Official SURVEY.NET Policy

There aren't a whole lot of rules around here. You are encouraged to fully express your opinions in filling out surveys, specifying comments and editorial, however, there are a few things to note:

• The statements, views and opinions presented on this site are those of the authors and are not endorsed by, nor do they necessarily reflect, the opinions of the site owners, hosting companies or other entities.

• FAIR USE NOTICE: This site may contain copyrighted material, most likely contributed by users in one form or another, the use of which may not always be specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are not capable of constantly researching the validity or integrity of information published so use appropriate discretion. This exists to make material available in an effort to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

• COMPLETE EACH SURVEY ONE TIME ONLY! This is the one cardinal rule of SURVEY.NET. You should only complete each survey once. While there are safeguards in place to protect against multiple submissions, even if you have two completely separate accounts on different systems, please only fill out a questionnaire one time.

  This is extremely important, and I will take action against anyone caught spamming or attempting to taint the survey data. Logs are maintained of all activity, and while the actual survey data is anonymous, I can clearly identify malicious activity and multiple submissions of surveys - when this happens I will BAN you (or possibly your ENTIRE system) from participating in any surveys, and will notify your Service Provider and give them evidence of this activity - while I might not be able to tell exactly who the person is doing the dirty-work, with the cooperation of an ISP, a person can be identified and action can and will be taken.

  It is only with displeasure that I occasionally have to take this sort of action, and it's not very often; the system's ability to "weed out" bad and redundant surveys is pretty good at automating this process, but even when an attempt fails, the activity is logged and I will ban users who have these "red flags."

  SURVEY.NET is only as good as the DATA we accumulate - and anyone attempting to taint the survey data by spamming or submitting multiple forms is undermining everybody else's hard work, as well as my own. This will not be tolerated, and it's probably illegal under many jurisdictions.

• SURVEY.NET IS A FREEDOM OF SPEECH ZONE with virtually no exceptions - This means that we fully respect one's ability to express themselves in whatever manner they desire (as long as it doesn't violate any of our other rules). Our system is automated for the most part, and user-specified comments are generally not screened unless they contain some characters or HTML tokens which are not allowed, otherwise there is no censorship of any kind. We ask that people do not abuse this principal - it should be fairly easy to express even the most passionate opinion without resorting to expletives and "4-letter words."

  With the entire world community able to participate in our surveys, it would be hypocritical and unrealistic to impose any sort of "moral guidelines" regarding what people can and cannot say. As a result, there's no telling what kind of comments you might find, so keep this in mind. On the other hand, if you're not somewhat offended by something on this site, that's a sign that we're not doing as good of a job - because we aim to attract a diverse group of people to SURVEY.NET, and we don't expect them to all have homogenous opinions on the issues.

• OUR SURVEY DATA AND COLLECTION PROCESS IS ROUTINELY MONITORED - As a result, from time-to-time, I notice unusual increases in activity or radical changes to survey data. When this happens, depending upon the circumstance and the log files, I may take some sort of action in order to find out what's going on. First, I'll check the log files and see if I can identify any malicious activity, if not, then I may take some sort of preemptive action in order to figure out where this sudden burst of activity is coming from. In the past I have temporarily "locked-out" answers in surveys or temporarily banned users or systems until more information becomes available to explain the surges in votes for particular answers in the surveys.

  Sometimes, this activity is legitimate - other times it is not. If all of a sudden, the results of a survey dramatically change, I will need some evidence to indicate WHY before I allow the trend to continue. Generally, this tends to be the result of some organized group aggressively directing people towards the site. As long as they follow SURVEY.NET Policy and each respondent is unique, if they provide evidence of their campaign to direct users to the survey, I will allow the results to stand. (This evidence can come in a variety of forms: providing me with a URL from an active site which shows redirection of people to SURVEY.NET, copies of mailing list correspondence, etc.)

  Generally, when a survey's results dramatically change, I feel compelled to notify the community (usually in the Letters page) of this occurance and what's going on. I often incite people on both sides of the fence: some who complain about my action or exposure, and others who are upset that the survey data doesn't appear to be accurate or representative. At the present time, I reserve the right to take some sort of action in these circumstances; if you don't like it - I'm sorry, but my priority is to protect the integrity of the data and the collection process. Sometimes this means exposing campaigns to exploit SURVEY.NET; other times it involves defending unrealistic data that was properly submitted to SURVEY.NET. As long as each respondent is unique, I have no choice but to allow the survey results to stand.

• SURVEY.NET *DOES* HAVE A "HIDDEN AGENDA" - Okay, you've badgered me into admitting that there is possibly some underlying objective to SURVEY.NET.

  If anything, SURVEY.NET has as a goal, to make more people aware of the diversity of humanity, and that ultimately we should all respect each others' opinions regardless of whether they coalesce with our own. Every person on this earth has at least one pearl of wisdom that if shared, may help somebody else. If SURVEY.NET can act as a catalyst in helping people further understand humanity and society, we all might make the world a better place in one way or another. If we have a "hidden agenda", this is it.

For more information, consult the SURVEY.NET Frequently-Asked Questions page.