Jump to content

Commons:Categories for discussion/2025/05/Category:Survey studies inquiring input of subjects-relevant groups

From Wikimedia Commons, the free media repository

Category:Survey studies inquiring input of subjects-relevant groups

[edit]

This is a long, complicated discussion. If you don't want to read it all, you may want to jump to #summary 1. - Jmabel ! talk 21:26, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm trying to make sense of this category. What exactly is it trying categorise? it doesn't make gramatical sense as "inquiring input" is a verb followed by a noun, and is unidiomatic and sounds unnatural. Then the adjective ("subjects-relevant") is unclear and awkwardly constructed. So I don't know what to make of it. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 09:55, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

it doesn't make gramatical sense does it? I think it does make grammatical sense. What about moving it to Category:Survey studies inquiring subjects-relevant groups? Prototyperspective (talk) 10:33, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well then you would be wrong, as it is most definitely not gramatically correct to use the word "inquiring" after "input". In fact, the whole use of the word "inquiring" is the issue at hand. "Inquiring" means "asking" or "seeking information." "Input" is the information itself. Are you seeking input from a group?
Then there is "input of subjects-relevant groups" - what does this mean? "input of" implies that the input belongs to or comes from something.
I'm also utterly confused by why you have used "subjects-relevant groups". The core difficulty I have with this phrase is it is ambiguous. It attempts to create a compound adjective ("subjects-relevant") that isn't standard, leaving me to guess the precise relationship between "subjects" (typically research participants) and "relevant groups."
So do you mean that these are groups whose existence or characteristics are pertinent to the study's participants? For example, if a study is on chronic illness, "subjects-relevant groups" could refer to support networks, advocacy organizations, or family members who directly impact the lives of the patients being studied.
Or do you intend to describe groups that are relevant to the topic of the study, and whose relevance is somehow defined or highlighted by the subjects themselves? This is less common but could imply that the participants' experiences or perspectives identify certain external groups as significant to the research question.
If you could clarify, that might be helpful as you can see it is super unclear what the category is trying to categorise! - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 11:05, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  1. I think input is not the only thing that can be inquired so it needs to be clarified what is inquired.
  2. not gramatically correct to use the word "inquiring" after "input" if that is the case, good that this is not done then
  3. "Inquiring" means "asking" or "seeking information." "Input" is the information itself. see 1. and the proposed alternative title
  4. input belongs to or comes from something. yes, from the subjects-relevant people/group(s)
  5. that isn't standard, leaving me to guess if something is not used very often, that doesn't mean it's unclear or that one has to guess – these are people/groups relevant to the given subject
Prototyperspective (talk) 12:58, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
“inquiring input” still makes no sense. “Inquiring” is an adjective meaning “asking for information” and “input” is a verb meaning “what is put in”.
When you put them together, "inquiring input" suggests that the input itself is doing the inquiring, which is illogical. Input is typically the result of an inquiry, or the object of an inquiry, but it doesn't perform the action of inquiring.
Essentially, you're trying to use an adjective that describes an active process ("inquiring") to modify a noun that is a passive recipient or a static piece of information ("input").
Did you mean “inquiring about input" (The act of asking)?
Or did you mean "seeking input” (The act of looking for)?
Or perhaps something like "We need your input in our inquiry." (Input is the object of the inquiry)?
You can see that I can’t tell what you are trying to convey, and the invalid grammar is not only nonsensical but if someone does try to decipher it there are at least three conclusions they can come to.
As for the phrase “subjects-relevant” groups, I specifically detailed the ambiguity and a response of “it is clear” does not make it so. If you can’t answer the two questions ms I posed about this hyphenated phrase, then even you do not know what it means. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 19:35, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

If nothing else, this needs a better name. "subjects-relevant" is barely even English, maybe "subject-relevant", but it is still a clumsy name. Maybe "relevant to the subject" at the end instead? - Jmabel ! talk 19:20, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I'm aware that subject-relevant is the more common term but accuracy is important: 1. it can be multiple subjects 2. this is a category for many subjects and generally category titles use plural. "relevant to the subjects" could be clearer. It's also a bit longer but seems like a fine option – so Category:Survey studies inquiring groups relevant to the subjects maybe? Prototyperspective (talk) 22:27, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Certainly headed the right way but "studies inquiring groups" is still pretty awkward. - Jmabel ! talk 23:45, 27 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What exactly does “studies inquiring groups” mean? I still can’t understand this and I’m a native English speaker! - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 09:00, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's self-explanatory and it's not my fault if you need to look up those words or indicative of an issue. For clarity, the current title is …inquiring input… (input could also be replaced with 'information'). Prototyperspective (talk) 11:38, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, it's not self-explanatory, and two educated native speakers have just said we don't understand. Each word is clear, but grammatically they make no sense together like this. You can inquire a question. You can inquire of a group. You cannot inquire a group. - Jmabel ! talk 18:35, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed - I don’t mean to place tickets on myself, but I have a slightly higher degree of understanding of English than the average speaker and grammatically the word “inquire” makes no sense in this context.
Prototyperperspective has not been able to explain what it actually means to perform the activity “inquiring input”. Input and information are completely different concepts - input is the act of putting something into something else (a verb), and information is a noun and not a verb, and is either knowledge gained by receiving it from another source, or is knowledge gained through study, communication, research, instruction, etc.; factual data. So it’s still not clear what the phrase means. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 19:18, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Then suggest how to slightly change it so that it makes grammatical sense. I checked it with machine translation tools as well as grammar checkers and it seems fine. As explained, it's simply about inquiring information from groups, particularly groups that are relevant to the subject. For example if the subject was Wikipedia, then Wikipedia editors would be a subject-relevant group. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:21, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When you explain to me what you are trying to achieve with the name, then I'd be happy to. But you haven't been able to explain it. Instead you said it was self-explanatory, which it isn't. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 00:11, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • I've already explained it at "Inquiring" means "asking" or "seeking information." "Input" is the information itself.
  • I really suggest people don't work on issues they don't understand, it's okay if you don't understand something but then don't get heavily involved in it. I'm also not suddenly going around categories relating to things like anti-de Sitter/conformal field theory correspondence and trying to enforce some change while complaining I don't understand it. What would you do as say a mathematician for example there when somebody comes across and suddenly wants to change clearly phrased categories and does not address your concrete proposals and replies of how it could be changed?
  • It's super simple and as simple as Jmabel asked below almost with the difference I clarified there once again.
  • It is about media from studies that systematically gather (inquire) information from humans that are relevant to the study subject. Super simple. And already explained multiple times.
Prototyperspective (talk) 12:00, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
As has by now been repeatedly explained to you, the grammar is entirely confusing and your explanations are not sufficiently clear for any of the major participants in this discussion to understand what you are trying to achieve.
It’s not a matter of me not understanding survey methodology. I think I do understand it to sufficient depth. Your grasp of English unfortunately is the issue here. To “inquire” is not to “systematically gather”, it is to ask a question. You have by now been told this is not correct English grammar repeatedly, but for some reason you seem to be of the opinion that you have a better grasp of the English language than native speakers.
Jmabel, could you assist here? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 13:09, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I wasn't arguing the grammar is correct or that it shouldn't be changed. I mean I don't see how it's grammatically incorrect (one can also investigate the input if that's what it implies grammatically) but I don't need to understand why. And with "any of the major participants" you are referring to you and 1 other user (who btw I think also is not very interested or knowledgable in policy studies or survey studies). I've used this term based on how I've experienced it being used and again I wouldn't object to a better term or phrase but when I translate it, it's also translated to German "Nachforschungen anstellen" which means "doing investigations". A term that means more precisely "systematically gather" would be better and one could also use those two terms which however would make the title longer. but for some reason you seem to be of the opinion that you have a better grasp of the English language than native speakers no idea why you think so. False. Prototyperspective (talk) 13:27, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I only say that because you keep insisting that it’s clear “in the title”, yet this not clear in any way.
What is the original German that you wanted to use? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 17:12, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Well I only said it's all in the title...it can be convoluted or grammatically incorrect or even unclear but still have the info / answer the specific question. Anyway, I wasn't thinking in German when wondering how to name this and haven't since but if I now think of a title:
  • machine translation when using DeepL translates it to "Umfragestudien, in denen die Beiträge der untersuchungsrelevanten Gruppen abgefragt werden" which is what was meant albeit "Beiträge" is a fitting but not the best word for input and rather means posts or contributions (but there is no better matching word for "input" in German). It does have two issues: it's not "der untersuchungsrelevanten Gruppen" which assumes that there is only one group that is relevant but "untersuchungsrelevanter Gruppen" which means any such group; and it's not contributions by whole groups but of individuals belonging to certain groups / having certain characteristics. Google Translate has "Umfragestudien zur Abfrage von Inputs themenrelevanter Gruppen" which seems fine as is.
  • Thus, maybe "Umfragestudien, in denen Auskünfte studienrelevanter Gruppen untersucht werden" which machine translates to "Survey studies in which information from study-relevant groups is examined". Here "information" is misleading as it's not any information but mainly/characteristically their responses to the survey questions (e.g. a question to climate scientists "is anthropogenic climate change real?") so Category:Survey studies examining responses from study-relevant groups or Category:Survey studies obtaining input from topic-relevant groups.
Prototyperspective (talk) 18:22, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know German, so I ran this through Gemini to try to get a better understanding.
It explained the following for me:
Untersuchungsrelevant: (Relevant to the investigation/study)
  • This is another compound adjective, similar to "studienrelevant," but it might imply a broader "investigation" rather than specifically an academic "study" (though "Studie" is also "study"). This is the one that was used in the category name: "untersuchungsrelevanten Gruppen" (study-relevant groups).
I think there is a bit of linguistic dissonance going on here. In German, it seems that it's quite reasonable to make hyphenated words, but in English unless there is a specific reason to do so, we completely avoid it because it is completely confusing. Instead, we change "study-relevant" to "relevant to the study". So I'll take a stab:
If this is the case, then... you've just described Qualitative Research. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 19:14, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
  • Qualitative Research mhh there are some overlaps but it's neither the same nor am I sure if it would be a good category to set on the cat here. One key difference is that here it's specific to surveys (asking same questions) and in addition digital surveys are not even mentioned in the ENWP article. Then the key characteristic and eponymous of qualitative research apparently is non-numerical data but the input from surveys is also qualitative. One can for example plot the number of people who answered yes on question 3, vs those that answered No. And one can also ask numerical things like which year they think this or that invention or problem will exist. Then another huge difference is that it's in order to gain an understanding of individuals' social reality but that is just one of many things such survey studies here could investigate – it's also for example for projecting innovations & problems, developing a picture of the current scientific consensus/stance, or listing/ranking potential solutions etc etc.
  • Re Untersuchungsrelevant the translation is in the brackets next to it. An advantage of hyphenated words are shorter titles and cat-titles are best kept relatively short; but if that makes it less clear then change it.
  • Re "Survey studies examining group responses relevant to the study" not group responses relevant to the study but "Survey studies examining responses of people relevant to the study" (and I've explained this several times). Re "Analysis of survey group responses" this again is something much broader and I've explained this even more often then former thing as that could be finance, marketing, business, etc and isn't what the cat is about but much broader (pls is only about the analysis but the development of the study including people selection and question development and gathering of the input is at least as important); if you look at the files they don't just show analysis of survey group responses, they also just show their responses, sometimes adequately visualized.
  • I've made some concrete proposals regarding renaming.
Prototyperspective (talk) 22:08, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Possible cat names: "Qualitative research surveys of relevant subject groups", "Scientific surveys of relevant subject groups". Could say "survey studies" rather than just "surveys", but I don't think that adds much. - Jmabel ! talk 00:35, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
(FWIW I'm still neutral on this being an appropriate category at all.)
Jmabel ! talk 00:35, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
"Qualitative research surveys of relevant subject groups" no for the reasons I outlined in the comment you replied to, in this case / especially that it's not "qualitative" and thus that term is at minimum misleading/inappropriate. "Scientific surveys of relevant subject groups" don't know what is meant with "relevant subject groups" this is a title I would find confusing and unclear. "Category:Scientific surveys of groups relevant to the study subject" would be fine. Here above there are two more possible titles. Prototyperspective (talk) 10:51, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, that last is probably best so far. (Sorry: by "subject groups" I meant the people who are subjected to the survey, but of course that is confusing here. And maybe confusing in the other direction in your formulation. So…) Maybe even better to have "Category:Scientific surveys of groups relevant to the study topic", since topic is unambiguous? - Jmabel ! talk 17:19, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That would be a good solution I think. Prototyperspective (talk) 17:43, 6 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

I’ve just realised - this is actually just trying to explain focus group research. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 19:56, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]

No, it's not. First, it's not trying to explain it – it's just a descriptive title and second focus group research is just a subtype of this. Just look at the files if it's not clear from the title. Prototyperspective (talk) 21:19, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
How is this something other than "surveys of groups relevant to a subject"? - Jmabel ! talk 23:34, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It is different in that these are scientific surveys as in studies, not some marketing surveys or alike which can be added to one of the parent cats. Prototyperspective (talk) 23:38, 28 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
You'll need to explain this more clearly, or else I'm just going to recommend that we delete the category. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 00:17, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It seems to me that is a particular intersection of things that we don't need to categorize with a distinct Commons category. This is especially because I don't think Commons needs to be sucked into the question of whether a particular survey was intended specifically for "scientific" (presumably meaning uninterested academic) purposes. E.g. we should not have to determine whether the source of a political poll had an interest in the outcome, or whether the source of a medical survey was trying to sell a pharmeceutical drug, etc. - Jmabel ! talk 19:13, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's not about the purpose, it's about the kind of data (ie process). If you just put up a website where people can click their reply, that is not a study and would go into a parent cat and not into here. Prototyperspective (talk) 20:08, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
What about Category:Social science studies by group? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 22:46, 29 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, that would be something very different. These aren't studies of groups, those are studies using input of groups that are relevant to the subject (which is why it's in the title). Prototyperspective (talk) 12:28, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Still confusing - what do you mean by "using input of groups"? Do you mean that it's like a discussion? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 21:19, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I don't know why you don't simply look at the (sub)category contents; I think it would answer your question(s). No, it's not which is the "survey" in the title also clarifies: data is gathered via a survey type process. For example (an unconventional one), 10 experts on a subject – who were selected in a transparent reproducible way – could be asked by an human interviewer by videochat or in some room the same questions and then the study, which also explains and developed those meaningful questions, analyzes and visualizes their responses. Prototyperspective (talk) 22:36, 31 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
When you look at a category, you don't normally want to have to "interpret" what the category name means. It should be clear and concise, and if native English speakers can't understand what is meant then it's badly named.
But I'm still not clear what sort of survey you are talking about... are you saying that those being surveyed get real time information from their surveys?
Interesting, however, you ask me to look at the contents of the categories. They don't seem to correlate with your category. For example, https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0189753 is one of the studies, and that most certainly doesn't fit with your above explanation. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 09:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
That study perfectly fits my explanations. Don't know why you have difficulties with these. The study is a good example of what I just explained and what the cat title describes To explore this, we conducted a survey of 260 undergraduate students and researchers in Biological Sciences at a research intensive UK university. Responses to Likert scale questions demonstrated increases in confidence and skill with reading the literature between individuals at each career stage, including between postdoctoral researchers and faculty academics. […] with the subject of the paper being reading [many scientific] papers. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:55, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
The subjects are members of the scientific community. The methodology is entirely different.
Perhaps you can see how unclear your category name is. I am trying, in good faith, to understand what you are trying to get at, but you keep saying what I’m suggesting is not correct. Unfortunately, the problem here is not my intelligence or ability to comprehend, it’s your ability to communicate clearly. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 03:50, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So not so "self-explanatory". But clearer now. - Jmabel ! talk 02:54, 30 May 2025 (UTC)[reply]
No, not really given that he just wrote that it is:
No, it's not which is the "survey" in the title also clarifies: data is gathered via a survey type process. For example (an unconventional one), 10 experts on a subject – who were selected in a transparent reproducible way – could be asked by an human interviewer by videochat or in some room the same questions and then the study, which also explains and developed those meaningful questions, analyzes and visualizes their responses
Not at all clear! - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 09:27, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
 Comment at this point I'm neutral on whether there is a useful topic here, certain that if we keep it then it needs a better name and/or a clarifying hat note.
@Chris.sherlock2: I think the concept is clear, even if it was by no means self-evident. By "scientific surveys" Prototyperspective means surveys honestly intended to gather information, both in terms of the design of the survey and in the choice of sample population to whom to administer the survey. E.g.: not a pseudo-survey to get people to send money, or a "push" survey intended to change the opinions of those who take it, nor one given to a self-selecting group of people who are not representative of any particular population. Further, he is narrowing that here to one in which the group to whom the survey is administered are chosen from a population with particular expertise or interests, not from the general population. It's a reasonable concept; I'm not sure it is relevant to Commons' scope.
@Prototyperspective: correct me if you think I still have not correctly grasped your meaning. - Jmabel ! talk 17:44, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Roughly yes but I think you already nearly understood it here since it's so simple and the title uses descriptive terms that describe it. In any case, it's definitely relevant to Commons' scope since the scope is educational and images from scientific studies are more educational than 99.9% of photos for example. Moreover, particular expertise or interests are two kinds of ways people/groups can be relevant to a subject. An example of another kind are people believing in various kinds of misinformation who are investigated and who may not necessarily be interested in the subject but still relevant to it as a group. A further example is a study of people who are suffering from a chronic disease e.g. to identify commons hardships in their daily lives – wouldn't say "interest" or "expertise" are the best ways to describe their relations to the subject. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:39, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
So... these are "studies of groups relevant to a particular subject"? - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 18:54, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
It's all in the title. Or in the many prior explanations. You can study groups without input from them and without survey so no. Prototyperspective (talk) 19:05, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Prototyperspective: no, it's not "all in the title," which is ungrammatical and was initially utterly unclear to two educated native speakers. I'm inclined to vote "delete" out of sheer spite, but I'm not that petty, and I'm going to try to keep working through to something coherent here.
I'm not doubting that the files that are or would potentially be the content here are relevant to Commons' scope; the question is whether the categorization is relevant.
"interest" in what I wrote above was in the sense of "an interested party" or "having a vested interest," as against a "disinterested party," not as against an "uninterested party."
Again: this concept is a narrowing of "surveys" according to several separate criteria: the nature of the survey (scientific vs. marketing/push/etc.) and that the survey is administered to a group intended to be representative of (or is even that required? Just "drawn from"? This is still not entirely clear to me) something other than the general public, and with the choice of group having some (any, it would appear) relation to the topic of the survey. In my opinion, that's overly complicated for a Commons category without being precise as to what would be in the category and what would not. - Jmabel ! talk 20:41, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Not "representative" but, as in the title which I didn't say was perfect just that the info is contained it, relevant. You already described the scope twice 90% accurately if not more often and each time I left a pretty short pretty clear comment describing the 10% that is missing. and with the choice of group having some (any, it would appear) relation to the topic of the survey that's fairly accurate (albeit the word "choice" isn't ideal as it's more like some active selection and proactive approach to get input from these people in specific, not like there is some group readily waiting to be addressed with one mail for the group and that's it). It's a very simple category and the category contents belong into it and are reasonable to subcategorize from the overly broad categories above it. Prototyperspective (talk) 20:49, 4 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Prototyperperspective, you really need to stop telling me “it’s all in the title”. It’s clearly not in the title because as you can see, both myself and others are completely confused as to what your are trying to classify.
I am also trying to figure out what the intent of the category is in good faith, but you are not making it easy!
In English, an interested party is one that has some involvement in the issue. that’s literally what you just described.
The reason I chose “studies of groups relevant to a particular subject” was because you said above that “surveys of groups relevant to the subject” was close to what you meant, but they survey bit was too narrow. Hence I asked if studies would be a better word.
think the biggest issue is that you are conflating a whole bunch of survey methodologies into an attempt to collapse them into a single unifying concept. There is rarely such a neat category and I’m beginning to think you need to look more closely at how survey methodologies are worked out before proposing such vague and unclear category names. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 03:46, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
and others For accuracy, it's 1 other and that user has got it right at least twice to 90% where I explained the remaining 10% an a short brief comment which I'm not sure if the user understood or if not what/why not.
but you are not making it easy! Given all the time I spend explaining the simple concept many times here in great length that is not true. Also, I just added a category description which also makes it clear.
In English, an interested party is one that has some involvement in the issue It's not the right term, it is any relation (broader) as just explained in the prior comment including two examples, not just those where people have some interest/involvement in the subject.
because you said above that please also consider what I'm replying to or what I said earlier. Also, I did not say that – Jmabel said that and was 90% right where the remaining 10% difference is It is different in that these are scientific surveys as in studies, not some marketing surveys or alike which can be added to one of the parent cats. which I pointed out directly beneath his comment.
conflating a whole bunch of survey methodologies It's not conflating anything – it's a broad not overly specific category about any kind of survey studies. There is no need to subcategorize by types of surveys if there are some and I'm not sure which types you are even referring to. Prototyperspective (talk) 12:37, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
@Prototyperspective: On at least one count you seem to be contradicting yourself. How could a person possibly fall within the sort of group you are describing and not be an "interested party"? - Jmabel ! talk 18:10, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
An interested party refers to any individual or organization that may be affected by a situation or has a stake in a particular decision see my two prior examples; e.g. people with certain misinformation beliefs don't have a vested interest or sth like it in this context that warrants calling them such. In addition, it's not about (or not necessarily so) situations or decisions or alike; it could be any subject that is being studied. Prototyperspective (talk) 18:28, 5 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Summarizing the above:

Yeah, let’s go with that. - Chris.sherlock2 (talk) 02:58, 7 June 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Retrieved from "https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Commons:Categories_for_discussion/2025/05/Category:Survey_studies_inquiring_input_of_subjects-relevant_groups&oldid=1040992947"