No.

Shouldn't you have a pretty good idea of where you stand anyway?

Compasses are a bad way of determining actual political positioning, anyway. They can't sufficiently account for nuance or syncretism.

Well, no, it's just your job to interpret the questions properly. If you get hung up on how a question is worded rather than reading between the lines and understanding what is being asked, then of course you're not going to be satisfied with your result.

oh wait you're talking about the result itself, i'm doing many things at once here

uhhhh sure? but i would argue that compasses aren't designed to determine your actual political positioning, it's more of a general guideline

you people take them too seriously when they're obviously not meant to be

Well, no, it's just your job to interpret the questions properly. If you get hung up on how a question is worded rather than reading between the lines and understanding what is being asked, then of course you're not going to be satisfied with your result.

Point being that the questions can be so vague or biased that it's impossible to capture the necessary detail with "agree" or "disagree".

but i would argue that compasses aren't designed to determine your actual political positioning, it's more of a general guideline

Well, sure, but why the fuck do you need a quiz and a compass to tell you the general outlook of your politics? You need to know that anyway before you take the test.

They're useful in the sense of showing evolution of views, since you can compare relative results. But even then--and as a descriptor of views--they aren't great.

you people take them too seriously when they're obviously not meant to be

I don't take them seriously at all. Have you read PolCom's FAQs? The creators are the ones who take it too seriously.

Well, sure, but why the fuck do you need a quiz and a compass to tell you the general outlook of your politics? You need to know that anyway before you take the test.

Well, there are degrees of generality. You can have an incredibly nebulous or roundabout sense of where you stand politically, but maybe you want something a little bit more concrete, or a little bit less general—these tests provide that adequately. Maybe you don't know what "libertarian" means, and reading about them doesn't help you understand. To that end, I'd say they're mostly for people who are just stepping into the politisphere.

I don't take them seriously at all. Have you read PolCom's FAQs? The creators are the ones who take it too seriously.

Actually, reading their FAQ is what led me to understand that they don't take it that seriously.

I like this format
http://filteries.com/politics