For Science!

[twigged.livejournal.com]

<a href="http://fanficsurvey.appspot.com" target="_blank">
<img src="http://fanficsurvey.appspot.com/images/Banner.jpg"
alt="Fan Fiction Survey" height="256px" width="487px"/></a>


I think this is only crack_van's 2nd off-topic post in the past six years, and so a word of explanation: Last month the neuroscientists who developed this survey got in touch with me through the comm with the idea of distributing a survey to fandom at large. They wanted to share the final data with fandom and other researchers in a fandom-controlled space, and asked if they could do so here. This research will be groundbreaking in their field, and in all of our many discussions over the past month+ they have been unfailingly respectful of fandom's traditions and concerns, and so I was happy to agree.

There's a FAQ explaining their project HERE, and feedback and discussion is invited over on ogi_ogas's journal.

Please repost far and wide!


ETA: Please feel free to continue to comment here as desired. I've posted some additional info and my own thoughts here.

ETA 2: I WAS WRONG.

Comments

[perverse-idyll.livejournal.com]

I'm really sorry you posted this here, because I took your good-faith support to mean that this survey was being done by people who understood fandom and were interested in some of the questions we've been discussing internally for years.

I found the survey questions increasingly disturbing and insidious in their underlying assumptions as I progressed through the list. I left several unanswered altogether because they were biased or non-inclusive or just plain offensive. Now I REALLY wish I'd never participated, and I've tried to go back and either eradicate or skew my answers.

Read their explanatory post, people. They're looking to fandom for evidence to support a hypothesis that that males and females are hard-wired differently:

"We're deeply interested in broad-based behavioral data that involves romantic or erotic cognition and evinces a clear distinction between men and women."

It seems to me that what they hope to provoke with this survey are the kind of answers that will fit a preconceived, highly problematic, and culturally regressive premise.

I wish this had been pointed out beforehand. I realize it was my responsibility to read the explanatory notes more closely before taking the survey, but I wouldn't even have been interested if crack_van hadn't endorsed it. *sigh*

[atdelphi.livejournal.com]

Ditto. I became increasingly disturbed the further I got in the survey, and I eventually went back and replaced my text box answers with, "I object to your methods and assumptions."

[perdiccas.livejournal.com]

My thoughts exactly. I took the survey thinking it was legit and I was disappointed at the ignorant (and offensive) wording of many of the questions.

[altogetherisi.livejournal.com]

Absolutely. I went into it with good faith, even though the very first question was messed up, and the gender!fail and race!fail was pretty awful right from the start, and then gave up in disgust before I was halfway through because I couldn't stand the ignorance and bias displayed.

I am quite disappointed that crack_van endorsed this survey and encourages it to be passed around; rather, should have taken a page out of kink bingo's book, with truly exceptional and decisive refusal.

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

Tell me about the Race!Fail? No one mentioned it to me.

[altogetherisi.livejournal.com]

On the "what race are you" kinda question, the only options were white, black, hipanic and asian. There might have been a write in box for Other as well, I can't remember.
But that set all kinds of warnings for me; professional surveys that ask race questions usually have loads of options - I'm was particularly weirded out by them lumping Indian, Arab, Chinese, Japanese, Vietnamese, Pakastani etc all together under Asian, and I didn't like that you could only select one option, meaning those of mixed race either had to explain in other or pick the one the identified with most.
I mean, it was just one of those things that I picked up on being less than professional standard, and considering I was already kinda annoyed by the gender questions at the beginning, it was adding up even before they started asking about slash or whatever...

[sparkymonster.livejournal.com]

Wow. The fucking US census has better race categories than that. There are pretty standardized forms, in the US, for collecting data on race and ethnicity. Multi-racial has been an option on the US Census since 2000 and you can easily find that information on the census website (http://www.census.gov/population/www/socdemo/race/racefactcb.html) or by talking to a Government Documents librarian (BU has one (http://www.bu.edu/library/guides/govdocs/index.html))

Nothing is quite as othering as literally having to select "I am OTHER" on a survey.

"Which fictional character is your ideal mate?"

[annlarimer.livejournal.com]

Same here. Sexism fail, heterosexism fail, potential triggers, general creepiness, and bad science. Please reconsider, Crack_Van.