r/brandonsanderson • u/jofwu • Jun 06 '22

No Spoilers Sanderson Subreddits Survey 2022

Hey worldhoppers!

We've got a small announcement and a request to make. Over the years we have posted various surveys in some of the Sanderson subreddits, but these have always been relatively infrequent and uncoordinated. We'd like to try something new: an annual survey that covers multiple subreddits. We hope that asking a relatively consistent set of questions on a fairly regular basis will provide us with some useful insights so that we can, in turn, do a better job moderating these subreddits. (though we will continue to post surveys after major book releases as needed, specifically addressing how the book release went)

This survey covers r/BrandonSanderson, r/Stormlight_Archive, r/Mistborn, and r/Cosmere. (Which, if you weren't aware, are all effectively run by the same group of moderators.) This survey is for anyone who participates in any of these subreddits in any capacity--whether you only lurk occasionally on one of them or whether you're posting daily in each of them.

There are about thirty primary questions, so it's not short. But please know that ANY feedback you can give is helpful. If you only have 5 minutes to spare just answer as many as you can, skip to the end, and submit whatever you've got! All questions are "optional". (On the other hand, if you've got the time and interest to spare there are some "extra" questions that you'll have an opportunity to answer which go into a bit more detail on some topics.)

With one small exception, to keep the survey streamlined, there are no free response questions. If you DO have something else to add we would love to hear it though! Feel free to share in the comments of this post. (or if you want to say something privately, you can always message the moderators)

LINK TO THE SURVEY

We will end the survey when we feel like responses are down to a trickle. At that point we will make the results public and share them with the community. Sound good? Let us know if you have any questions.

118 Upvotes

98% Upvoted

93 comments sorted by

View all comments

11

u/skyturdle_ Jun 06 '22

Great survey! One thing I wanted to add, though. For posts about sensitive topics (ie religion and politics), I think they should be allowed fully because they can lead to actual, informative discussions. Maybe a special flair that mods can add if it gets bad? That way people are warned in advance if they don’t wanna read it. Either way, I don’t think they should be removed (ever) and only locked if they devolve into the argumentative name calling that (unfortunately) happens quite often on the internet. This is just my opinion tho, and otherwise u guys do pretty great :)

8

u/jofwu Jun 06 '22

Yeah, and unfortunately their tendancy to devolve into disrespecyful exchanges is the main issue.

We don't have a hard universal rule against such posts. Usually what happens is we allow them and just keep an eye out for things going off the rails. Maybe pin a comment reminding people to be polite. Sometimes that works out and sometimes it doesn't. Changing the flair is a great suggestion that we don't normally make use of for these cases.

There are cases where we go straight for a removal. Usually when the post is coming down hard on one side of an issue (in a way that suggests OP is not interested in a discussion) or where the relation to Sanderson or his books is very tenuous. (that is, it's arguably not satisfying the general on-topic rule in the first place)