Hello! I am a student of sociology writing my Master’s Thesis about social control in online communities. It is essentially a comparative research of 4 large NWN PW communities: City of Arabel, Escape from the Underdark, Myth Drannor and Narfell. With the help of the DMs I have already finished the first part of the research and now I would ask you to fill in the questionnaire below. The questions (3x18 of them) are simple and it should not take long (15-20 minutes at most) to complete them all.
Just please paste the questionnaire below into a forum PM or an e-mail message, fill it in and send it to Eraamion on the forums or eraamion at gmail.com. The data will be processed without any identifiers, i.e. your input will remain anonymous.
I will be posting a synopsis of the results once the research is complete, as well as a link to full text of the thesis (it is in English so no worries). The more people fill this questionnaire in and send it back, the more accurate results we will get. Rest assured, the output will be interesting. ;-)
Please send it filled in as soon as possible; the deadline is April 20th 2007.
Thanks for your time!
Miro Kucera
Quantifying social control in online communities – player questionnaire _____________________________________________________________
Please indicate which one of the four PWs (CoA, EftU, MD, Narfell) are you playing on.
If you are playing on more than one, please indicate which one is this questionnaire for.
If you choose to complete more than one questionnaire, please treat each separately for each PW you choose.
1. Your fellow players can behave in various ways while playing, chatting or posting on the forums. Please rate your opinion on each of these listed behaviours on a scale from -5 to 5,
-5 meaning the behaviour is absolutely unacceptable, 5 meaning you fully endorse the behaviour and approve of it, 0 meaning you think it is equally good and bad:
-5_____-4_____-3_____-2_____-1_____0_____1_____2_____3_____4_____5 absolutely unacceptable_______________________________fully endorseable
Just type the number from the scale into the brackets. If you do not know, cannot or do not want to rate it, please type in “?”
You might help yourself with asking yourself this question before rating the behaviour: “If I witness a player doing the following, what do I think of it?”
Interaction with the DMs 1.1 Asking the DMs to intervene in order to assist the player [ ] 1.2 Assisting other players in an issue usually being handled by DMs [ ] 1.3 Complaining about the DMs' decisions publicly [ ] 1.4 Delegating roles in a DM-run plot to different players [ ] 1.5 Ignoring other DMs' OOC talk in the game [ ] 1.6 Publicly commending the DMs [ ]
Roleplaying 1.7 Addressing NPCs and talking to them [ ] 1.8 Intentional inciting of conflict among player characters and their groups [ ] 1.9 Presuming acts of a NPC or roleplaying them [ ] 1.10 Roleplaying acts of another player [ ] 1.11 Roleplaying regardless of OOC status and situation of other players [ ] 1.12 Using a dedicated IRC room as an alternative for in-game roleplaying, with in-game consequences [ ]
OOC interaction 1.13 Coming up with initiatives to change server rules or policies [ ] 1.14 Coming up with initiatives to change the game mechanics, some of its parts, or game scripts [ ] 1.15 Discussing server rules and policies with the DMs publicly [ ] 1.16 Discussing the DMs' decisions publicly [ ] 1.17 Recruiting for other servers [ ] 1.18 Trolling [ ]
2. Now the same behaviours are listed again. Do you think you know what the general norms and rules and the DMs’ attitude are for this behaviour? Please rate each with 2, 1 or 0,
“2” meaning you fully know what the norms and rules about it are, “1” meaning you partially know what they can be and “0” meaning you do not know what they might be.
You might help yourself with asking yourself this question before rating the behaviour: “If I witness a player doing the following, do I know what the DMs think of it?”
Just type 2, 1 or 0 into the brackets.
Interaction with the DMs 2.1 Asking the DMs to intervene in order to assist the player [ ] 2.2 Assisting other players in an issue usually being handled by DMs [ ] 2.3 Complaining about the DMs' decisions publicly [ ] 2.4 Delegating roles in a DM-run plot to different players [ ] 2.5 Ignoring other DMs' OOC talk in the game [ ] 2.6 Publicly commending the DMs [ ]
Roleplaying 2.7 Addressing NPCs and talking to them [ ] 2.8 Intentional inciting of conflict among player characters and their groups [ ] 2.9 Presuming acts of a NPC or roleplaying them [ ] 2.10 Roleplaying acts of another player [ ] 2.11 Roleplaying regardless of OOC status and situation of other players [ ] 2.12 Using a dedicated IRC room as an alternative for in-game roleplaying, with in-game consequences [ ]
OOC interaction 2.13 Coming with initiatives to change server rules or policies [ ] 2.14 Coming with initiatives to change the game mechanics, some of its parts, or game scripts [ ] 2.15 Discussing server rules and policies with the DMs publicly [ ] 2.16 Discussing the DMs' decisions publicly [ ] 2.17 Recruiting for other servers [ ] 2.18 Trolling [ ]
3. That is it, the main part of the questionnaire is done; now a few questions about yourself so that I can compare the PW playerbases and make the research even more interesting for all of us. Just please type the answer into the brackets:
3.1 Your sex: [ ] 3.2 What is your age? [ ] 3.3 Which country do you live (or usually live) in? [ ] 3.4 How many people live in your household including yourself? [ ] 3.5 Are you (a) married/living together, (b) single or (c) separated/divorced/widowed? [ ] 3.6 At what age did you finish full-time education? Or are you still studying/attending school? [ ] 3.6a How many years altogether were you (or have been so far) attending school+college+university? [ ] 3.7 Are you self-employed, in paid employment or not employed? [ ] 3.8 If you are self-employed or in paid employment, what is your position and which industry/services sector do you work in? [ ] 3.9 How many hours per week do you usually work? [ ] 3.10 What languages do you understand well enough to read a newspaper or listen to radio news? [ ] 3.11 What is the size of the town/municipality you live in? [ ] 3.12 What type of Internet connection do you usually play NWN on? [ ] 3.13 How long have you been playing Neverwinter Nights on persistent worlds? [ ] 3.14 How many persistent worlds have you played on, this one included? ( i.e. played for more than 1 week) [ ] 3.15 How often do you play NWN? [ ] 3.15a How often do you play on this server? [ ] 3.16 How many people do you play with and talk to in this NWN PW on a regular basis? [ ] 3.17 How many of those do you consider friends? [ ] 3.18 How many computer RPGs and PnP RPGs have you ever played? (a) only NWN, (b) a couple of them, (c) a lot of them, (d) more than I can count. [ ]
-the end-