2894: Research Account

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Research Account

Title text: Focus of your research: EXTREME PETTINESS AND UNWILLINGNESS TO LET ANYTHING GO

Explanation

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In the comic, Cueball is filling out a form to register for a research account. He has filled out “Other/none” for institutions, and “to win an argument with someone in a group chat” for “reason for requesting access to our datasets”. He then selects all and deletes his previously typed out justification, substituting it for “independent research”. The caption says that Randall never knows how to answer questions like these.

The feel of this comic is kinda similar to 1346: Career.

Transcript

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Discussion

wasn't there a whatif that caused Randal to temporally loose the access to Wolfram Alpha? 172.70.175.26 19:40, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

It was the what if about balloons Anonymouscript (talk) 02:02, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Although Cueball is often considered to be Randall's alter ego in the comics, when writing explanations we refer to the character. Barmar (talk) 20:16, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I wanted to add something to the explanation saying that he's overthinking, and it probably doesn't matter what you write in the justification, since it's unlikely that anyone actually reads them. But I don't actually know this. If anyone knows what goes on behind the scenes at research institutions, add something. Barmar (talk) 20:23, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

That's my impression (it's very like an account-creation process, supplying free-text to be reviewed at leisure only after attaching the user to a UID with no more verification other than "click on this emailed link to confirm this is your contact details", rather than an application which can be denied or blackballed). But I don't delve into (or control) particularly privileged data-sources where it could be far more strict (yet not so much that it can't be handled by an easy to access web-form), so would also be interested in hearing the facts-of-life from beyond the more open-data side of things. 172.69.194.60 22:32, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

I suspect the "Institution" dropdown might be used for some marketing statistics. No one has time to go through all the free-form inputs, although AI may change that. Barmar (talk) 22:58, 14 February 2024 (UTC)

If the database is being funded by a grant (governmental or philanthropic), the "institution" data are likely reported back to the funder, as a means of assessing whether the database is reaching the targeted audience, as may be specified on the proposal. Not too far from "marketing statistics", I reckon. A larger-than-expected number of non-institutional users, especially if the database is targeted to a small number of highly specialized users, could trigger more scrutiny of "reasons for" comments. Such scrutiny could have more direct impact on the grantee (imposition of more restricted access, or grant termination) than on the individual user. 172.71.142.21 05:53, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

I would say there's also some similarity to the classic 386: Duty Calls. --108.162.245.248 03:35, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Definitely. I didn't even recognize it by the title, but I just pulled it up in reference to my own behavior patterns... Cueball looks like he's barely moved since then!

ProphetZarquon (talk) 01:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

Reading this comic, I feel attacked ProphetZarquon (talk) 18:30, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

You could probably get away with calling it "Combating public misinformation."

172.71.182.57 22:37, 15 February 2024 (UTC)

Duty calls...

ProphetZarquon (talk) 01:56, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

"Educational outreach". Might be funny with effectively "no organisation", if they have "university", "college", "high school", "elementary school", as actual choices. But, without seeing what the rest of the drop-down options are, might still be conceivably a valid reasoning to have "other" (get them wondering if you mean to educate a kindergarten class/a scout troop/a prison educational program/whatever). 172.69.194.162 02:55, 16 February 2024 (UTC)

The part about "spell focus" seems unnecessary and unrelated. I'm going to delete it if no one objects. Boochin (talk) 22:32, 16 February 2024 (UTC)