Survey Sunday #1: ALL the questions

Welcome to our first Survey Sunday, where you will find a list of all questions asked in the OTW Community Survey. We introduced the idea in our previous post: we cannot release raw survey data to the public, but still want to give you the opportunity to interrogate that data. So from now through December, you can ask us questions relating to survey, and we’ll try and dig up the answers.

The idea behind of posting this overview of all questions is that it enables you to ask combinations. A very conservative example: by cross-referencing questions #35 and #36 you get “Do people without prior wiki experience have trouble creating Fanlore articles?”

However, before you dig into the questions, please read our fine print so you know what to expect in terms of results:

  1. Some results may be preliminary, due to the text answers not yet being included in the overall results (we will specify when this is the case).
  2. We may already be planning to answer the inquiry in an upcoming update post: in that case we will let you know once it goes up.
  3. Depending upon the volume of requests, we can’t guarantee an answer within the two week period before the next Survey Sunday.
  4. Depending upon which questions are being cross-tabulated, we may not be able to come up with a clear response.

And since we are still just starting to go through data, we may have to add to the above disclaimers as we go along and figure out what we can and can’t do.

A note on survey structure, or: “why didn’t I see question X when I took the survey?”

The survey used a ton of conditional questions – different answers led down different paths – so no-one saw the entirety of the survey. Conditional questions allowed respondents to skip anything irrelevant: if you tickied “Never heard of Fanlore”, you didn’t get any Fanlore questions but jumped straight to the “Fan Video project” section.

Another example: people who answered “Yes, I am an OTW member” weren’t directed to “Have you ever donated to the OTW?”, because becoming a member requires donating. Only non-members were asked if they ever donated.

Where to send your inquiries

We would like to ask for your queries and comments to be made at our website posts (no account needed) which you’ll be able to find through https://transformativeworks.org/news-topic-tags/otw-sections/survey-research. We realize that people read OTW News through other sites and sources as well, but at the moment we cannot guarantee that we will see and answer your comment elsewhere due to technical constraints.

Our list of questions is below. We’re looking forward to your queries!

OTW Community Survey: List of questions

The questions are listed in their order of appearance, but that doesn’t necessarily reflect the way you took the survey because of the skip logic explained above.

The question types are either closed questions (yes/no or pre-defined answers), write-in fields (short replies), or boxes (essay-style replies). Basically, this means that closed questions will be easiest, and text boxes will take the longest to evaluate.

    Demographics


  1. What country/countries do you consider your home?
    type: write-in field
  2. What is/are your native language/s?
    write-in field
  3. What language/s do you use in fannish or fandom contexts?
    write-in field
  4. Fannishness, fanworks, fan community


  5. Do you consider yourself fannish / a fan?
    closed question
  6. Where do you spend most of your fannish time?
    three write-in fields
  7. If you consider yourself a member of fandom: how long have you been “in fandom”?
    numerical write-in field
  8. Do you consume (watch, play, read…) fanworks?
    closed question + write-in field
  9. Do you create fanworks?
    closed question + write-in field
  10. What general fannish community/communities, if any, do you feel part of?
    text box
  11. Archive of Our Own (AO3)


  12. Have you ever used the Archive of Our Own (AO3)?
    closed question
  13. Do you have an account at the Archive of Our Own?
    closed question
  14. How efficient do you find the Archive’s invitation system (invite queue or sending invites)?
    closed question
  15. What are you using the Archive for?
    closed question + write-in field
  16. Have you ever used the Archive’s search function?
    closed question
  17. How useful do you find the Archive’s tagging system?
    closed question
  18. How efficient is it to search and find works on the Archive?
    closed question
  19. Did you find content in your fandom(s) on the Archive?
    closed question
  20. Do you leave Kudos on works you like?
    closed question
  21. Do you leave comments on works you like?
    closed question
  22. How easy is it to leave comments?
    closed question
  23. What are your reasons for not commenting on the Archive specifically?
    text box
  24. How easy do you find it to create bookmarks on the Archive?
    closed question
  25. How easy do you find it to use bookmarks on the Archive?
    closed question
  26. How easy do you find it to post works to the Archive?
    closed question
  27. How would you rate the ease-of-use of running a challenge?
    closed question
  28. How would you rate the ease-of-use of participating in a challenge?
    closed question
  29. Have you used the collections feature of the Archive?
    closed question
  30. How easy do you find it to sort and find works within the collections?
    closed question
  31. How easy do you find it to set up and maintain a collection?
    closed question
  32. How do you like the look and feel of the Archive?
    closed question
  33. How would you, personally, describe the Archive’s atmosphere?
    text box
  34. What is your favorite thing about the Archive, if any?
    text box
  35. If you could change one thing about the Archive, what would it be?
    text box
  36. Fanlore


  37. Have you ever used the Fanlore Wiki?
    closed question
  38. Do you have any wiki experience apart from Fanlore?
    closed question
  39. How easy did you find creating or adding to articles on Fanlore initially?
    closed question
  40. How comfortable do you feel adding content to Fanlore, in general?
    closed question
  41. How comfortable do you feel expanding or correcting content created by others?
    closed question
  42. If you have ever looked for content about your fandom(s) or your fannish culture on Fanlore: Did you find that content?
    closed question
  43. When you are browsing Fanlore, which of the following navigation methods do you use?
    closed question + write-in field
  44. How easy do you find searching and navigating Fanlore, in general?
    closed question
  45. Are you clear on what kind of content is welcome on Fanlore?
    closed question
  46. Have you ever needed assistance on Fanlore?
    closed question + write-in field
  47. How useful did you find the help pages/tutorials?
    closed question
  48. How easy do you find asking for assistance on Fanlore?
    closed question
  49. How do you like the look and feel of Fanlore?
    closed question
  50. What is your impression of the atmosphere on Fanlore?
    text box
  51. What is your favorite thing about Fanlore, if any?
    text box
  52. If you could change one thing about Fanlore, what would it be?
    text box
  53. Fan Video and Multimedia Projects


  54. Are you aware of the OTW’s fan video projects?
    closed question
  55. Which ones have you heard of?
    closed question + write-in field
  56. How useful did you find these resources?
    closed question
  57. Why were the resources not useful to you? How could we improve them?
    text box
  58. Transformative Works and Cultures


  59. Have you ever read Transformative Works and Cultures (TWC) or its affiliated Symposium blog?
    closed question
  60. If you have considered submitting an essay to TWC’s Symposium section, or the Symposium blog, but hesitated to do so: What are your reasons?
    closed question+ write-in field
  61. Legal Advocacy


  62. Have you ever received a cease and desist letter, or had a fanwork removed from a site for intellectual property infringement?
    closed question
  63. Are you aware of the OTW’s legal advocacy work?
    closed question
  64. This is a list of Legal Advocacy’s contributions. Which ones have you heard of?
    closed question + write-in field
  65. Do you feel that the OTW’s legal advocacy had an impact on your fannish practice or your attitude towards the legality of fanworks?
    closed question
  66. How has the OTW’s legal advocacy work affected your fannish practice?
    (e.g. are you more/less confident, have you adopted terminology…)
    text box
  67. How would you describe your previous attitude?
    closed question
  68. How would you describe your current attitude?
    closed question
  69. Open Doors


  70. Are you interested in the preservation of at-risk fanworks and fannish projects?
    closed question
  71. Are you aware of the option to “orphan” a fanwork on the Archive of Our Own?
    closed question
  72. Have you designated someone as your “fannish next of kin” using the OTW’s process?
    closed question
  73. How easy did you find completing the “fannish next of kin” process?
    closed question
  74. In the event that you could not maintain your fanzine collection any longer, would you consider donating it to the Fan Culture Preservation Project?
    closed question
  75. Are you the maintainer of a fannish community web site, a fannish resource web site, or an archive?
    closed question
  76. If you were unable to continue to maintain or preserve your site, would you consider asking Open Doors to help you preserve the site’s content and history?
    closed question + write-in field
  77. The OTW


  78. Have you ever been an OTW member?
    closed question
  79. How long have you been a member?
    closed question
  80. What was your main reason for becoming a member?
    closed question + write-in field
  81. What made you stop being a member?
    closed question + write-in field
  82. What might make you choose to be a member in the future?
    closed question + write-in field
  83. Have you ever donated to the OTW?
    closed question
  84. How easy did you find the donation process?
    closed question
  85. How did you first hear about the OTW?
    closed question
  86. I first heard of the OTW by way of this project:
    closed question
  87. The OTW hosts the following projects under its umbrella:
    closed question
  88. Which OTW projects are most important to you?
    closed question
  89. The OTW is represented on a variety of communication platforms. Which of these OTW online outlets have you read or heard of?
    closed question + write-in field
  90. We post the following types of content to our OTW online outlets. Which ones are you interested in, generally speaking?
    closed question
  91. What type of content would you like to see (more of) on the OTW online outlets?
    text box
  92. OTW website


  93. Have you read the OTW website (transformativeworks.org) before?
    closed question
  94. Based on your previous visits to the OTW website (transformativeworks.org), how strongly do you agree or disagree with the following statements?
    The OTW website made it easy to find the information I was looking for / The OTW website is easy to navigate. / The OTW website met my expectations as a user.
    closed question
  95. What should we improve about the website, in your opinion?
    text box
  96. What information would you expect to find on the OTW website that’s not currently there?
    text box
  97. Do you have any other feedback about the OTW website?
    text box
  98. Final question


  99. Anything else you’d like to tell us?
    text box
Report
  1. Grey Bard commented: By cross-referencing questions #35 and #36 you get "Do people without prior wiki experience have trouble creating Fanlore articles?" No, seriously, I really do want to know.
    • Grey Bard commented: (Headdesk) Imagine I edited that better, okay? I do want to know whether people without prior wiki experience have trouble creating Fanlore articles.
      • julia_beck commented: Thanks for playing, Grey Bard! This should be easy to find out, we'll include it in the next update, then :D Julia, OTW Survey team
  2. MegR commented: I'm interested in the answers to all the Fanlore questions, especially 38 and 47-49.
  3. gl commented: I'm interested in the answers to 73 and 74, and to a lesser extent 72. Basically I want to know what the roadblocks are that are preventing people from donating or that are making people decide to quit donating.
  4. turlough commented: Pure nosiness makes me want to hear about the results of question 4 to 9.
    • Claudia Rebaza commented: Your nosiness paid off ;) Your answers are up!
  5. Koe commented: @ Question 15. How useful do you find the Archive's tagging system? Are we users divided or united in our views? Personally I find the tagging system to work smoothly, but I've read many a rant about it, often from totally opposite sides. It makes me curious to the answers to this and related questions in the survey. And thank you for your wonderful work and interesting posts!
    • Claudia Rebaza commented: Thank you, and thanks for your question! We'll be taking a look.
  6. reni commented: I'm very interested in the answers to 32 and 33 specifically, and to a slightly lesser extent, all of the opinion-based questions about individual AO3 functions. (15, 16, 22, 23, 24, etc.)
    • Claudia Rebaza commented: Looks like we've got a theme going! We'll see how many of these we can target next time around.
  7. at commented: I'd be very interested in the results for Questions 19 to 21, concerning kudos and comments on the Archive. Personally I've only had postive experiences with both and find that commenting has picked up with more new readers, but I've seen people complaining. I'd like to know how the current user base feels about this.
    • Claudia Rebaza commented: We'll put these on the list!
    • Licoriceallsorts commented: I'd also like to know more about 18-12, as I feel the comments are an excellent and underused part of the archive.