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.NET Forum / Languages / C# / June 2007Please take 5-10 minutes to help me on my thesis questionnaire and get the report
Hi All, (First my apologies for this kind of "spam" message. But for my thesis this will be my once in a lifetime spam moment... ) At the moment I have to graduate for my master in Business Information Management and need to do a survey for my thesis. The thesis is about Web vs. Desktop based applications and the differences perceived by the user. So not from the management/technology point of view but from the end-user. I focus now on Desktop vs. Webmail and need a whole lot of respondents to get some usable statistics. Everyone who uses email (Outlook/Gmail/Thunderbird/Yahoo, etc!) is a valid respodent for this thesis. Therefore I would really appreciate it if you would take the time to complete my questionnaire (available in Dutch and English) and (maybe even) forward it to some of your colleagues, friends and family! It's 50 closed and 3 open questions, so it shouldn't take more than 5 minutes. You find it at: http://www.amteam.nl/thesis And of course everyone who submits his or her email address will get the final report, which can be very interesting for application developers. Thanks a lot! Gab I notice that Gabriel will not identify his university or use his university's e-mail address. He apparently has a reason. At all universities, research on human subjects is regulated by some type of ethics committee. All we have to do is tell his university's ethics committee that he is spamming newsgroups -- a practice almost universally considered unethical -- and they will order him to stop his research immediately. If any of you find out what university he's at, please let us all know. I am a professor myself and am involved in human subjects research both in the USA and in the Netherlands. > Hi All, > [quoted text clipped - 26 lines] > Thanks a lot! > Gab > [...] > If any of you find out what university he's at, please let us all know. Or, alternatively, if he believes that his post is a legitimate way to go about his research, surely he would not mind posting those details here. Full name, university, etc. so that anyone who wants to participate in the survey can verify that he is in fact a Master's student, working on a thesis for which survey responses solicited in this manner is considered legitimate research. Not that I think this is an appropriate place for such a request regardless, but anyone should be suspicious of someone who asks for this sort of thing without being up-front about who they are and why they are doing it. Pete >I notice that Gabriel will not identify his university or use his >university's e-mail address. [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > I am a professor myself and am involved in human subjects research both in > the USA and in the Netherlands. Bit harsh don't you think? Michael >> I am a professor myself and am involved in human subjects research both >> in the USA and in the Netherlands. > > Bit harsh don't you think? No. Spamming is wrong, period. Further, all research on human subjects is heavily regulated by the universities themselves and the granting agencies that fund them. A graduate student cannot just go out and do human-subjects research without institutional approval. Our people have to do a *lot* more than just refrain from spamming. We would be doing this fellow a disservice by allowing him to "finish" a thesis which is going to be rejected as soon as his university finds out how the data collection was done. Further, if I were on his thesis committee I would vote to deny him candidacy if he claims to be studying the Internet and does not know that newsgroup spamming is considered unacceptable. Canter & Siegel and all that, you know. In order to be competent to do the research, he needs some background knowledge that seems to be lacking. Last, as others have noted, the fact that he does not identify his university raises suspicion. Normal practice is to disclose fully, to the human participants, the institution, sponsor, and goal of the research. I know this sounds harsh, but I'm involved in this kind of thing professionally. > We would be doing this fellow a disservice by allowing him to "finish" a > thesis which is going to be rejected as soon as his university finds out [quoted text clipped - 12 lines] > I know this sounds harsh, but I'm involved in this kind of thing > professionally. Chill out a bit Michael A. Covington. This is not the sort of thing that you change someone's life over. I certainly wouldn't be keen to post all my details in a newsgroup. Michael > "Michael A. Covington" <look@ai.uga.edu.for.address> wrote in message >> I know this sounds harsh, but I'm involved in this kind of thing >> professionally. > > Chill out a bit Michael A. Covington. This is not the sort of thing that > you change someone's life over. I certainly wouldn't be keen to post all > my details in a newsgroup. Have you been to graduate school yourself? In a field that involved surveys or human-subjects research? Here's the thing. This fellow's thesis isn't going to pass. It has a serious ethics problem, and it also has a serious problem with validity of survey data. If you survey by spamming, you only get people who are willing to answer spam, and that's not likely to be a fair sample of the target population. A survey of "people self-selected by some criteria, we don't know what, who didn't even know what the survey was for" is a useless survey. I don't want him to waste his time trying to do a project that is doomed to fail the thesis defense. He needs to get advice from his professors and switch to something else. > Have you been to graduate school yourself? In a field that involved > surveys or human-subjects research? [quoted text clipped - 10 lines] > to fail the thesis defense. He needs to get advice from his professors > and switch to something else. I never said he wasn't going around things the wrong way, just that you *really* need to chill out a bit. Michael In fact, you're both being a bit naive. You're both assuming that he is telling the truth. The message mentions providing an email address via the "survey." This is a perfect way for a SPAMmer to harvest emails. There is no evidence that the poster is being truthful at all, either about who he is, what school he attends (if any), or what his motives are.  SignatureHTH, Kevin Spencer Microsoft MVP Printing Components, Email Components, FTP Client Classes, Enhanced Data Controls, much more. DSI PrintManager, Miradyne Component Libraries: http://www.miradyne.net <snip> > I never said he wasn't going around things the wrong way, just that you > *really* need to chill out a bit. > > Michael > In fact, you're both being a bit naive. You're both assuming that he is > telling the truth. The message mentions providing an email address via the > "survey." This is a perfect way for a SPAMmer to harvest emails. There is > no evidence that the poster is being truthful at all, either about who he > is, what school he attends (if any), or what his motives are. An apt observation, and although I'm not sure I mentioned it, I definitely was thinking that this may not be academic research at all. The link goes to a commercial web site (in Dutch and English) with absolutely no mention of a university on the first page (and I didn't go beyond that). > In fact, you're both being a bit naive. You're both assuming that he is > telling the truth. The message mentions providing an email address via the > "survey." This is a perfect way for a SPAMmer to harvest emails. There is > no evidence that the poster is being truthful at all, either about who he > is, what school he attends (if any), or what his motives are. Hardly, the thought did cross my mind. Michael > In fact, you're both being a bit naive. You're both assuming that he is > telling the truth. The message mentions providing an email address via the > "survey." This is a perfect way for a SPAMmer to harvest emails. There is > no evidence that the poster is being truthful at all, either about who he > is, what school he attends (if any), or what his motives are. The simple fact that the OP has not responded to any of these posting solidifies the fact that the posting is spam. PS > <snip> >> I never said he wasn't going around things the wrong way, just that you >> *really* need to chill out a bit. >> >> Michael > (First my apologies for this kind of "spam" message. But for my thesis > this will be my once in a lifetime spam moment... ) If we let you have one moment of spam, a million others will each want their moment, too. Free MagazinesGet these publications absolutely FREE for up to 12 months. There are no hidden fees and no obligation. Simply choose a title, complete the application form and submit it. Read more ...
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