Heads up: some academic research taking place

What methods are being used to analyse the text?

In the OP it says only posts from now on, so the past 15 years are not relevant.

@sansouci

"They will be looking only at posts published from this point onwards."

So I don't think you need to worry about your 15 years worth of posting 🙄

(I'm happy to be included MNHQ 😁)

In the OP it says the words only will be collected. No usernames collected with them. So I don't see how that can be a problem, as everybody has been happy to post their words underneath their username themselves, on an open, searchable forum. And if they are not collecting usernames, then why would any extra information about users be, well, useful? I'm not sure what the problem is.

Opt me out please. All fifteen years worth of posts and name changes.

"Obviously we'd love to tell you what the study is about - but we can't because it will skew the results."

You already did, with this thread.

The more risk averse among us are opting out, so researchers will no longer have a normal distribution to study.

Even the rest will change their behavior when they know their wording will be analyzed. People always do.

You do know it’s not enough for you to say “processes will be GDPR compliant”. That statement in itself is not GDPR compliant. You need to tell participants what the processes are. To have full and meaningful consent.

Opt me out please.

What data in the back office will they have access to? Because you can’t use an opt out for any kind of personal data which includes our posts as per ICO if those posts are capable of being aggregated to piece our identity together.

Personal data includes IP address. Will the researchers have access to that?

What steps are in place to stop a staff member with nefarious intent from matching up IP address and opt out names as used in this study?

Will each opt out automatically opt out all names for each registration?

Will the researchers receive a list of all names that have opted out, or multiple emails listing all names of each individual that has opted out?

What university is this?

Who can I contact within that institution with queries over the research?

Who is the lead researcher?

What steps have you put in place to ensure that the data cannot be de-anonymised by the researchers?

What means are the researchers using to store the data?

What are the protocols for destroying the data?

We should be able to contact the researchers to withdraw our consent at any time up to and including publication. When and where is the research due to be published?

Ooh exciting. I would be very interested in the results. Count me in

Agree completely steppemum. So much angst.

I have no problem with the research. It's nice to be asked but as others have said, it's really not necessary. I have read a lot of research (and done some) where no prior permission is sought for data which is completely public!

I don’t post all that much, but please don’t include me in this research. Thanks :)

'However my concern is that what might happen here is personal info will be given out in terms of whatever we have included in our sign up/profile. I say this because i would imagine that the "language" used by a poster in their 40s would differ to a poster in their early 20s. That education level would affect the language used. That area will affect language used etc.'

Yes, but as I understand it such individual characteristics aren't the key focus here - it's to do with the group discourse (and patterns therein across individual participants), which is a different thing from the discourse an individual produces in and from their situation. (I am just assuming here - have nothing to do with this).

This is one reason why so many studies like this are flawed. You can't study normal human behaviour if you tell the subjects they're being studied.

Feel free to quote me on that, ;)

Everything we type on here (or anywhere else on tinterweb) is open for anyone to read. Fuck you daily mail - just saying.

It may be that because of gdpr that because mnhq are aware of this research that they have to let people know.

However my concern is that what might happen here is personal info will be given out in terms of whatever we have included in our sign up/profile. I say this because i would imagine that the "language" used by a poster in their 40s would differ to a poster in their early 20s. That education level would affect the language used. That area will affect language used etc. So for the researchers to be able to draw any kind of valid conclusions from the "data" collected they are going to nred access to more than what is written on the threads. Otherwise they could just log on like the rest of us and start goady threads about whatever subjects they want to investigate.

As i have also stated abovr. How many of us bother to read "site stuff" i usually dont. I actually thought this was one of those "heres a chance to take part in a survey and win a box of washing powder" type threads.

Also, will posters whose comments are being used be informed of the fact that their posts are being used?

PLEASE DO NOT INCLUDE ME IN THIS as there has been nowhere near enough transparency for me to agree.

Couldn't care less, count me in (not that I write anything very noteworthy).

As a PP stated, all posts are publicly available anyway (as shown by the frequent lifting of threads to various newspapers).

I'd be interested in the results of the study once completed.

For the reasons given previously, I wish to opt out, with all my user names and registration details.

Really can't understand the anxiety about this.

This is a public forum, and as a PP said, this is just like analysing letters to a newspaper.
They are looking at anonymized language when discussing specific topics. It isn't as if the research will say:

Steppemum said .....
or even take the whole of a post as it is. Mn have said it will not be identifiable.

Really can't understand the anx.
You do know that millions of people read your posts on mn don't you? And that some of they may not be the sort of person you would like to read your from the heart comments....

sansouci
Oh absolutely

I would like to opt out, please. That includes all my usernames.

Why have we not been told which university this is? It seems an unethical way of recruiting.

Graphista, you are complaining about have seen it 12hrs after it was posted? That's pretty quick,I think.

As for the hitchhiker ref, being pinned to the active list is more akin to a letter in among the junk mail that no one reads. I'm not sure what else MNHQ coulddo!

What's in it for MNHQ? Must be pretty lucrative... 🤔

People may start deleting their profiles and running for the hills. As in other social networks.

As far as 'intrusive' goes, what I find intrusive (not personally, it's never happened to a thread of mine) are the emails MNHQ sends almost every day with the title of an often pretty personal AIBU thread as the subject line. Given it's real people's sometimes pretty upsetting situations being directly spread in that way - to make sure everyone sees them if they haven't already - I don't understand why people are getting exercised about this while perfectly happy for that sort of thing to go on. I can only assume the half-openness in the OP of this thread is leading people to suspect and assume all sorts of things that, AIUI, just aren't going to happen. Which leads us back to bad communication on the part of MNHQ, and (tbh) an increasing lack of trust between them and MNers, presumably fuelled by other issues.

Why would the researchers be given access to name changes, as some of you are assuming? AIUI (and obviously I'm coming at this from the outside), this research is not about identifying individuals (which some people seem to be assuming it is, which in turn is understandable in the current climate) or individual posting patterns. It's looking at use of language at a 'group' level (the group being 'MN posters' in this instance. And I'd expect any research published on the back of this to include a section on limitations of the study which will explain that the researchers have no way of knowing whether the posters are who they purport to be, whether they are actually parents, etc.). It'll be looking at the discourse on the terms of that discourse, i.e. discussion of a particular topic on MN.

i don't think MNHQ have communicated this well, and I'm not convinced of the need for some of the secrecy about the topic etc, but I don't think that's necessarily a premise for assuming the research itself is unsound or sinister.