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Introduction to the Survey
This is a survey to research the demographics and behaviours of people who use the fanfiction website Archive of Our Own (AO3). We hope to use the information collected to discover interesting statistics about AO3’s userbase, and to ultimately create a database which can be used by future researchers interested in the site. Some questions include sensitive information such as sexuality, race, and disability. Participation in this survey is voluntary, and nearly all questions are optional and can be left blank if you prefer.
This project is not officially associated with AO3 or its managing organisation, the Organization for Transformative Works (OTW). For full transparency, we would like to disclose that some people involved in creating this survey are, or have previously been, volunteers for the OTW, but they are not participating in this project in any official capacity. This survey is run by centreoftheselights, who has been performing independent fandom research for over 10 years, including the AO3 Ship Stats project and the AO3 Census 2013 project, which was the inspiration for this survey. She is being assisted in this project by a small group of volunteer researchers.
In the process of conducting this survey, any information you provide will be collected and stored by the researchers. Once the survey is complete, it will be analysed by the research team, and we will publish summary statistics and commentary based on the results. We also hope to eventually create an anonymised database of all the answers we receive, which will be published and made available indefinitely. Published data will not include any direct quotes from write-in answers, and every attempt will be made to ensure that answers cannot be traced back to individual participants. The original dataset will be retained for a maximum of two years after the survey closes.
If you wish to view the results of this survey once they are available, you can do so at our Tumblr ao3demographicssurvey2024.tumblr.com, or the AO3 Demographic Survey AO3 collection. If you have any questions or feedback about completing the survey, please do not write them in the survey itself. You can check our FAQ and submit comments to us on Tumblr or AO3.
If you participate in this survey, there is a small risk that your data will be made available to someone with malicious intent (e.g. through leaks or hacking). Although we take our responsibility for data security very seriously, it is impossible to completely eliminate this risk. In order to minimise the potential harm, we will not ask you for any personally identifying information (e.g. name, username, email address), and we ask that you do not include this information in any write-in answers you choose to enter. However, if you remain concerned that a certain piece of information could cause you harm if connected back to you, we encourage you to simply leave the relevant question blank, as nearly all questions on this survey are optional.
Your data will not be submitted to us until the survey is complete. If you choose to leave the survey at any point without submitting, no data will be collected or stored.
Because this survey does not include personally identifiable information, your answer cannot be identified and therefore you will not be able to access, alter, or delete your data from inclusion once you have submitted the survey.
The survey will take about 10-15 minutes to complete.
By proceeding you agree to the following:
- I have used the site Archive Of Our Own at least once.
- I have read and understood the above information about my participation in this survey.
- I consent to have my information collected, transmitted, stored, processed, and released publicly in a form which has been anonymised to the best of the researchers’ capabilities.
Do you agree to the above? (Required Question)
- Yes
[Edit: Below question added 1 Jan 2023, approx 19:50 GMT]
As a spam prevention measure, please enter the word for the number after 3 into the box below in lowercase.
Question Type: Short Answer