Please us the contact us link down at the bottom of the LQ page.

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Hi! Since you last wrote I have twice made use of the “contact us” link as suggested but I have obtained no reply. Is there anyone I can contact directly who can help me? By the way of an intro. I am a Master’s Degree student at a Danish university seeking to interview up to 12 volunteers, preferably with experience in the newbie section, on their motivations for volunteering. Who, if anyone, do you suggest I contact? Many thanks in advance, Anthony

How about just posting "I'm looking to interview 12 volunteers about the following subjects ..... message me if you'd like to participate, thanks!"

Then waiting? What do you think the moderators can do....select 12 for you?

3 members found this post helpful.

My experience is that the Contact Us link works fine. There have been several instances where I've raised the concern that a user has not been successful with the use of that mechanism, only to find that Jeremy responds that they had answered the query some time ago. Perhaps you might check your SPAM folder or provide alternate email addresses to Cc.

For now, this is a visible thread to the Newbie forum.

I'm not sure there are more than a dozen moderators for LQ all told. I'm one of the Newbie forum moderators, there are two others, along with Jeremy.

Perhaps you can share a few more about details for your intentions in this thread and I can send it to the general moderators mailing list for their viewing and also consider helping you with giving you some feedback.

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You mean in a United Airlines sort of way?

To be fair to the OP, they probably though that the polite thing to do was to mention to the forums' admins that they were planning to do this and ask whether it would be acceptable.

1 members found this post helpful.

TBOne, thanks for the suggestions. As hydrurga has suggested the original intent of my messages was to get the “blessing” of some senior moderator/administrator as to avoid pestering the wrong person. I’m still struggling to get my bearings at this site, but I’ll get there eventually.

Rtmistler, I have checked my spam folder and nothing. I’m currently studying a Master’s Degree in Sociology at the SDU university in Denmark. For my second semester I’m expected to conduct a small-scale fieldwork project. Given my strong interest in digital sociology I’ve chosen to look at the motivational structure of your typical (or not so typical) Linux volunteer, preferably, but not exclusively, those with experience of dealing with new users or the simply curious. How does the open-source ethos, for instance, help shape the Linux volunteer’s sense of identity. That sort of thing. There would be around 10 questions. I definitely look forward to any help or suggestions you might have. Thanks for your patience. Anthony.

Hi, that's fine and likely zero problems offering any feedback. I do feel actually that long time members of various levels, such as TB0ne have excellent information to share about this as well as various other sites. There are members who are young, old, long time, and new to this site, but also familiar with internet groups of many types.

And personally, my main sticking point about research surveys are that if you have a bunch of seemingly contrived questions, leading to a possible path of answer, I do not prefer that, unless there's at least a small section to add thoughts. Because Y/N or multiple choice questions serve your agenda sometimes and that's not always the best input. Just saying.

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That's grand! Just to clarify, this wouldn't be a survey. It is my hope that the thematically worded questions (no more than 10, but probably fewer) will elicit freely structured extensive replies. I entirely agree about the dangers you have just highlighted. Volunteers with different levels of experience working with users, both new and more experienced, would be welcome. I'm happy to provide any further details you might think useful. Anthony

I would suggest that you put it on a link if that is the option, and post that link here.

Some relevant items to ask from members of all levels are:

What they are on this forum
How long they have been on this forum, and under what capacity

This way you could discern the responses and qualify who wrote what. Your original query was for moderators, however we've pointed out that there are not too many overall mods at LQ, plus also that many members may give you feedback about this volunteer forum which will be useful for you.

I do feel you are on a correct track to allow persons to give you personal feedback however brief or verbose they choose to be.

One key person to contact and ask would be Jeremy for his feedback. I feel he will notice this thread, which someone moved to the "Suggestions and Feedback forum".

2 members found this post helpful.

Unfortunately I don't have a link I can use. How would you suggest that I proceed? Should I explain in a reply to this thread what the purpose of this study is, broadly to whom it is addressed and perhaps list the actual questions? Also, as a genuine 'newbie' in this community (I'm a particularly unsavvy Ubuntu fan)it is not clear to me who does what (the functional differences between moderators, administrators, senior members and so on). Is there any link or page detailing the site's organigram? Thanks once again.

I've responded to your initial query. Feel free to follow up there with details. I apologize for the delay.

--jeremy

1 members found this post helpful.

I agree with TB0ne. Just start a thread and post your survey where anybody can reply. You can use the information under each post's ID to select the answers from people with the experience level that meets your criteria.

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Steve Stites

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Hi! Thanks so much to everyone for your kind suggestions. If I understood correctly, the best way to move this forward would be for me write a new post detailing: 1) A brief introduction of the study and myself. 2) To whom is it addressed. 3) that the replies to the questions be inserted as an answer in the thread. 4) to ask for a few personal details (what is it that they do here, whether they have worked with users etc. 5) The questions themselves.

So my questions to you now would be: Is this format what you had in mind? Where should I post it? Should I just ‘wait’ for people to express interest or is there a more proactive approach I should be adopting? I guess I should also include my email address for those who would rather answer through email. I know I’m asking lots of questions, just keen to get this right! Thanks in advance for any suggestions you might have.

Considering that you've stated you are study for a masters in sociology, why don't you already have a fair idea of how to approach this effort?

You've been polite enough to not just post some sort of global query without preamble, however now you're going overboard in the other direction and acting like you have zero experience with this type of activity.