https://www.reddit.com/r/modguide/comments/t0j5wk/how_to_deal_with_surveys_and_research_requests/
created by SolariaHues on 24/02/2022 at 19:27 UTC*
13 upvotes, 1 top-level comments (showing 1)
Thank you to the Redditor who noticed this guide was accidentally down and let us know. Here it is again with permission, and we'll update our links.
This guide was written by u/MFA_nay, originally posted Nov 2019.
^((This might not be the final version that was shared before))
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Reddit as a website has grown more and more in recent years. This makes it an attractive place for companies, academics and students to do research on.
According to Pew Research Centre (2016[1]) the average user is American, young, male and likely to be college educated. Men comprise 67% of the user base. And ,64% of users are between the ages of 18 and 29, and 29% are between 30–49. Other research indicates 46% of Reddit app users have a college degree or higher, while 40% have a high school degree (Agrawal, 2016[2]).
2: https://medium.com/@sm_app_intel/the-user-demographics-of-reddit-the-official-app-7e2e18b1e0e1
Given the above and the relative ease of creating online surveys it’s not surprising you may come across some both as a user and moderator.
In this guide I use survey and research interchangeably. This doesn’t mean that other overt data collection methods exist, just that surveys tend to be the most common on Reddit.
This post isn’t going to tell you what to do. Instead it’s going to walk you through the pros and cons of allowing research, and then give recommendations of how to deal with requests.
People like helping out in research for a number of reasons that include:
People dislike seeing surveys for a number of reasons that include:
Overall you have three options:
1. No research allowed
2. No research allowed unless under very rare circumstances
3. Research allowed
Once you’ve come to an agreement on where you stand as a moderator team I strongly recommend you add a rule[4] which outlines if surveys are allowed or not.
4: https://www.reddit.com/r/modguide/comments/djizhr/setting_subreddit_rules/
A blanket ban. If you decide that you don’t want surveys on your subreddit make sure you refer to your rule when removing posts or answering modmail requests. The extent to which you give your rationale for not allowing research is up to you. I usually type out a sentence or two.
If you decide to not allow research requests it would be good form to signpost users to /r/SampleSize. A subreddit which explicitly allows surveys to be posted and answered.
A blanket ban but with the potential for acceptance. This gives the moderator team leeway if they decide a request is legitimate and respects their community.
I recommend you think of a criteria. It could be topic based, history of user involvement, showing of credentials like a valid educational email address, etc. You don’t have to necessarily have it written out, but a discussion with your moderator team is needed so you’re all on the page.
You are OK with research being done; common surveys are allowed and so is just about everything else.
When allowing research it would be a good call to ask the user to let your user base know the research has been approved, how their data will be used, and also a contact and right of withdrawing from said research.
This is all standard procedures, but often skipped.
Plus kindly ask if they'd be willing to do a post-survey community debrief.
Comment by cyrilio at 26/03/2022 at 22:32 UTC*
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Find a list of all **727 papers** here: http://www.nicholasproferes.org/reddit-studies/