I'm glad you're here. My background is in backend web software, and stats once the data has been collected. I read "Measuring the Weight of Smoke" in college, but that's not really a sufficient background to design the general protocol. That's a lot of my motivation behind posting this to LW - there seem to be protocol experts here, with great critiques of the existing ones.

My hope is we can create a "getting started testing" document that gets honest companies on the right track. Searching around the web I'm finding things like this rather than serious guides to proper placebo creation.

In general, who will review proposed studies for things like suitable placebo decisions?

I'm hoping either registered statistical consultants or grad students. Hopefully this can be streamlined by a good introductory guide.