This research is nothing at all to do with gender identity/the debate around gender self-ID/any related issues to that at all.

It's also not to do with sex, adult relationships, bereavement, disability or SEN, miscarriage or pregnancy loss, or health concerns of any kind. As I said upthread it's very much in the child-rearing/parenting domain.

Morning

Thanks for all the comments.

I'll go through and try to answer individual points now.

The researchers will have absolutely no access whatsoever to any behind-the-scenes data at all.

As a few of you have said, they're doing something that people do on MN and on other networks all the time - usually without notifying us first!

So those who have said 'if that's all it is they don't need to ask permission' are right - plenty of researchers and journalists have gone ahead and analysed posts on MN (and published the results) without informing us.

In this case, because they did come to us and ask if it was OK, we thought the most ethical thing to do would be to inform you all about it. We didn't mean to cause alarm though - we're sorry about that.

Got it @Hatstand, thank you

We (as in MNHQ) haven't sought a veto - we've worked with these researchers before (not on pieces of research, but we know their work and have collaborated on activities in their area of interest).

We will check out for you your question about whether users whose words are used will be consulted before publication.

Thank you!

I'm off in a moment so just wanted to say do please add a post here or email us on [email protected] if you don't want to be included and we'll make sure your user names are on the list for the researchers.

Any other questions posted tonight we'll do our best to respond to promptly tomorrow.

Thanks
MNHQ

And thank you Nico

Got it ItsAll, thank you.

We'll get back to you with a response on the opt in/opt out point as soon as we can.

This is stickied in Active and will remain there over the duration of the study - but happy to sticky it in Chat too.

This thread is our way of informing you and giving you the option to be excluded - posting threads on the boards (and stickying them as visibly as possible) is really the best way we have of alerting MNers about things like this.

@Sneaky we can't confirm which boards will be analysed I'm afraid. Happy to add you to the list of usernames to be excluded, if that helps?

Got it MaverickSnoopy thank you and I'll see if I can get a direct answer to your point from the researchers

Hello

Sorry, didn't mean to cause alarm. We will of course pass on to the researchers that posts under your respective user names can't be included.

Is there anything we can say to put your minds at rest? We'll try to answer any questions you have. The research topic is squarely in the 'parenting' field. The researchers' aim is to use text analysis software to find out how parents on Mumsnet talk about a particular parenting topic, using other topics on Mumsnet as a control group. So (this is an example, not what the research is actually about) it will be something along the lines of 'Parents discussing child carseat choices tend to use this sort of language and these particular words figure prominently, whereas when they're discussing family meal choices the language they use has these differences.'

Does that sound less sinister?