Methodology & Data Stewardship

The DBaD Framework and Decency Meter share one goal: make civility measurable without collecting personally identifiable information.

JSON summary for clients: /api/v1/methodology/summary

On this page

1. How scoring works
2. Privacy guarantees
3. Takedown/data purge
4. Opinionated funnel view

How scoring works

• Each ethics prompt is answered on a 1–5 Likert scale. Responses are normalized to 0–1 and combined with transparent weights (see DECENCY_WEIGHTS in app/app.py).
• The weighted sum is scaled to 0–100. Scores ≥85 are Saint, 70–84.99 Balanced, 50–69.99 Questionable, and <50 DBaD.
• Page 2 never affects an individual’s score. Optional demographics only power aggregate maps and trends.
• Survey versions are stored in survey_session.survey_version. If we change wording or weights, we bump the version and keep legacy data visible.

Privacy guarantees

• We do not store names, email addresses, or raw IP addresses. Network signals are hashed with a private salt so we can de-duplicate abuse while staying anonymous.
• Sessions are tracked with UUIDv4 tokens. If you close your browser, we only keep the aggregated answers.
• Only aggregate statistics are published. Country heatmap buckets require a minimum sample size before they appear.

Request a takedown or data purge

If you believe a session should be deleted (for example, you recognize your own words on the public wall), email research@vettedpatriots.org with the session ID or approximate submission time. We remove the record and re-run the aggregates.

Opinionated view of the funnel

1. Page 1 must be fast and universal. Signal quality comes from how people behave under time pressure, not from long identity forms.
2. Page 2 is clearly optional. The copy states why it matters (“help improve the map”), but nobody is blocked from their score.
3. Scores live in a dedicated table. survey_score keeps dashboards fast and lets researchers drill down without re-computing every time.