DhO and sister sites Survey? Any interest?

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Dada Kind, modified 6 Years ago at 5/20/18 11:43 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 5/20/18 11:32 PM

DhO and sister sites Survey? Any interest?

Posts: 633 Join Date: 11/15/13 Recent Posts
Slate Star Codex has interacted with the DhO lately. It seems to be at least adjacent in internet-space. I got the idea from there that we could do a survey for DhO and its sister sites. The DhO is similar to SSC in many ways that would make it similarly survey-productive: 1) it's a niche online community that is hard to generalize about without hard data, 2) people here are nerdy in general and would probably like to look at data 3) people here are nerdy in general and some would probably be capable of analyzing the data computationally 4) etc.

Here is their survey:
http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/03/17/ssc-survey-2017-results/
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfmeUFqtCa3sPv7eN4cNHjA4JqPfUoE2ezjY_NxlU5u2GQuYA/viewform

I think it would be valuable. Here are some reasons and idea questions,
  • In the past I've thought about posting a thread talking about generational disconnects on the DhO. I assumed most people weren't my age. Although, in fact, upon reflection I realized I actually have no idea if that's true
  • The DhO has been criticized for being male-dominated. Is that actually true?
  • Meditation culture in general has been criticized for being too "white". Is that true on the DhO?
  • What percentage of DhO users can afford a retreat? What percentage realistically has time?
  • What is your average daily practice?
  • Do you identify as Buddhist?
  • What major school of Buddhism do you most identify with?
  • Do you consider yourself to have reached a Path, as defined in MCTB?
  • Would you say you have a natural affinity for concentration or vipassana?
  • How many dharma books have you read?
  • Have you ever been on a formal retreat of 2 weeks or more?
  • When did you first try a formal meditation technique?
  • Have you ever had a lucid dream? How many?
  • Have you ever had a 'powers' experience? How many?
  • Do you believe that there are 'powers' experiences that interact somehow with 'objective reality' in a way not currently understood by science?
  • Have you ever had what one would describe as a "kundalini experience"?
  • Have you ever taken a psychedelic? Which? How many times?
  • How would you rate the accuracy of the Progress of Insight as described in MCTB in explaining your experience of meditation? (1-10)
  • Do you believe that 'enlightenment' (however you define that) was completely understood by past masters, or that there is much more room for discovery?
  • Do you believe that technological means (drugs, neurofeedback, etc) will ever be able to significantly accelerate 'enlightenment'?
  • On a scale from pessimistic to optimistic, what do you think about "mass enlightenment" scenarios?
  • Which of these sites do you use regularly? (DhO, Awakenetwork, r/streamentry, r/mindilluminated, etc)
  • etc

Just thinking of these questions is fun. But, I'm tired now and won't think up more until later. Coming up with the questions should be a community effort. The SSC survey already has some good ideas in it. I think the optical illusions one would be interesting. If you have any ideas, please post them. Sorry for taking a lot of the good ones already emoticon
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Dada Kind, modified 6 Years ago at 5/23/18 11:24 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 5/23/18 11:24 PM

RE: DhO and sister sites Survey? Any interest?

Posts: 633 Join Date: 11/15/13 Recent Posts
Anyone?
Peter S, modified 6 Years ago at 5/27/18 5:48 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 5/27/18 5:48 AM

RE: DhO and sister sites Survey? Any interest?

Posts: 68 Join Date: 3/25/15 Recent Posts
I think some of your questions are an awesome way of each of us getting to know this community better. Such as relating to demographics, meditation experience, etc. But as you can see, there's not going to be a lot of people falling over themselves to get involved.

You can use Survey Monkey or one of those online survey things and just run it yourself, posting the link here for everyone to see and go to when they have time. You could then keep commenting on your thread to keep it rising to the top of the Recent Posts and get more views/responses. Maybe it could run for 3 months, to get as many respondents as possible.

I recently met a fellow DhO-er face to face (an odd experience at times ;-) and we agreed there are FAR more people on here looking than posting. So would be very revealing to know more about who's here if they're game...
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Noah D, modified 6 Years ago at 5/27/18 11:22 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 5/27/18 11:22 AM

RE: DhO and sister sites Survey? Any interest?

Posts: 1211 Join Date: 9/1/16 Recent Posts
I think it’s a good idea.
T DC, modified 6 Years ago at 5/27/18 12:58 PM
Created 6 Years ago at 5/27/18 12:58 PM

RE: DhO and sister sites Survey? Any interest?

Posts: 522 Join Date: 9/29/11 Recent Posts
Go for it!  Looks like you've got a raft of good questions there.  It's always interesting to learn more about who people are beyond their username.
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Dada Kind, modified 6 Years ago at 5/28/18 12:07 AM
Created 6 Years ago at 5/28/18 12:05 AM

RE: DhO and sister sites Survey? Any interest?

Posts: 633 Join Date: 11/15/13 Recent Posts
Thanks all.

@Peter,
I think some of your questions are an awesome way of each of us getting to know this community better. Such as relating to demographics, meditation experience, etc. But as you can see, there's not going to be a lot of people falling over themselves to get involved.

Yeah, maybe, but I don't understand why. For example, the SSC survey linked above got about 5k respondents. The SSC subreddit has 10k users. Maybe 3k from the subreddit participated, and 2k general readers from the blog participated. That seems reasonable. Not only that, but SSC has run a yearly survey at least a few times now. So, I imagine the results are somewhat understood so people are somewhat not motivated to respond. But, afaik, the demographics of the DhO are unknown.

I was just gonna use Google Forms like SSC did but I'll look into Survey Monkey. Yes, based on view counts of some threads it does appear that there are many lurkers.

@Noah

Thanks.

@T DC

Thanks. Of course, it would be anonymous.

I only intended the questions I put in the OP to be a starting point. I meant to say that it should be a community effort. A survey of just my own questions would be weird. That's why I'm disappointed at the lack of replies. What questions do you all want to ask?

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