Heads up: some academic research taking place

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello

Some researchers from a UK university are going to be collecting posts from some boards on Mumsnet over the next few weeks. They will be looking only at posts published from this point onwards. Selected posts will be anonymised (ie usernames will not be stored anywhere), and all processes will be GDPR-compliant.

EDITED BY MNHQ: to be clear, NO private or back-end data is being shared with the researchers and they will have NO access to any extra information about users. They will only be analysing published posts, ie things that are already in the public domain.

The researchers will analyse the text of the anonymised posts as part of their study. The full text of these anonymised posts will not be reproduced in the study - no pieces of text that make you or your situation identifiable will be published.

Once the study is complete, the database containing the anonymised posts will be destroyed.

Obviously we'd love to tell you what the study is about - but we can't because it will skew the results. However once the research has been completed we'll share it with you and you can read all about it. The academics running the study are people we've worked with before, and the topic is one we think lots of MN users will agree is interesting and useful.

IMPORTANT BIT: if you DO NOT want your posts to be considered for inclusion in the research, please shout here on this thread or email us on [email protected]

And of course let us know if you have any questions and we'll see if we can answer them.

Thanks

MNHQ

I do not give my consent to my posts under this, any previous, or any future usernames to be used. Also any of the other data MNHQ holds on me.

Don't give a shit what the cheerleader crowd think about that.

Fail to see what academic research of benefit is going to be produced apart from the earthshattering findings that people can be knobheads on the internet, people are obsessed with how often other people wash their bedding, loo brushes are evil and shite like that.

Well, linguistic analysis can be interesting (for topics such as depression for example) but you need follow up and confirmation that the people are, in fact REAL, not trolls . Maybe the uni has a way of doing this - imagine, that really could be groundbreaking! Although most of us can spot them a mile of using our own version of linguistic analysis...

Am also going to take a break from posting. This is exactly the kind of thing that gets my anxiety going!

Maybe this thread is the research project.

All very Secret Squirrel. Not convinced it's only the publicly available posts they'll be given access to (otherwise why ask?). I'd like to opt out please.

Idaho: my eyes just crossed at that thought.

I don't understand why people are objecting or why they're feeling affronted by the prospect of someone analysing their posts.

Surely, once a post has been published on Mumsnet, it's in the public
domain? Therefore anyone can read it, comment on it, copy and paste it to save in a file, quote it in another comment or article and otherwise use it for their own purpose?

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.

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.

We at MNHQ are not being paid for this at all, nor are there any other inducements. We think the topic they're exploring is one our users will find interesting so we've asked that we be allowed to share the research with you when it's published.

The researchers won't be told (and haven't asked to be told) anything about users' namechanges.

If you have opted out and then namechange and are still keen to be excluded you'll need to let us know about the namechange - you can just add another post here (other users won't know you've NCd) or email us on [email protected] if you'd rather

There's no need to worry about any namechanges up to the point this thread was started - the research is not retrospective

@IdahoJones

Maybe this thread is the research project.

It would definitely make a good one. (It's not though!)

I don't understand why people are objecting or why they're feeling affronted by the prospect of someone analysing their posts.

That is absolutely fine that you don't understand.

MNHQ recently had an intern that may or may not have taken personal data with them when they left and given it to people who want to shut MN down for the purposes of outing certain users for having opinions that they do not agree with.

MN here are saying that if you don't want your posts analysed, you can opt out here.

MN users name change regularly so the only way to link the posts from the same user is by details that are not in the public domain.

It is also highly unethical to subject people to be guinea pigs in research without their knowledge. Just posting a 'opt out' thread is not enough. Otherwise everyone would do their research this way.

There are people who are planning to take MN down.

We know this.

The timing is pretty apt.

So MNHQ need to actually tell people what information is being shared and who is having this information.

The frothing on this thread is absolutely incredible.

@JeffreyNeedsAHobby

Of course I can mention the uni, but not in a negative way (to clarify). At least this is what an email sent to all of us last year stated.

Nothing to do with parents attending uni/posts about academic institutions - just to set your mind at rest (hopefully)

A lot of posters need to go and google phrases like discourse analysis.

[quote C8H10N4O2]@RowanMumsnet can we get some clarity on the following points:

1. Will researchers use public posts only or also have access to "deleted" and "withdrawn" posts?

no

2. Will researchers be using surrogate names for posters and therefore be able to string together posts from a single poster?

We will ask them

3. If the answer to (2) is "yes" will this surrogate username persist across NCs?

No, the researchers will know nothing about namechanges

4. Will IP addresses be passed on?

no

5. will details of advertising presented to the user be passed on?

no

6. Will any information of any kind whatsoever, held on users, be passed on to the researchers? (including geographic location, numbers of children etc, family details, surveys responded to etc etc etc)

no[/quote]

[quote CoteDAzur]**@MNHQ* Are you providing these researchers with any* information about MNers?[/quote]

No - they'll just be reading the boards in the same way that anyone with an internet connection can

@Cockapoomummy

The researchers will analyse the text of the anonymised posts as part of their study. The full text of these anonymised posts will not be reproduced in the study - no pieces of text that make you or your situation identifiable will be published.

Part of. Not all of. We don’t know what in the back office they are being given access to.

They're being given no access at all to anything in the back end - nothing beyond what they can see on the public boards

If they're just reading the boards how do they know not to include name changers?
If I state on this thread that I wish to opt out, I'm currently 'ClosdesMouches'. If I NC next week do I then have to come back to this thread before posting anything under the new name to opt out as that user?

@TheHeathenOfSuburbia

I can't see any reason why the researchers would need to ask posters except as a courtesy, anyway. MN owns the copyright on our posts and it's all publicly offered information.

Have seen 'research' like this done on Twitter posts to give results like "46% of uses of the word 'cockwomble' were in conjunction with 'fucking', and 21% with 'utter'", assume that's the sort of thing we're talking about?

Yes, essentially! Although it's not about cockwomble usage...

@ClosdesMouches

If they're just reading the boards how do they know not to include name changers? If I state on this thread that I wish to opt out, I'm currently 'ClosdesMouches'. If I NC next week do I then have to come back to this thread before posting anything under the new name to opt out as that user?

Yes, you'll need to let us know again - you can email us on [email protected] if you'd rather, but you can just post again on this thread as though it was the first time you'd posted (so as not to expose the NC)

@seafret

In this current climate I DO NOT WANT TO BE INCLUDED.

Things like this make me aware of needing a reputable VPN. I do not want unknown people collecting data for unknown reasons wth access to behind the scenes data. No way.

Anything in the puclic domain they are welcome to but then they wouldn't need MN for that would they.

It is only stuff in the public domain and no, they didn't need to ask us - but as they did (which we think was courteous of them; lots of researchers don't) we thought the most ethical thing would be to let you know.

Would be interesting to know whether MNers think in a future scenario we should do the same thing (ie start a thread to let you know)?

Count me out for all usernames please.

Who us running the research?
What are the names of the researchers?

In the words of the immortal Goldwyn; include me OUT