[SURVEY CLOSED AS OF TODAY JUNE 3RD 2016]
SCROLL TO POST #80 FOR PREEMPTIVE RESULTS
Hi fellow Saviors!
I want to highlight that this survey was only from a player from the community’s own initiative and simply for fun and for the community. It was run by a student, not a professional, so nothing further was intended. I hope that at the end of the day, there was more positive impact than negative impact done by this survey. For example, simply to answer questions like this may have caused a little bit of awareness of mental health in video games and your life experience in general.
UPDATE: Current sample participation progression: N = 324/300, >100% of objective met
SURVEY IS CLOSED AS OF TODAY FRIDAY JUNE 3RD 2016! THANK YOU ALL, AMAZING PEOPLE RIGHT HERE!
Rest assured that I deleted the form results from Google so technically there is no trace of this information anywhere else. I also will delete the database from my own computer, so the only results are here. I can’t unfortunately unsee what I have seen, so I can’t delete the data from my own brain (just think about your relation to data for a moment). At any rate, no private information was linked to any real life ID (Only an optional in-game Team Name was used) (read below).
Please read the consent and debriefing form carefully before completing the survey. (Link to survey removed after closure).
Consent and Debriefing Form: I thereby declare that I am over the legal age in my country of residence (18+ or 21+), and that I am willing to participate in this anonymous survey which aims to collect basic data about player demographics, in-game behavior, and clinical symptoms. I understand that my data will be analyzed and summarized in aggregation with other people, and that I may withhold my participation at any time, and quit if I feel uneasy. Revision as of April 11 2016: I also understand and agree that my information is not identifiable to my real identity (Anonymized), and is collected for strict entertainment and potential benefits which include knowledge, by a private third party individual regulated by the Canadian Research Ethics Board (but not required for review by the REB due to article 2.4, i.e., exemption of REB review if exclusive secondary use of anonymous information and if no data linkage is possible), and not affiliated to any institution or company. My information will not be used for commercial purposes, and is only strictly going to be published in the Tree of Savior forums only, specifically in this thread: http://tinyurl.com/jsngxdq. Finally, I understand that my data will be removed from Google Drive after the data collection process, and that the only indirect, OPTIONAL, in-game identifier specifically kept for the raffle, my “Team name”, will be also removed from the data set. I also understand that even after consenting to participating in this survey, I may remove my own response from the Google forms platform and contact the researcher at–@email removed, contact in forums if applicable–to remove all other traces of my data at any time to ensure maximal control over my privacy. I also understand that the present principal researcher is obligated by Canadian research laws (article 5.1) to safeguard entrusted privacy and information from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, modification, loss or theft, but in the unforeseeable event of it happening, the risks presented are minimal because of complete anonymity. (If you have read this consent form, write: “I understand and I consent.”)
Concerning privacy
TL;DR: It’s just a survey. Edit: I do not know what the moderators will do about this, but as far as I’m concerned, I haven’t broken any laws. A few people have raised issues about privacy laws. While I’m not aware of every law out there (especially since they’re all different depending on the country you live in), I know that because no kind of contact information that is given (as a matter of fact, only your Team name) in this survey can be traced back to the individual in question in real life by either me or anyone seeing this, there is no breach of privacy. Your team name is no secret either–it’s public in-game and/or in the forums and to the company. The data here is anonymous in that sense and for non-profit. There is however something that I haven’t thought through carefully–minors. As someone said, minors can’t give their own consent, even if I debrief them.
As a result, I will have to discard “data” up to now that was given by minors and modify the survey entrance restrictions to 18+ / 21+. International laws make this really hard to manage, and I’m sorry if I involuntarily raised concerns. There is a consent form. I also do not “mislead others” or collect information like emails (although I offered up mine, but I will take it off). Regarding that point, if you think about it, this survey is not worse than minors in the actual game befriending people and giving out their contact information wilingly. Edit 2: storing private information laws are tricky, but my take is that this is for personal use only and not from the standpoint of a commercial/or academic use. Also, in the briefing and consent section I have clearly stated the intentions of the survey and repeated that participants can quit at anytime. Edit 3: Initially, I did not even want to include your Team name in the requirements (which is not disclosed to anyone else than me), but I thought that nobody would participate if no rewards were offered! So how else am I supposed to give in-game rewards for completing this survey? Edit 4: Also, people can retract/modify their participation in the survey at any time. This furthers the case that no harm at all is done.
