I hate clueless people who want to publish books dealing with fandom

[elliptic_eye]

And this is why.

Comments

[sabra_n]

I'm mostly insulted that people with PhDs can be so freaking awful at survey design and research methodology.

SCIENCE: YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG

[biichan]

I feel insane guilty because when I filled out that survey (more fool me) I answered someone's Martha genfic as the Fic I Would Honestly Like To Be A Character In and I feel a little like I've accidentally tainted the fic that way :(

[brewsternorth]

If it was a fic you'd have recommended to anyone else, I think you're in the clear, though as you say it's a shame it had to be under such skeevy circumstances.

[biichan]

Oh, it totally was.

[prof_pangaea]

BUT HOW COULD YOU HAVE CHOSEN A GENFIC? I THOUGHT ALL FANFICTION WAS ABOUT STRAIGHT MALE CHARACTERS FALLING IN LOVE WITH EACH OTHER AND HAVING SOULFUL, GENTLE SEX, WRITTEN AND READ ONLY BY HETEROSEXUAL WOMEN?

[doyle_sb4]

That survey is so much fail. The bit where they didn't realise that people write novel-length fanfic and the instant "do you plan to get it published" said it all; they've never taken even a cursory look at fanfic sites, they don't understand the community's fundamental rule about not profiting from fanfic (or apparently even why doing so would be illegal), and they can't grasp why all these silly wimmins would want to put that much effort into something that can't make them money.

[eve11]

One would think if they were interested in how netporn affects the brain, they would do some FMRI studies whereby folks wearing those silly caps would experience netporn. I don't understand how they can say their goal is to understand cognitive function at the neuronal/chemical processes level and have any hope of relating survey results back to that level of detail.

Bottom line, they need to set up experiments, not write surveys, if they have any hope of testing their hypotheses.

[brewsternorth]

One would think if they were interested in how netporn affects the brain, they would do some FMRI studies whereby folks wearing those silly caps would experience netporn.

That was my exact thought - if you want to look up the brain's firmware, haul out the electrodes or fire up the fMRI, but for pete's sake don't make people run an eHarmony.com-style gauntlet of questions. Certainly not if - as seems to be the case - the pollsters hadn't run this past an institutional review board. I wonder if they'll have to delay the pub. date on their proposed book?

[eve11]

Nah, they'll probably just be like, "This community was openly hostile to our glorious research project, so we're going to assume that means they fit all of our stereotypes. Now for our conclusions!"

Bets on whether their sparkly book will use fewer exclamation points in the entire thing than they do in their FAQ?...

[elliptic_eye]

Sadly, I bet they're going ahead with their book deal, debacle and all, and I bet that you're right about the rhetorical path they'll choose. It's not like there are many others open to them.

[madelf]

What the hell. Were they trying to come off as offensively as possible? I didn't know that being bisexual now meant I had to be exactly 50/50 and that filling out online surveys required chromosomal testing. And the questions - goodness. I just don't have words. I really don't. I don't even see how this survey would give them any useful information.