Boards.ie Attitude Towards Surveys

GTE

Hi all,

What is the thinking behind the operation of Surveys and non-media research sub forum? Are mods meant to check it each day and then link to the ones that are applicable to the forums they moderate or was the thinking that all other members would pop in from time to time resulting in the target audience (general or specific) seeing the threads? The former is pointless in terms of screen real estate and the latter doesn't seem logical.

I am an audio engineer and recording researcher, and for a project of mine I needed the opinion of a people who listen to classical music as the project is based on recording classical music. Real circle of life stuff in a way.

One thing I missed in the charter, which must mean I am blind, is that threads for research purposes would have to go through a mod which is fine. I could imagine that they would have to make sure it is relevant to the forum and is not rubbish!

Though, my thread got moved into this Surveys and non-media research forum which means even if I did go through mods first, it would have ended up there. The opening page spans 2 months, so there are not a lot of these threads spread around Boards.ie. With at least some research questions needing a very specific audience, I wonder should boards.ie either ban these information sourcing topics all together or adopt an approach that is, well, friendly to research.

Some of the surveys in the forum are looking for smokers, parents with children in school and computer gamers. Given the assumption that their respective forums are well behaved (not looking think that After Hours would be a nice place for anything like this), why cant they be hosted in the Smoking forum, Parenting forum and I could imagine there is a gaming one. In fact, now that I think of it, After Hours is full member polls!

For me, a research pre-test that needed people who like classical music was moved into a slow forum where the people who do visit could be anywhere. Yes, even the classical forum could have people who are not ideal to what I need however a consideration of any web based research is that you could get people you wouldn't want taking part, but that isn't something Boards should be playing with, if it wants to promote research.

I think a good outcome would be had from discussing how Boards wants to deal with non media research. It is not a busy part of the forum, 3.5 pages for the past 5 years (it's entire posting life). My research was so targeted at classical music lovers that if it wasn't going to be allowed in the classical music forum then it just should be deleted or the link snipped pending a mod having a chat with me to make sure what I was doing was positive.

If Boards.ie allows research as it does, it must mean it wants it, but I think there needs to be a realisation that a bad turnout from any given place an online survey is posted can make or break parts of a project. Yes, that is ultimately the responsibility of the poster to make sure they get their sample size but sometimes, Boards.ie is so perfect in an Irish context that it should do research well or not at all.

If lazy researchers who want to just post in a fast paced forum, then let them do that or make a judgement call on it. If they are being assessed properly the result either wouldn't stand or the research method was developed so well that all it needs is a fast paced forum for participants, though I am speaking more on the audio side of things and the inherent problems in doing that over the web.

Thanks for reading

Zaph

bbk wrote: »

If Boards.ie allows research as it does, it must mean it wants it

To be honest, no we don't. What you don't see from the Surveys & Non-media research forum are the dozens of threads that get deleted and posters banned each week for being lazy and trying to use Boards to complete their projects. That forum was created as a sort of concession, and if someone wants to post there and see how they get on, fair enough, but a survey post in any other forum will probably result in you getting banned.

As we repeatedly tell people, Boards is a discussion site, and surveys add nothing to a discussion. The fact that it is the largest site of its kind in Ireland leads to a lot of people seeing it as an easy shortcut to getting their surveys completed. The vast majority of these people sign up solely for that purpose.

D

I have to agree.
When I see someone come along and just use boards to create additional footfall fora survey I see it as no different to someone spamming their own business or a referal link.
Worse is when the person is not a big contributor to the community. Conversly I don't really mind if it is someone who has contributed to the community, although usually they will ask the mods if it is ok first and the mod will ususally post saying that its ok, or the person will post in the research sub forum and link to the survey in their sig.

Cabaal

Most of the time any survey posts made are by drive by posters, people that either don't really post on boards or they don't actually normally interact with the forum they are posting in, imho most of them time I view them as spam.

Beasty

If regular posters want to link to their survey they can put it in their sig. The chances of many people actually clicking on them is going to be pretty low though (although probably a bit better response rate than in the Surveys/Research forums) - I guess if posters see you as a regular and positive contributor they are more likely to click on it than someone who's just cropped up in a forum to try and garner support for their project

Long-standing contributors may well get some leeway, but they must run it past the local mods first as some forums will just apply a blanket ban whatever the purpose or intent of the user. Of course, every "poll" is a survey of some sort, but the expectation is that there will be an underlying topic to discuss and that it's not simply being used as a "homework resource"

The other thing is that if you let one poster put up a survey it won't be long before a forum is inundated with them

GTE

Zaph wrote: »

To be honest, no we don't. . .

As we repeatedly tell people, Boards is a discussion site, and surveys add nothing to a discussion. The fact that it is the largest site of its kind in Ireland leads to a lot of people seeing it as an easy shortcut to getting their surveys completed. The vast majority of these people sign up solely for that purpose.

I can see what you are saying there, so why bother with a concession and just ban it outright? I appreciate that there are many more which get deleted and people get banned which is probably due to it being clear that it was a lazy attempt at gathering a sample.

But, I get the sense from your post that on one side there is a blanket mind set about surveys on forums being lazy ways of getting a large sample and on the other the concessionary survey sub forum is there for the surveys which are not.

Why are the ones that get moved not given a mod note saying "This has been approved by forum moderators, don't post your own without permission". Now, again I admit I missed that glaringly obvious bit in the charter but it looks like my survey was doomed regardless.

D wrote: »

I have to agree.
When I see someone come along and just use boards to create additional footfall fora survey I see it as no different to someone spamming their own business or a referal link.

Worse is when the person is not a big contributor to the community. Conversly I don't really mind if it is someone who has contributed to the community, although usually they will ask the mods if it is ok first and the mod will ususally post saying that its ok, or the person will post in the research sub forum and link to the survey in their sig.

Regarding the first paragraph, while it is unreasonable to have that mindset for 100% of surveys that are posted, maybe there could be a spamming parallel for the lazy posters mentioned above.

Regarding the second, the contribution of the member is important. New accounts with the first post being a survey is suspicious at the very least!

Cabaal wrote: »

Most of the time any survey posts made are by drive by posters, people that either don't really post on boards or they don't actually normally interact with the forum they are posting in, imho most of them time I view them as spam.

In addition to the above, I can see this as a very good reason to see it as spam though my business is in the area of music and I always keep that and Boards separate. Firstly because I get enough of it at work and secondly, it is just something I don't want to mix. Though, to say a piece of research about a specific part of music would be considered spam just because a long standing member doesn't post on it due to the work/social divide members should respect is pushing it given the content of survey link.

Beasty wrote: »

Long-standing contributors may well get some leeway, but they must run it past the local mods first as some forums will just apply a blanket ban whatever the purpose or intent of the user. Of course, every "poll" is a survey of some sort, but the expectation is that there will be an underlying topic to discuss and that it's not simply being used as a "homework resource"

The other thing is that if you let one poster put up a survey it won't be long before a forum is inundated with them

I was a bit surprised given my membership length and post count that the link of my survey wasn't snipped when I missed the bit in the charter before further action was taken.

The reason that I think my survey should have been treated in a better way is because it was dealing with a topic which could very likely be an interest to the people who like and love classical music. That and the survey link went to my blog which has posts upon posts about the project which if members were interested enough, they could have asked about in the thread and a discussion would get going. It is a stark contrast to secondary school survey that is a link in Boards with no context given anywhere (either on the thread or where the survey is hosted)

That is not to say that I am looking for special treatment, it is to say that there is a difference between the stuff getting deleted and the stuff getting put into that sub forum. With what I was doing being so specialist, the sig idea would not have worked as I would have had to spam the Classical forum to get people to see it, which is of course wrong.

So, going back to one of the first contributions to the thread, Boards.ie does not want research so I think you should just get rid of it totally as there is no need for Boards to have concessions like this or adopt a more accepting approach to the ones which can not be generalised as much as a signature. On the face of it, the Classical forum charter does seem to indicate that it accepts posts on research but if my one was moved, I would wonder just what is allowed.

Interesting discussion none the less.

Nody

bbk wrote: »

The reason that I think my survey should have been treated in a better way is because it was dealing with a topic which could very likely be an interest to the people who like and love classical music. That and the survey link went to my blog which has posts upon posts about the project which if members were interested enough, they could have asked about in the thread and a discussion would get going. It is a stark contrast to secondary school survey that is a link in Boards with no context given anywhere (either on the thread or where the survey is hosted)

That would have been the issue if it was one of my forums. If you had posted those blog posts as part of a new thread on the project you were doing then the survey would have made sense to be allowed (assuming you had asked up front about it as along standing member of boards); but directing people to a third party website to read up on it AND take the survey with the vague reasoning "they might post about it on boards.ie afterwards" would be link spamming in my book.

GTE

Nody wrote: »

That would have been the issue if it was one of my forums. If you had posted those blog posts as part of a new thread on the project you were doing then the survey would have made sense to be allowed (assuming you had asked up front about it as along standing member of boards); but directing people to a third party website to read up on it AND take the survey with the vague reasoning "they might post about it on boards.ie afterwards" would be link spamming in my book.

I'd say it would depend on the context of it a bit more than is being appreciated. The background given in the post itself was enough to make sure I wasn't boring the face of people who didn't care as much about the differences between recording techniques being investigated but enough to make sure that there people with an interest in classical music would take the test and then if interested a bit more, look at that section of the blog.

The survey is contained within the blog site itself as a blog post of its own and includes a further explanation and links to where more detailed info can be read if the someone wanted to, it certainly was not a prerequisite of taking the survey. I wasn't going to post the 2000 odd words that explain what is going on on the Boards thread. I think you have assumed the survey is on an entirely separate website to the blog?

In situations like that, I am curious as to why a there is even a policy to move those types of survey posts here when all that does is cause issues with the target audience in more specific examples like mine. Why not just ban it outright instead of having a concession is the main question I have.

Nody

bbk wrote: »

I'd say it would depend on the context of it a bit more than is being appreciated. The background given in the post itself was enough to make sure I wasn't boring the face of people who didn't care as much about the differences between recording techniques being investigated but enough to make sure that there people with an interest in classical music would take the test and then if interested a bit more, look at that section of the blog.

I'll admitt this is partly devils lawyer but is that not the point? For the people that don't care a quick disclaimer / TLDR at the top would direct them to stop reading and for those that were really interested (the sub group of your interest) would read it. That would in turn be a limited discussion in terms of particiation but those interested would then discuss on boards in the right subforum (classical music).

The survey is contained within the blog site itself as a blog post of its own and includes a further explanation and links to where more detailed info can be read if the someone wanted to, it certainly was not a prerequisite of taking the survey. I wasn't going to post the 2000 odd words that explain what is going on on the Boards thread. I think you have assumed the survey is on an entirely separate website to the blog?

Having more details on the survey at the third party location to explain the choices is fine but with out the discussion on boards it becomes purely a redirect with out discussion. If the above thread was on boards for example there might be a discussion between users why they choose A or B and their thinking behind it. That to me makes the difference between giving a long term member a bit of leeway (because there's an ongoing discussion about the topic) vs. simply someone asking people to go somewhere else.

Now I've not read the thread in question mind you so I'm simply going by what's posted here in this thread and stating my oppinion (other mods have differnt views obviously).

In situations like that, I am curious as to why a there is even a policy to move those types of survey posts here when all that does is cause issues with the target audience in more specific examples like mine. Why not just ban it outright instead of having a concession is the main question I have.

Because you can't have rules for everything (rule lawyers already have to much fun with what we got) so it's left to local mods to decide what, if any, surveys they find acceptable to the forum they mod (or so is my understanding). I've participated in an interview based survey posted in the Games category on my gaming habits for example which I think over all added to the forum which was part of a thesis from a long standing member. Why? Because the mods decided it added to the over all value, and discussion, on the forum.

GTE

Nody wrote: »

I'll admitt this is partly devils lawyer but is that not the point? For the people that don't care a quick disclaimer / TLDR at the top would direct them to stop reading and for those that were really interested (the sub group of your interest) would read it. That would in turn be a limited discussion in terms of particiation but those interested would then discuss on boards in the right subforum (classical music).

Not in my case, the survey is to establish credibility/suitability to a section of the testing methodology which will then be applied to the comparison of unidirectional multi-microphone techniques with an ambisonics system. That research itself will take place in the acoustics research lab at my university.

The reason for asking classical music listeners is to see what recording extracts they thought sounded nice and which sounded bad, roughly speaking. This was made clear on the outset.

Two very separate things with two very separate audiences but if anyone was interested in the unidirectional vs. ambisonics, they can do further reading on the blog which is not related to survey and if anyone thought the survey or subject was interesting, chat which wound not compromise the short survey would be more than welcome.

Nody wrote: »

Having more details on the survey at the third party location to explain the choices is fine but with out the discussion on boards it becomes purely a redirect with out discussion. If the above thread was on boards for example there might be a discussion between users why they choose A or B and their thinking behind it. That to me makes the difference between giving a long term member a bit of leeway (because there's an ongoing discussion about the topic) vs. simply someone asking people to go somewhere else.

Yes, this makes sense which is why as much information as is necessary about what I was doing was posted on board with the link to the survey at the end. That said, I can not see into the future and whether people would be interested enough to want to chat about it after they take the survey.

Nody wrote: »

Now I've not read the thread in question mind you so I'm simply going by what's posted here in this thread and stating my oppinion (other mods have differnt views obviously).

I appreciate that and given the thread was basically "Here is a link to a survey, please take park, cya" then I would agree with you however it wasnt. It was good enough to be sent to the subforum in question rather than deleted immediately for being rubbish.

Nody wrote: »

Because you can't have rules for everything (rule lawyers already have to much fun with what we got) so it's left to local mods to decide what, if any, surveys they find acceptable to the forum they mod (or so is my understanding). I've participated in an interview based survey posted in the Games category on my gaming habits for example which I think over all added to the forum which was part of a thesis from a long standing member. Why? Because the mods decided it added to the over all value, and discussion, on the forum.

This is an important paragraph. At the moment, surveys are posted by members and are either deleted or moved into the subforum. In your example, local mods felt that it was fine to leave that one in the forum it was intended. Why not forget about the non media research forum when it comes to specific targeted surverys and delete as they are being done already or leave them in their target forum. In my example, if I had realised that I had to go through a Mod the suitability of the survey to the section could be established if it wasn't clear in the initial text. Given I missed that in the charter, snipping the link in a temp fashion until a chat could be had with the mod would be more appropriate. There are no extra rules here, just a change in approach.

I don't want to get too bogged down with my issue, rather than see what the story is with Boards and whether they should just stop supporting research or come up with a better approach.

Annasopra

As a concession in the lgbt forum we created a survey sticky thread.

LoLth

Generally, ask the mod of the forum you want to post it in. I often gave the nod to survey requests if they were relevant. The user posts and includes a note to say that the mod approved it. (I would usually thank the post to show I had seen it and it wasnt just a user pretending to have permission).

The rule isnt there to stop surveys, its to stop one-shot wonders that sign up to access a greater audience (as encouraged by some professor of media studies in one of the Dublin Colleges for one of his course's projects. We use that time for mod ban-hammer training - if you are on his course and he asks you to sign up to spam a survey, say no 'cos we'll siteban you with no discussion).

The problem here is that the survey you want to post is on your personal blog site so it could just be a way to drive traffic to your site. As suggested , a better solution would be to pass it by the mods, generate a bit of discussion / be informative without publishing a paper on the forum , and provide a link at the bottom of the post explaining that it leads to your blog site and how long you expect the survey to take.

another option is to put a link in your signature to either the survey post or the blog site and put a "Please do my survey" beside it. Plenty of users have links to personal websites in their signatures. Just dont have any referral tags in the link 'cos that would be dick-like behaviour bordering on git-like territory.

ps: there is a difference between anti-research and anti-survey. You can support one without allowing the other. I've edited the thread title to make this clearer and to avoid any sensationalism (boards.ie doesnt like surveys being spammed therefore it MUST be AGAINST research. Research could someday cure cancer so Boards supports cancer! Puppies can get cancer, Boards hates puppies! etc etc)

GTE

LoLth wrote: »

ps: there is a difference between anti-research and anti-survey. You can support one without allowing the other.

The rest of the post is in line with what others have suggested which has been discussed, but I do mean research. Survey is a word which just because easier to say once more people got involved in the chat. A survey is part of research but I never came on here to get as picky about that. I made this thread to see if there is a better way to do things other than the concession that is in place and as the points you have repeated from other members do not work in all cases.

LoLth wrote: »

Just dont have any referral tags in the link 'cos that would be dick-like behaviour bordering on git-like territory..

What are you even on about? Referral links and sig posting is not what the thread was designed for, but it sounds like you have an axe to grind in this general topic.

mango salsa wrote: »

As a concession in the lgbt forum we created a survey sticky thread.

That is a decent idea, though I could imagine some forums being very slow with regards to how many research questions pop up. It would be a lot of fuss for one threads worth of screen real estate in some forums, but quite efficient in others and for the latter, a sticky in a particular board keeps the audience in or around the one that is being targeted which is why the signature idea doesn't always work.

LoLth

bbk wrote: »

What are you even on about? Referral links and sig posting is not what the thread was designed for, but it sounds like you have an axe to grind in this general topic.

no axe to grind just giving you some advice on how to get your survey noticed and available to users in a way that complies with boards.ie's policy. You can choose to accept the advice or not, that's entirely up to you.

you are free to discuss your research in the relevant forum as long as you are willing to have it as part of a discussion and allow for alternative opinions.

The rules on boards are specific to surveys and the posting of links to surveys - especially links to off-site resources.