Re: Professional computer programmers wanted for Yale research study
From: Arthur J. O'Dwyer (ajo_at_nospam.andrew.cmu.edu)
Date: 08/05/04
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Date: Thu, 5 Aug 2004 11:10:38 -0400 (EDT)
On Wed, 4 Aug 2004, Yale Psychology Study wrote:
>
> Again, I apologize for causing any unnecessary confusion. I am a real
> graduate student genuinely looking for computer programmers (as well
> as a few other professions) to participate in this study, which is
> part of my dissertation. I realize this specific study is not listed
> on the website, but I can assure you that it belongs with the category
> of "cognitive division of labor" studies that we have worked on for a
> few years. This is real work that has been published in various
> scientific journals, and I must uphold very strict standards set by
> Yale's Human Subjects Committee in order to conduct research using an
> online format.
But your study sample group will be completely self-selected, right?
So those standards can't be all /that/ strict...
> I can 100% assure you that if you e-mail us, your address will only be
> used to send you the appropriate survey website.
No, you can't. That's what this whole thread has been about. You
/can't/ assure us 100% of anything, unless we have some way of verifying
it. At the moment, I don't know your name, your contact information
(except a throwaway Yahoo! account), your occupation (except what you've
told us, which could be faked), or what you hope to accomplish here
(except what you've told us, which could be faked). See the problem?
If not, I invite you to watch the discussions in sci.crypt for a while.
Then imagine trying to convince one of those guys that you are who you
say you are.
Ways to improve communications here:
Give your real name.
Give a real email account.
Give a web page with corroborating details.
Give a PGP-signed message from someone trusted by me,
or by someone trusted by someone trusted by me, etc.
For example, if I were you, I'd write:
My name is Arthur O'Dwyer. You can reach my school account
through ajo at nospam dot cmu dot edu, but remove the nospam.
My personal web page hosted by the school is here:
http://www.contrib.andrew.cmu.edu/~ajo/ [1]
and a web page about this project is here:
http://...
> Along with the
> website, you will receive my real yale e-mail adddress and phone
> number, so you are welcome to contact us and confirm the legitimacy of
> this research.
See, this makes no sense. Just /post/ your real contact information!
It doesn't have anything to do with the study, right? so why conceal
it?
> Unfortunately, there is no good way (that I know of - please tell me
> if you have any ideas) to send you the website for the survey without
> having it sent to your particular e-mail address, or making it known
> to every person on this newsgroup. (We pay the survey provider for
> each response we gather so getting 100's of unneccesary responses
> would become very expensive.)
I have more sympathy for you than Chuck does, but still, really,
if you're working with programmers you oughta be able to solve a
problem like /this/!
One way would be to make the survey page password-protected; release
the URL but keep the passwords secret. Then we could see that a survey
actually existed, at least; but only those who contacted you to receive
the passwords would be able to complete the survey.
But really, that's a too-far-extended solution. Posting real
contact information would be much simpler, and probably more convincing
into the bargain.
> If you are still nervous about sending me your address but would like
> to participate, may I suggest that you set up a dummy yahoo account,
> e-mail us, fill out the survey and then delete your account?
Why bother? If /you/ want survey results, it's /your/ job to
do the setup work. I'm not trying to discourage you from doing
the survey; I'm trying to encourage you to be more honest about
it. Pathological secrecy about your identity is probably not a
good idea.[2]
-Arthur
[1] - Not that my webpage says anything about my identity at the
moment. I'm building a new, spiffier one right now.
[2] - Unless of course you're Osama bin Laden... but in that case,
what are you doing running a psychology study in the first place?
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