On Fri, 15 Jul 1994 02:08:51 +0200, Fred Melssen wrote:
>A few days ago an e-mail survey/questionnaire was sent to one of my
>lists. I understood this survey was sent to many lists. The survey
>is called the "Summer and Hoek Survey", and originated from
>[log in to unmask]
>
>Due to the sensitive nature of the questions asked in this survey,
>a main part is dedicated to (sexual) harassment, it will be very
>painful when subscribers reply to this survey, sent to lists with
>"reply-to= list..". Just a warning.
 
Fortunately, I had the list I subscribe to that received the thing set to
index and took a pass on the 500+ line survey.
 
Shotgun surveys are spamming too! I'd urge postmasters at research sites
everywhere to issue cease and desist orders for them.  The issue came up
last month on the Social Science Data (SOS-DATA) list (the thread is
archived).  There IS a better way to survey (using sampling techniques).
 
For a variety of conceptual and technical reasons (the short version is the
results are lousy science and better methodology is readily available) I
would be inclined to reject manuscripts using spam surveys submitted to
academic journals I review for or edit.
 
At the very least, I'd require every "researcher" bent upon surveys on the
Internet to describe how to use the L-SOFT DISTRIBUTE facility as a
prerequsite to emailing ANY type of research instrument (if for no other
reason than to prevent embarassing <or boring> responses from being mailed
to lists).
 
/s Murphy A. Sewall <[log in to unmask]> (203) 486-2489 voice
   Professor of Marketing                          (203) 486-5246 fax