Interview Invitation

[Guest]

I got this message as a PM to day. 

"Hello, I am Nancy.

I am very sorry if I interrupt you.

I    am a PHD. student from  National University of Singapore, and right   now  I am trying to do a field study about Adobe Photoshop Forum for  my   research.

I have noticed that you are very professional and active in this forum.

I want to invite you with all my sincere to an one hour interview.  - - - -  - - "

It looks like spam to me, but could not see any reference to it in the spam thread. 

What are they looking for?  Perhaps an English lesson, or the advanced forum code that Jive produces??

[pwillener]

It would be useful if you posted the sender's account name or URL, so that the account can be closed.

What do they want?  To scam you in some way or other.

[Guest]

Here is second half of the message I received.  It gives a link to her message posted in PS Forum on Aug.7.

"You can check the detail information from following link:

http://forums.adobe.com/thread/695812?tstart=0

We highly appreciated about your attention and time.

Please consider about it and let me know if you are interested.

----------------------------------------------------

Best Wishes,

From Nancy"

[Jochem van Dieten]

Curt Y wrote on 8/11/2010 2:12 AM:

What are they looking for?

Over the years I have had numerous invitations to participate in

research into the social structure of open source projects. Most of them

were worded a bit smarter though. At the very least they included a link

to a website of some university course with a project description and

contact details of the educational staff, and usually contact details of

a well respected sponsor active in the project. Absence of those is

suspicious, but not evidence.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

That is not to say I would recommend participating. Even if this were

legitimate (I don't know) the quality of the invitation does not bode

well for the quality of the research and makes me classify it as a waste

of time.

First impressions are everything.

[the_wine_snob]

CurtY,

Nancy invited me too. Probably just looked at the PS forum, and gathered several names. Bet that John Joselin got one, as well.

As for the validity, sincerity of the invitation, I cannot comment.

Now, I do get some similar requests, usually to beta test, or review some software, and all of those have been legit - so far.

Thanks for the mention, as I would have posted similar, had I seen the invitation, before your thread.

Hunt

[John T Smith]

I clicked the link and read... what I don't understand is why some "outsider" (avatar does NOT say Adobe employee) is conducting a survery of Adobe forum users, about the forums?

There was no mention of a link between that organization and Adobe... no mention of "we are conducting this survey as a contractor FOR Adobe"

May be legitimate... but if I had been invited (I wasn't) I think I would decline

[the_wine_snob]

Now, I did just get an Adobe pop-up survey on the forum use. Looked legit, and the survey was straightforward with the questions that I would expect from such a survey. I took the time to take this one (see earlier survey thread here), and all seemed to be fine. Maybe I need to do a malware sweep?

Hunt

[Guest]

I get an invatation to complete the Adobe survey each time I run cclean which wipes out my cookies.  Have sent in 3 surveys, that is enough.

They have not called for phone interview.

[the_wine_snob]

CurtY,

Thank you for that observation. I just ran CCleaner yesterday, and now know why I got that survey request. We'll see if the phone rings... If so, I will share a lot of observations and comments.

Appreciated,

Hunt

[John T Smith]

I went back to the link and asked why, since Adobe has an active survey, they are asking people about Adobe forums

It will be interesting to see if there is ever an answer to my question

[John T Smith]

Was just in the PS forum and didn't see the message... so clicked the link above... the message is GONE

It must be that a mod decided the message/invitation was bogus!

[Jochem van Dieten]

John T Smith wrote on 8/11/2010 9:49 PM:

Was just in the PS forum and didn't see the message... so clicked the link above... the message is GONE

I quarantined the thread.

Through a series of posts that were all well intended but in my opinion

ill-advised people were now discussing the official ForeSee survey for

adobe.com in the same thread as a request for personal information from

some people that may or may not have been from NUS. To prevent any

confusion for people who are not reading the messages posted

simultaneously here I pulled the whole thread.

Seriously people, can you please not start discussing cookie settings in

a thread about a completely different subject.

[Guest]

Jochem van Dieten wrote:

Seriously people, can you please not start discussing cookie settings in

a thread about a completely different subject.

Same subject - interviews - and just our normal troubleshooting comments on why something happens. 

After all, troubleshooting is why most of us are spending our time responding to queries in the fora.

[Phillip_M_Jones]

I use a Extension SeaMonkey Called Ghosterly

amd each Time I visit any forum on Adobe forums I receive  notice :

heres the skinny on ForeSee. http://www.ghostery.com/apps/foresee

In Ghosterly you can actually block any pesky things you don't want following you.

Works in FireFox, and SeaMonkey may work in others.

[Guest]

Phillip

Now we are way off target.

You say "In Ghosterly you can actually block any pesky things you don't want following you." 

Are you saying you can block Jochem?

[Phillip_M_Jones]

No. I'd actually miss having JVD coming in to make our life interesting.

No I was refering to items such as ForeSee and GoogleAnalytics  and such.

These items piggybacking on the websites are causing sites to take longer to open because your sharing connections.

[Jochem van Dieten]

Curt Y wrote:

Same subject - interviews - and just our normal troubleshooting comments on why something happens.

If you want to discuss that there is a place for that. But that place is not the Photoshop forums.

[Claudio_González1]

Jochem van Dieten wrote:

Curt Y wrote:

Same subject - interviews - and just our normal troubleshooting comments on why something happens.

If you want to discuss that there is a place for that. But that place is not the Photoshop forums.

But they are the place for the interview invitation?

[Guest]

Hi, Claudio.

I am Nancy.

I know this is not a place to post interview invitaion.

It is just our target participants are this forum's users.

So the direct way is here, at least based on our knowledge.

[Claudio_González1]

Hi Nancy. My question/remark was not addressed to you.

[adobe-admin]

Haven't found out yet. But it does look suspicious, so it has been hidden. If it is real, we'll put it back.

[Guest]

Hi, guys.

I am Nancy.

I am so sorry for bring all of you into this trouble.

And I had no idea there were such questions about my message, otherwise, I can explain earlier.

Actually, I already explained our project to Jochem van Dieten, one of the moderator for Adobe User-to-User forums. I am so sorry that I didn't provide enough information to prove myself and explain it more clearly.

I definitely will pay more attention in the future.

My name is Nancy (Xiaole) Kuang (email address: xiaole.kuang@nus.edu.sg). I am a PhD student in the  department of computer science of National University of Singapore. My  area is Human Computer Interaction (http://nus-hci.comp.nus.edu.sg), and my advisor is Shengdong Zhao (http://www.comp.nus.edu.sg/~zhaosd). His email address is zhaosd@comp.nus.edu.sg.

We haven't created a web page for this project yet,  since our research result hasn't been published yet. The purpose of the  project is to study the communication process in the forum and look for  possibilities to improve the forums in the future. We know that software  learning is a complex and tedious task. It often cost someone years to  master a complex software application like Adobe Photoshop. When people  meet problems, there aren't many good choices for them to look for help.  Online forum is one important channel for people to look for help, but  it has some problems and can be improved. So basically, the interview is just for getting the forum users' real motivation about posting all questions, or replying to others.

The questions in the interview should be just like:

"What were the last 5 problems you have encountered while you are using Photoshop?"

"Will you come back to check your own post after you post it?"

Some questions like that.

I hope I make it clear this time.

And please contact me if you still have any confusion about it.

Thank you very much for your time.

------------------

Best Wishes.

From Nancy

[Jochem van Dieten]

I have added a note that the research is independent from Adobe to the

original message, removed the reply messages and moved it back to the

Photoshop forum.

[the_wine_snob]

Nancy,

If you have been in contact with JvD, that is good enough for me.

Good luck with your survey,

Hunt