Surveys of these types are often anonymous, because
while it is possible for people to make false responses, that doesn’t happen very much, because it is time consuming, and unethical, and there just aren’t that many people out there who are all of unethical, have lots of time on their hands, and want to manipulate our survey. Manipulated responses are generally more of a danger for short polls (e.g., “which political party would you vote for”), but less of an issue for 10 minute + surveys.
there are means of probabilistically filtering false responses out, including eliminating identical copies of responses, comparing IP addresses, and so on
It is quite expensive, difficult, and risky to verify identities and at the same time, guaranteeing anonymity
For that reason verifying identities can discourage genuine responses
What you’re suggesting—some sort of census and then restricting access to the poll—would be rather expensive and time-consuming. Is there any evidence for someone wanting to fund what I expect would be a six-figure endeavor?
Why do you think an anonymous survey for physical gatherings and meeting attendants (real humans taking part in physical EA activities ) with paper sheets would be so expensive? You go to a gathering, ask people their names (ideally ask for a ID), write them in a list, then give them envelopes and the survey, and collect the written answers.
An additional issue is than the “at risk” population is not all EAs and EA adjacents, but only those physically involved.
You’d have to distribute at a lot of events to get a representative sample, and then would need the completed forms mailed to a trusted third party organization (having site-level distribution would risk deidentification, and people need privacy to complete surveys on particular topics). Unless you’re limiting yourself to multiple-choice, someone then needs to transcribe all the written responses before running the scantron sheets through.
There are reasons that mail-in surveys aren’t popular nowadays.
Well, it is hard to believe that a random chosen person would try to do “deidentification”. What I have described is routinely done for calification of university professors at end course in countless universities!
Do those surveys ask people if they are survivors of sexual assault? That is extremely sensitive information that requires a very high level of assurance that one’s identity cannot be attached to one’s responses.
Surveys of these types are often anonymous, because
while it is possible for people to make false responses, that doesn’t happen very much, because it is time consuming, and unethical, and there just aren’t that many people out there who are all of unethical, have lots of time on their hands, and want to manipulate our survey. Manipulated responses are generally more of a danger for short polls (e.g., “which political party would you vote for”), but less of an issue for 10 minute + surveys.
there are means of probabilistically filtering false responses out, including eliminating identical copies of responses, comparing IP addresses, and so on
It is quite expensive, difficult, and risky to verify identities and at the same time, guaranteeing anonymity
For that reason verifying identities can discourage genuine responses
In my view you underestimate the degree of intentionality and coordination of the offensive against EA.
What you’re suggesting—some sort of census and then restricting access to the poll—would be rather expensive and time-consuming. Is there any evidence for someone wanting to fund what I expect would be a six-figure endeavor?
Why do you think an anonymous survey for physical gatherings and meeting attendants (real humans taking part in physical EA activities ) with paper sheets would be so expensive? You go to a gathering, ask people their names (ideally ask for a ID), write them in a list, then give them envelopes and the survey, and collect the written answers.
An additional issue is than the “at risk” population is not all EAs and EA adjacents, but only those physically involved.
You’d have to distribute at a lot of events to get a representative sample, and then would need the completed forms mailed to a trusted third party organization (having site-level distribution would risk deidentification, and people need privacy to complete surveys on particular topics). Unless you’re limiting yourself to multiple-choice, someone then needs to transcribe all the written responses before running the scantron sheets through.
There are reasons that mail-in surveys aren’t popular nowadays.
Well, it is hard to believe that a random chosen person would try to do “deidentification”. What I have described is routinely done for calification of university professors at end course in countless universities!
Do those surveys ask people if they are survivors of sexual assault? That is extremely sensitive information that requires a very high level of assurance that one’s identity cannot be attached to one’s responses.