatisfied with all those books, and I saw no way to improve my folding skills. when I got my first modem, approx. 6 years ago, I began to order books from some internet-shops and came in contact with other folders in Germany and all over the world. in the last 3 years, origami became my main hobby and pushed the roleplaying games to the second place.
you may now see, that the answer is not that easy to give... some people are folding every day, and some other only once a week. there are some people in our monthly meeting that are only folding on that special day... so what is this question leading to?

my quick answer would be: more than 20 years now, because I never lost the fun in folding... even when I wasn't folding much (for approx. 12 years).

Christian

lotusmirage · Post by **lotusmirage** » September 11th, 2004, 12:44 am

ah, I'm sorry I was not so clear with what I requested. I just need to do a small survey on how long people have been folding. it is nothing that needs to be in depth, because I will be using this information in a speech I must give, simply stating that I conducted a survey, and I will report what I have found about how long a general group has been folding. That is all. So, whether you would like to say how long you have been serious, or all 20 some years. Either answer is acceptable. It does not particularly matter if you fold everyday or once a month. Just how long you have been practicing origami. Again, I am sorry. But thank you very much, Christian, for you answer.

Post by **TheRealChris** » September 11th, 2004, 3:45 am

...and I will report what I have found about how long a general group has been folding...

hmm... I'm pretty sure, you will get all answers from "newbie" to "an old hand". it's very hard to analyse anything, without narrowing the information (eg. the avarage female american folder is 30 years old). know what I mean? besides: this forum has only approx. 130 members, and most of them wouldn't answer this thread. maybe you should ask this to the origami mailing list, you will surely get a better response there.
you should also ask for additional info like age and mother country.

I don't want blame you for anything, just wanted to give a helping hand

Christian

lotusmirage · Post by **lotusmirage** » September 11th, 2004, 4:20 am

jah, thanks for all your help! I really wasn't sure how to go about it, and I'm not exactly a great communicator. I don't really need particularly narrow information. It's probably a wise idea to ask age and mother country, and thanks for the mailing list suggestion. Even if most of the members of the forum answer, some is quite enough. I'm not too worried about getting specific information, like gender differences and such. It's not for a thesis, all I need is the general idea of people in a group. I suppse it worked out the best that I found this group, because you've been supportive of my feeble attempts at survey.

Thanks for all your help!

bshuval · Post by **bshuval** » September 11th, 2004, 9:24 am

I don't think whatever information you receive on this forum (or the o-list, for that matter) will be of any use to you.
First, the user of this forum are FAR from the "average" paper folder. Second, I hardly believe you will get many responses. Consider yourself lucky if 10 people answered.

My guess is that you need this information for a class you are taking, and that the survey question was, well, up to you. I think that you will get more responses to this question if you ask your local origami group (assuming there is one).

I can tell you from experience that the number of years people have been folding varies greatly. I know excellent folders who've only been folding for a couple of years, and I know very bad folders who've been folding for fifty years or more. There really is great variation.

I wonder what you are trying to prove/find in this survey.

(p.s. if you've reached this far, let me tell you that I have been folding for about 16 years, but it seems like I've been folding from the day I remember myself.)

Post by **saj** » September 12th, 2004, 2:28 pm

Hi there,

I started folding when I was very young; my mum taught me the waterbomb and some more traditional models. I quickly became bored, and gave up Origami until my return to England back in 1993.

I then exhausted the Origami resources at the local library, and again had a lapse of no folding. Then later, when I got an internet connection, I downloaded the majority of diagrams from Alex Barber's site and another site which was called the 'Garden of Origami', which has since closed down.

I managed to buy some books from the internet (mostly Amazon), and then discovered the British Origami Society.

I've been folding continuously for around 8 years now, and would say I'm a 'Lower Complex' level folder.

Best of luck with the research.

elf · Post by **elf** » September 13th, 2004, 12:40 pm

I've been folding for about 35 years; I started when I stumbled across a book in the school library that showed a flapping bird and a lighthouse bookmark.

Hope this helps!

lotusmirage · Post by **lotusmirage** » September 13th, 2004, 10:27 pm

thanks much saj and elf! very much help.

lotusmirage · Post by **lotusmirage** » September 15th, 2004, 8:21 pm

ah, well, thanks everyone for their help! twas very much appreciated

stuckie27 · Post by **stuckie27** » September 22nd, 2004, 6:08 pm

About three years