Help with professional research in to the fandom by Inkbunny < Journal

True. It doesn't seem to offer an anthro option, which is pretty much the core of furries. Even 'ferals' aren't completely non-anthro.

unsent

12 years, 1 month ago

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Dolphins have intelligence higher than humans, ferals could have Dolphin intelligence xD

JRWenzel

12 years, 1 month ago

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Agreed, as written it’s an all or nothing proposition.

yiharbin

12 years, 1 month ago

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Im game!

Krechevskoy

12 years, 1 month ago

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Well, that was fun, but a lot of the questions, such as "If you could become 0% human, would you?", left me really wishing I could give an explanation instead of just hitting no...

Shokuji

12 years, 1 month ago

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@ Krechevskoy

I was about to comment about that question and "Do you consider yourself to be less than 100% human?" as well. Several ways to take & answer that question and still be 'right', but that means nothing for this survey which is going to take these questions at face value.

So I could answer Yes to both questions, one because I don't feel like I behave or think like most humans do so maybe I'm not 100% the same as other humans. Physically I am 100% human, but we're all animals and share DNA with other animals around us. Answering for mentally or spiritually can produce a different result, and I'm not sure exactly what they're talking about specifically.

I guess I'll just answer whatever 'feels right' first. [nods]

uccfurry

12 years, 1 month ago

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Hi all, I'm the researcher in question. Thank you so much for your participation and comments, and thanks especially to Starling for helping out by advertising the study. I'm really interested to hear that the need for an 'other' box was felt during that particular question - your comments will definitely inform both the study itself and the next iteration of the survey so please mention anything at all that you felt was lacking or that could be changed. It would be great to engage in discussion about the survey and any questions arising from it here if anyone is interested!

Just a note on Starling's note - the information at the end of the survey about the helpline or contacting your doctor is exactly that, really - something that is included at the end of most studies and surveys on the off-chance that anyone at all is affected adversely by the study itself. The study passed the ethics committee with no trouble and it's not imagined that the survey contains anything which could be unpleasant or upsetting. At least, we hope not :)

Thanks so much again, everyone!

TheFlyingPendragon

12 years, 1 month ago

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Edited 12 years, 1 month ago by Owner

The survey was pretty fun! But yeah, the 0% human thing is badly worded. Try writing "If you could become your furry identity, would you?" We don't really want to be dumb animals, as it's been said above----anthropomorphic beings are usually bipedal, sapient animals. Think an animal-human crossbreed that "looks" like an animal but "acts" like a human.

Teddy

12 years, 1 month ago

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@ TheFlyingPendragon

I tend to agree, but given the choice between human and animal, I'd choose animal in a heartbeat.

Swampwulf

12 years, 1 month ago

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In that we have no idea who you are, or how this data will be actually be used, I politely decline.

Shokuji

12 years, 1 month ago

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They're from University College Cork, Ireland. And it's a anonymous survey, so there's not much negative they can do with it.

Swampwulf

12 years, 1 month ago

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@ Shokuji

I find it odd that a legitimate University research project uses 'Survey Monkey'.

Shokuji

12 years, 1 month ago

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Faster, easier and less expensive than coding your own, I'd imagine.

uccfurry

12 years, 1 month ago

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SurveyMonkey's paid options are actually pretty good for collecting the types of data we're looking for here :)

All my contact with Inkbunny has been done through my University College Cork account and so I suppose the moderators here know that I'm who I say I am; however, if you have any misgivings or feel uncomfortable at all about completing a survey such as this, that's perfectly fine - you don't have to after all! Thank you for your comments.

Krechevskoy

12 years, 1 month ago

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It is perfectly fine to decline, but just going to throw in here that while I was in college at the University of Oklahoma a lot of the lower end surveys were hosted on Survey Monkey. It is just a fast, cheap, and pretty well trusted site for hosting surveys.

dmfalk

12 years, 1 month ago

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Being an "oldtimer" in the furry community (not a fandom, like Star Trek or anime, but an actual diverse community) for the past nearly 28 years, I've seen many changes and how the community has evolved. One of the things that makes this a true community is how diverse the term "furry" is to many people, and how they participate.

If you're serious about studying our community and its subculture, I would suggest asking questions, especially that require written responses, and request brief essays from various furs who choose to respond, with the option to follow up if you have further questions.

Although I'm in no way a "Big Name" in this community, my longevity might prove insightful to pick through, including history, diversity, and so forth, and I'm open to be asked any question. Some things I may not be able to answer, but I can try! :)

d.m.f.

uccfurry

12 years, 1 month ago

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@ dmfalk

Hi dmfalk, thank you for your comments. I agree that in order to get a real picture of "why" people do the things they do, more detailed and rich data are needed than that which we will collect here. However, what we are really looking at here is demographics - more of a quick gauge than an attempt at detailed understanding. I myself would love to engage in more detailed, text-driven research later down the line :)

Flygon

12 years, 1 month ago

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I'm having to agree with many of the other commenters, while I am far more than happy to contribute to the survey, many of the questions lacked the flexibility for me to feel that I could give a truthful, and accurate, answer.

uccfurry

12 years, 1 month ago

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@ Flygon

Hi Flygon, thanks for that. Unfortunately because of the kinds of data we're gathering here (quite basic demographics to really gauge the population at hand on a quite facetious level) the questions asked are definitely quite 'black and white' and I agree, more in-depth questions are needed to get a full understanding of the 'whys' and 'hows'. This is something we'll definitely look at in the future. Thank you for contributing!

Flygon

12 years, 1 month ago

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Alright. Thank you so very much for replying to my comment!

WanderingSmoke

12 years, 1 month ago

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I didn't think that you would reply directly lol. This is very good though.

In my opinion, a survey like this will never give you anywhere near the accurate results that you are looking for. You would need to have intimate knowledge of every subgroup and every site where they reside. Choosing one site like this and having the yes or no answers that you have, is absolutely inadequate. Everyone joins the furry fandom for different reasons. Think of every other fandom, and all the other sub-groups they have, from every country. Now, combine ALL of that with an animal element. That is what ties us all together as furries. We are literally composed of every other conceivable group, but we are all united by that animal eliment.

WanderingSmoke

12 years, 1 month ago

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BTW, I didn't actually finish the questionnaire. I enjoyed looking at it though. It told me alot about the general idea people in the scientific community have, that have no idea who or what furries are lol.

JRWenzel

12 years, 1 month ago

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With the single exception of the 0% question it seems a very impartial and straight forward survey for a baseline demographic.

I’m curious to see if my longstanding supposition that the furry community demographic breaks down nearly identical to that of most any other creative art community holds true.

Reading over the tread only germane quibbles I noticed where mainly due to the evolution of broader more accurate definitions relating to gender and sexual ordination though in all fairness those are items of debate even within the medical and psychological communities.

Thank you for inviting us to participate.

Swampwulf

12 years, 1 month ago

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In that we have no idea how this data will be used or by whom, I politely decline.

Ausup

12 years, 1 month ago

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Survey filled~ ^^

Nopast

12 years, 1 month ago

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was a fun time kill really

yuu

12 years, 1 month ago

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Like the Most trolls i will say: i no like x3

Hakumei94

12 years, 1 month ago

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I think there should be more questions to do with the fandom and what you think being a "furry" means.

uccfurry

12 years, 1 month ago

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@ Hakumei94

Thanks for your comments! That is definitely something I'll look into next time around.

Hakumei94

12 years, 1 month ago

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Welcomes. c: It might even help those who are anti-furry purely coz of the crazies realise we're not all that weird. XD

CapraKID

12 years, 1 month ago

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It's fun to see someone that's more intrigued by furries than they are repulsed by generalizations and stigma. I would have personally gone with more in depth, written questions, like people have been saying, kinda like "What do you like most about furries?" "What do you dislike most?", etc

uccfurry

12 years, 1 month ago

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@ CapraKID

Hi IamRy, thanks a million for the input. That's definitely something I'm very interested in and something I think we will include in the future :) thanks again!

LeonHunter

12 years, 1 month ago

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Done, though the last page did make me smile.

NinkT

12 years, 1 month ago

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I can't wait to read the case study.

CIV

12 years, 1 month ago

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Done! And for those who mentioned the 0% thing as I'm not a furry I viewed the question a little different; 0% human would be human conscience sans physical form. IE: Brain in a jar, computer program, cyberman, etc. You have to assume the wording was meant to include anything anyone might want to be not just furries and overthinking the question slows down the survey.

Glad I could do my part to skew the bell curve.

uccfurry

12 years, 1 month ago

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@ CIV

Thanks CIV, brilliant comments!

octamous

12 years, 1 month ago

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The results should be interesting if not hilarious!

DaddyDuckyBE

12 years, 1 month ago

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Edited 12 years, 1 month ago by Owner

Is there any way to just see all the question and answers without participating if I'm just curious? Anyway, I see two main problems:

a.) The confusion between furries and Otherkin, and probably also the whole fuss about fursuits and whether they're sexual or not. I guess you could design a 4-point matrix as to where one considers one's "furry identity" closest to: 1.) Anthro aka "funny" animals from comics and cartoons, 2.) plush (mascots and fursuits), 3.) real feral animals, 4.) totems, shamanism, hybrids, and chimerae.

b.) Being that my (and many other people's) reason in moving to IB from FA due to a certain ban, I wonder if the researcher is aware of what they may be getting into when asking about sexual orientation (the number of replies to which I thus found lacking). I've been taking part before in a number of surveys in that regard as well (and read many, many of those and the corresponding literature as part of my overall interest in Critical Theory, prejudice studies, deconstruction, post-structuralism, plus psychology, history, cultural anthropology, and social sciences at large), none of which were ever much acknowledged, published, or, if published, taken seriously at all.

It was and simply is that way regarding controversial subject matter because the Ego is not master of its own house within a positivistic culture based upon the sado-masochistic, social-Darwinistic Authoritarian personality type, driven by ethnocentric, numinous prejudices and instrumental reason. Thus, true objectivity is inachievable even within a large part of that one social agency that we know as the scientific community and that is solely concerned with affirming the positivistic, ethnocentric status quo by means of producing universally-accepted pseudo-science comparable to racial knowledge as we know it from Whiteness studies and Critical race theory, where everyone within the dominant, hegemonical in-group agrees about things as "self-evident facts" regarding alleged qualities and behaviors that marginalized minority out-groups are associated with as a form of both labeling and othering.

It especially happens within a scientific community that regards the humanities as an inferior, "soft" science or even just a mere "art" that could never command the same validity and legitimacy as supposedly "hard" natural sciences. So due to its blind admiration within "hard" natural sciences, this scientific community is unaware that all data, methodologies, categorizations, and interpretations of "hard" natural sciences are subject as well to the filtering and distortions of cultural construction of reality as according to the prevalent ethnocentric, positivistic prejudices inherent to the in-group culture that researchers are part of. Whereas the only group of scientists that would ever pay attention to all these glaring, but widely ignored problems are those associated with the belittled and trivialized "soft" sciences of the humanities.

GreenReaper

12 years, 1 month ago

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Edited 12 years, 1 month ago by Owner

@ DaddyDuckyBE

According to the intro page, the results are not submitted until you finish the last page.

You used a lot of words for not having even seen the survey questions. :-)

DaddyDuckyBE

12 years, 1 month ago

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Edited 12 years, 1 month ago by Owner

@ GreenReaper

I was using a lot of words to critizize the options given at "sexual orientation" and warn the researcher that they may not know what they're getting into specifically with IB folk as due to the recent ban on FA.

uccfurry

12 years, 1 month ago

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@ DaddyDuckyBE

Hi DaddyDuckyBE, thanks for your input. While the results of the survey are not viewable to the public at the moment, I will make sure to get back to each website and community which helped once the analysis has been completed. I'm unaware of any issues concerning a recent ban on FA so I'm sorry to say I can't comment there. Is this something that directly relates to the survey itself?

Your comments on the 'sexual orientation' options are very valid and are, as you say, ones which I have seen raised for a number of surveys which limit the options at questions such as this; however, for the sake of ease of statistical analysis later, the amount of options were limited to those which are most commonly found in surveys such as this (in the psychometric literature). There is an option for an open-ended answer here also: however compromises (unfortunately) had to be made! I do agree with you on the inherent subjectivity of most research such as this which aims to be objective - however, this is a methodological issue which has been around for quite a while, which I don't see being solved for quite a while, and again, unfortunately, is somewhat outside of the scope of this survey :)

Thanks again for your comments - they are very welcome and any and all input will certainly be something that will inform the study at hand.

DaddyDuckyBE

12 years, 1 month ago

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Edited 12 years, 1 month ago by Owner