I'm just a bit touchy about privacy-related procedures.)
If you're touchy about privacy issues, the way to express that is NOT to out someone's anonymous survey answers. That is anti-social behavior, and implies that you are only interested in your OWN privacy while not at all valuing the privacy of others.
If you wanted to show how easy it was to find out someone's identity from the survey answers, the better course of action would have been to put in a comment something like "in fact, from last year's survey I was able to figure out the identity of at least one person using karma score as the main indicator", and then to PM Yvain personally with the information, since he could tighten security unilaterally. It is NOT acceptable to post publicly the identity of the person whose identity you discovered.
I suggest you retract your comment, and ask a mod to delete it-- especially if you are as touchy about privacy procedures as you claim to be.
If you're touchy about privacy issues, the way to express that is NOT to out someone's anonymous survey answers.
Sure it is, if it is going to work and the expected benefits outweight the perceived costs. Demonstrating that information is ALREADY out there for those who care enough to look is sometimes going to be the only way to apply enough pressure to see things changed rather than swept under the rug. The aforementioned "costs" include costs to the speaker for rocking the boat.
That is anti-social behavior,
Sometimes it could be. That w...
The first draft of the 2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey is complete (see 2011 here). I will link it below if you promise not to try to take the survey because it's not done yet and this is just an example!
2012 Less Wrong Census/Survey Draft
I want three things from you.
First, please critique this draft. Tell me if any questions are unclear, misleading, offensive, confusing, or stupid. Tell me if the survey is so unbearably long that you would never possibly take it. Tell me if anything needs to be rephrased.
Second, I am willing to include any question you want in the Super Extra Bonus Questions section, as long as it is not offensive, super-long-and-involved, or really dumb. Please post any questions you want there. Please be specific - not "Ask something about abortion" but give the exact question you want me to ask as well as all answer choices.
Try not to add more than five or so questions per person, unless you're sure yours are really interesting. Please also don't add any questions that aren't very easily sort-able by a computer program like SPSS unless you can commit to sorting the answers yourself.
Third, please suggest a decent, quick, and at least somewhat accurate Internet IQ test I can stick in a new section, Unreasonably Long Bonus Questions.
I will probably post the survey to Main and officially open it for responses sometime early next week.