Participant protection

Privacy & Data Release

How Christian Thought Survey handles participant contact information, survey responses, free-text suggestions, and public data releases.

Christian Thought Survey collects responses from people who are currently or previously engaged in full-time ministry. The project is designed for public reporting, but participant contact information and identifying details should not be exposed in public files.

Contact information

  • Email addresses are used for survey invitations, reminders, follow-up questions, and opt-out handling.
  • Email addresses, names, and direct contact details are not included in public results files.
  • Participants may unsubscribe from MailerLite emails or ask CTS to remove them from future invitations.

Survey responses

  • Live survey items use 0-100 credence sliders unless a future survey clearly says otherwise.
  • Weekly reports may summarize aggregate results, distribution shapes, and subgroup comparisons when sample size permits.
  • Subgroups may be combined, suppressed, or withheld when reporting them could make participants identifiable.

Participant-nominated items

  • Free-text suggestions are treated as administrative inputs, not as public survey responses.
  • Suggestions may be corrected, combined, clarified, shortened, or withheld before appearing on a participant-nominated item ballot.
  • CTS uses AI assistance to polish nominations for clarity, neutrality, credence-slider suitability, breadth, novelty, and pastoral or theological relevance.
  • Each weekly ballot should contain 7 items. If fewer than 7 suitable participant nominations are available, CTS may add AI-created seed items to complete the ballot.
  • CTS will not intentionally publish a suggestion in a way that identifies the participant who submitted it.

Data releases

  • Public data releases will remove direct email identifiers before publication.
  • Prepared datasets may group participant attributes such as role, tradition, or ministry experience to reduce identification risk.
  • Raw exports should be reviewed before release for accidental identifiers in free-text fields or small subgroups.

The practical rule is simple: report results openly, protect participants carefully, and do not publish raw contact information.