multipleterminologysurvey

[multipleterminologysurvey]

In an effort to make this survey productive, we've been learning about social and survey research and methods, etc.

The good news is that we were already aware enough of things people need to question about research and surveys, along with considerations for ways the survey itself can influence peoples' answers, that it all is similar to the idea we already had in mine for how to approach this. It's not formal research, but it's not taking a shot in the dark and going into it without having any idea of what we're doing.

We have been learning a lot though, and it's very interesting.

[multipleterminologysurvey]

Welcome!

This blog was created due to discourse in the community about whether "plural" is an appropriate umbrella term or not, and whether "system" is a fitting default/umbrella term or not.

Purpose

Our goal is to create a survey that explores these questions to see if it's possible to get a consensus of what different parts of the community may think about ideal terminology used for the community. "The community" refers to those who identify with the experience of being "more than one" (a system, plural, multiple, diagnosed with DID/OSDD, etc.) in any way.

Process

Currently, the concept is to have a survey that breaks down community preferences based on which part of the community the participant may identify with (CDD/DID/OSDD/disordered/traumagenic, endogenic, spiritual, etc.), as well as preferences across the entire community. The goal is to collect preferences and comfort/discomfort for terminology used for self(/selves)-identification, umbrella/community labeling, and hypothetical changes to terminology.

We also hope to spread this off of Tumblr and as far throughout the community as possible.

This is a project that will take some time to put together. If you(&) would like to help, please let us know! You(&) can message this blog. Any help would be appreciated.

Disclaimers

We understand that truthfully, there isn't one, unified "community" for us any more than there is one, fully unified "queer community". However, we do believe that all folks identifying with the experience of being "more than one" have more in common with each other than with singlets, and we would like to foster more unity among non-singlets. Thus, when we say "the community", we are referring to the combination all of the smaller communities and any other folks who see themselves as "more than one" in any way.

We also understand that "multiple" has medical connotations that many in the community try to avoid. We ask for some leniency here due to the fact that this blog began after debate arose about the use of "plural" vs. "system" as umbrella/community terms, and so we didn't want to use either of those terms in this blog/survey's title. We do want to stress that this project IS inclusive of endogenic or other system/plurality origins.

Also, we are not professional researchers. We're a system that often reads research and are aware of the ways that verbiage, question formatting, and many other things can impact answers, so we're taking the time to consider the best way to go about making this survey to keep results as accurate as possible. That means it won't be done overnight. But we do want to carry out this project to see if we can help the community by exploring current feelings about terminology.

Thank you for reading! We will post on this blog with updates and hope that it can gain enough traction to produce helpful results.

[multipleterminologysurvey]

On the topic of system/plural/multiple umbrella terminology:

This is a post sort of for self-accountability to state that we'll create some kind of more thorough survey to collect data on preferences on both umbrella term preferences and self identification preferences, alongside other demographics. This came up because of the recent discourse between myself and @sysmedsaresexist

If anyone wants to assist in making the survey as UNBIASED as possible, and to help it reach the widest amount of folks, please message me!

As it is, we plan to do what we can to spread the survey as widely as possible (including off of Tumblr), and the goal is to phrase everything as vaguely as possible to ensure no folks who the survey could potentially apply to would feel excluded or discouraged from participating. The survey will be open for at least a month, and more details will be posted before and while the survey is open.

Thanks in advance!