After I published my exploration of the importance of sexual violence reduction, some expressed interest in trying sexual violence risk reduction ideas from the article. This post is to invite everyone to do tracking together. It will be much better if we track *the same things*. Then our numbers will be comparable.

But what will we ever compare against?

I have set up a collaboration with the yearly survey team. This means there will likely be sexual violence questions included in the main survey!

I would like to test drive the survey questions we create by asking about the amount of sexual violence people experienced in a time period before my sexual violence article appeared.

Next year, with a little luck, we should be able to compare 2018 to 2017!

The results of a separate sexual violence survey won’t be totally comparable to the results of the yearly survey. There could be some bias in who takes the sexual violence survey, though less bias if it is not labeled as such. Bias can also be reduced if the initial survey is advertised in the same manner as the yearly survey.

We can include questions like “Did you take the yearly survey?” and “What is your gender?” to help us see whether we’re getting the same demographic, and how much bias is present. We can adjust from there.

Where will we ever coordinate our tracking methods?

Simply contact me to let me know that you’re interested and I’ll introduce you to the others! You can use the effective-altruism.com forum or Facebook.

What sexual violence definitions will we ever use?

I think effective altruists should have a chance to share their opinions about what definitions of sexual violence should be used in surveys. We are the ones who will be reading the results, after all. If the questions don’t seem relevant, the results will be meaningless for us.

The closer we are to having a consensus, the more effective we will be.

For that reason, I plan to host public discussions about sexual violence definitions at some point within the next month. I’ll start one on the effective-altruism.com forum, and one in the Women and Non Binary group. I will be there to listen and discuss so that I will have well-formed ideas for the EA survey team. The point won’t be to argue. I will be attempting to resolve conflicts. The survey team will ultimately decide what to include. This collaboration is an opportunity to create a good starting point to present them with.

Important reminder:

Depending on what you want to do, it may be prudent to consult relevant professionals like lawyers, police officers or psychologists.