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[–][deleted]  (32 children)

[deleted]

    [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 34 points35 points  (31 children)

    Of course! Publishing my full data, analysis, and source code (along with providing fulltext for citations) is one of the things I pride myself on.

    [–][deleted]  (1 child)

    [deleted]

      [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

      Random question: Are the countries in the list the ones with the biggest ammount of users, or it was just random?

      I copied it from the LessWrong surveys. I figured that the demographics of modafinil users are probably similar. If I'm very wrong, well, I'll improve the list of countries next year based on the free-response field.

      [–]dingbat21 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      got to tell you: if it was anyone else posting a survey of this sort, i wouldnt bother. but knowing your work, i know the data will be analyzed and nurtured with all proper loving care.

      [–]po-handz 1 point2 points  (5 children)

      Did you get IRB approval to conduct this survey?

      Might be a good thing, could prob help. Gj tho

      [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 5 points6 points  (4 children)

      I don't give a damn what an IRB thinks.

      [–]po-handz -2 points-1 points  (3 children)

      Oh, sorry. I thought you were maybe trying to contribute some legitimate research to the scientific community.

      Misunderstood your intentions I guess.

      [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

      Getting an IRB's approval has always, as far as I've been able to tell, had about as much to do with making something scientifically meaningful as taking off your shoes at the airport make everyone safer. (The idea of IRBs for voluntary anonymous surveys has also always struck me as particularly hilarious.)

      If it matters, I did run the draft survey past some academics and incorporated their feedback.

      [–][deleted]  (1 child)

      [deleted]

        [–]po-handz 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        How does wanting to take an awesome survey and structure it in a way where the results can be used as meaningful research data to influence current prescribing and indication trends make me a prick?

        Some of us are interested in modafinil being available over the counter for enhancing cognition. That doesn't happen without proving it's safe & efficacious.

        [–]AoE-Priest 0 points1 point  (14 children)

        when do you expect the results will be available?

        [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 0 points1 point  (13 children)

        It won't close for another month. Analysis will definitely take a few days to clean up the data, pick the winners, summarize the data in the obvious ways, and maybe try something a little fancy like factor analysis on ratings of nootropics or something. So maybe mid-November?

        [–]Simpsoid 6 points7 points  (1 child)

        Did the survey and one thing I wasn't certain about was the email address. You said all of the results will be public (happy with that) but the "enter in email address for prize" was before that message.

        So will my email address be made public as part of this survey? Doesn't seem entirely relevant to the results and I only entered it for the chance to win a prize. That wasn't made clear at all.

        [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        The emails will be deleted afterwards, as I say in the introduction page.

        [–]tazcel 4 points5 points  (4 children)

        RemindMe! 2 months

        [–]RemindMeBot 2 points3 points  (3 children)

        Messaging you on 2015-11-27 05:19:11 UTC to remind you of this.

        CLICK THIS LINK to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

        Parent commenter can delete this message to hide from others.

        [FAQs] [Custom] [Your Reminders] [Feedback] [Code]

        [–]staspmr 8 points9 points  (0 children)

        CLICK THIS LINK[3] to send a PM to also be reminded and to reduce spam.

        DO YOU GUYS NOT SEE THAT????????

        [–]MarvelousChesthair 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Da fuq... just got reminded today.

        [–]maneatscow -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

        RemindMe! 2 months

        [–]tazcel 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        Hi u/gwern! Just a quick reminder on this thing, November is almost gone! :)

        [–]TheMeiguoren 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        Hey gwern, any updates on when you might put this out? I'm curious to see the results. :)

        [–]zawmbie5 -4 points-3 points  (1 child)

        RemindMe! 2 months

        [–]nootropadelic -2 points-1 points  (0 children)

        RemindMe! 2 months

        [–]jay_jay_man -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

        RemindMe! 2 months

        [–]blahah404 0 points1 point  (5 children)

        any reason not to write a paper? even a preprint would get the attention of people who could provide post-publication peer review.

        [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 1 point2 points  (3 children)

        I'm not sure writing a draft paper would be a good use of time. It would be less readable than my regular writeup, and I don't think it would be publishable since I have not jumped through the usual academic hoops like getting an IRB to sign off on the survey.

        [–]blahah404 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        Good points. The motivation behind my suggestion was that you get some kind of peer review, rather than you go through the tedious academic bureaucracy. Because at the moment you are a lone expert in a field of willing readers, and nobody is perfect.

        [–]slowdownscience 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        We'll review it. I recall a thoroughly entertaining debate about the bioavailability of noopept.

        [–]ObsidianOrangutan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        When do you expect to have it up?

        [–]relbatnrut 16 points17 points  (0 children)

        The answer to "What dosage do you usually use per 24 hours?" will be different depending on which -afinil you're using. You may have intended it to refer only to moda, but it's not clear.

        [–][deleted] 5 points6 points  (3 children)

        I had to stop the survey as it was misbehaving under "How many units & doses is your usual order?" I couldn't deselect rows where there was an entry accidentally made, for 50-100 units it was forcing me to enter 50, 100, 150, or 200 mg for example.

        It would be interesting if this survey included info on rs4680 response, as I'm an A;A and am supposed to not respond to these meds.

        [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 4 points5 points  (2 children)

        I had to stop the survey as it was misbehaving under "How many units & doses is your usual order?" I couldn't deselect rows where there was an entry accidentally made, for 50-100 units it was forcing me to enter 50, 100, 150, or 200 mg for example.

        Huh. That's strange behavior. But I see you're right, in the 'grid' input, once you click a radio button, you can't remove it. I've added a 'NA' row which at least allows one to fix a misclick.

        It would be interesting if this survey included info on rs4680 response, as I'm an A;A and am supposed to not respond to these meds.

        Yes, that's one of the genetics questions. (I'm also interested in a few other SNPs which I think may affect modafinil response.) You probably didn't make it that far.

        [–]staspmr 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        genetics questions

        Can you please link to the papers for the response? I found this one, but not others http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19037200?dopt=Abstract Mine are RS4680 AG RS4570625 GG RS4633 CT

        [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        I can link to Bodemann but not the others.

        [–]AoE-Priest 2 points3 points  (3 children)

        One thing I wasn't clear on was "significant side effects". If I have a mild headache that doesn't bug me much, should I tick that off or is it not significant?

        [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 4 points5 points  (2 children)

        Does it stop you from getting anything done or interfere noticeably with anything? If it doesn't bother you much, I'd guess one wouldn't consider that significant, but you could always add 'mild headache' using the free-response field.

        [–]Aargau 0 points1 point  (1 child)

        Just a comment on the assessability of self-reporting of side-effects. Cognitive affectors are often more subtle and potentially have less ability to be self-reported than "is your pee green?".

        Very anecdotally I found that after 4 years there were periods where I have had higher risk tolerance than I would consider baseline. I'm dual Val/Met. I'm also a stochastic model financial trader (among medical and software endeavors), and at some point I'll try and analyze my financial decisions against the VIX or other financial risk metrices.

        [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

        I agree that self-report is not ideal, but it's better than nothing and in some cases, the objective differences are large enough that I think they should show up in aggregated self-reports even granting the higher inaccuracy/noise of self-reports compared to concrete performance measurements. For example, Bodemann's correlation of modafinil effect with a particular gene is striking enough that it should determine a lot of whether one finds modafinil useful and this should show up in the ratings. (But in fact, I've been prototyping my analyses on a copy of the survey responses from the 7th and far from being a positive & large predictor of more favorable ratings of modafinil, the gene in question is slightly negatively correlated!)

        [–]purpletoblack 3 points4 points  (0 children)

        Grouping cognitive enhancement with focus makes it tricky for me to fill out the survey, so I hope it's okay to just summarize modafinil's effects on me. It greatly improves my focus (200mg of Modalert gives me figurative tunnel vision) and in that sense feels like a powerful NDRI or even DRA, but this focus trades off with other forms of cognition, and I feel incredibly impaired. At lower doses, I feel less impaired, but anywhere in the ~40mg to 200mg range feels emotionally dulling (albeit in a dose dependent manner) and makes thoughts and experiences less exciting, which is why I rarely take it. Boredom becomes more tolerable but life becomes far more boring.

        Unlike with NDRIs, the hyperfocus on modafinil even trades off with motivation for me. This is essentially the inverse of pramiracetam for me which seems to significantly increase my motivation but has a neutral to slightly negative effect on my ability to focus. Motivation and focus seem to be completely orthogonal aspects of cognition.

        TL;DR Modafinil increases my focus but decreases my motivation, creativity, general ability to think, and excitement with experiencing life. Additionally, focus and motivation are distinct aspects of cognition, and the survey didn't seem to allow rating them differently.

        [–]jay_jay_man 2 points3 points  (1 child)

        Would love to take your survey but my order still hasn't arrived yet (21 days now) :-(

        Would adrafinil users count?

        [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

        Well, it'll be open for another month, so if you get it soon and take a week or so to try it, you can always submit a response then. And if not, I hope to run another survey next year.

        And yes, adrafinil users count, just as much as armodafinil does.

        [–]pl8er 2 points3 points  (2 children)

        Great survey, and I'm very interested in the results. I use "mod" daily and would like to better understand it's impact on other users. Also would like to know the overall rating of the suppliers as I have always used Modup

        [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 5 points6 points  (1 child)

        I didn't include ratings for suppliers because that would have been a giant grid, considering all the suppliers that have come and gone, and it's an invitation to sockpuppeting/spam. Life is too short for that. (Remember that however nice they may act to me or you, modafinil suppliers can be quite nasty to each other; you probably weren't here for the 'modafinil wars' back when MyModafinil disappeared etc - I and the other mods still have no idea what on earth was really going on there other than it seemed like everyone was getting hacked or informed on every day. Spamming my survey so they can point to my results showing high ratings is totally something that some of them might do, unfortunately.)

        [–]SmugPolyamorist 2 points3 points  (0 children)

        There aren't many people on the net I'd trust to actually give out $1000 in survey prizes - gwern is one of them

        [–]elevul 2 points3 points  (2 children)

        This needs to be changed to days:

        If you experienced tolerance, how many weeks did it take to develop?

        [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

        Maybe on the next survey if '1 week' turns out to be really common.

        [–]elevul 1 point2 points  (0 children)

        '1 week'

        Or no answer at all.

        [–][deleted]  (2 children)

        [deleted]

          [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

          OK, I'll add that to the next survey. Emotional instability, aggressiveness/impatience, or depression are worth asking about.

          [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (2 children)

          Good survey, happy to contribute. Love r-moda to death, been using it for a year almost daily.

          Can't wait to see the results!

          [–]Vikingofthehill -1 points0 points  (1 child)

          How does r-moda compare to amphetamines (assuming you've tried both)?

          I am looking for some kind of drug that can boost my working hours from 12 to 16 a day, without inducing insomnia;P

          [–]highreed 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          Just taken the survey, looking forward to those results gwern

          [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          Thanks, interested in reading the results

          [–][deleted] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          Filled it out; great survey!

          [–]Rielo 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          I forgot to mention as a side effect a low mood as it wears off and next day tiredness and low mood. Anyone else?

          I am interested in the survey results especially knowing Gwern's analytical powers. It seems to be too much oriented towards people who buy online.

          I would also asked if any other substance used at the same time including coffee.

          [–]eo1986 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          When do we get the results?

          [–]GetHungOrDieJelqin 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Can't wait for results. Would love to better understand why modafinil doesn't help me (not sure if it's genetic). Unfortunately I fear the results will be biased toward people who respond well to the drug. I know I've been turned off from nootropics because they generally do nothing for me.

          [–]Typhera 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Where can you even build good quality modafinil? I heard about Indian generics but, no idea where and how, any info?

          [–]EST_1994 0 points1 point  (1 child)

          Took Modafinil for 1 years. I tried to stop for 1 week. Worst week of my life. I stayed at home for 1 week. I will never take modafinil again. I only took 1/4 200mg everyday. It's too dangerous. I would love to replace modafinil with something else, no idea what should i take for my ADHD.

          [–]jorus983 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          All drugs should be used in moderation. This includes caffeine and also includes modafinil.

          [–]SnarkySincerity 0 points1 point  (1 child)

          Great survey. Can't wait to see the results!

          I couldn't figure out a good way to convey that certain nootropics are highly effective for me but not in a positive direction. For instance, pramiracetam gives me a feeling of despair, accompanied by obsession with the thought that life is worthless.

          Responding that pramiracetam is very effective for me doesn't sound right, but neither does saying it's ineffective or moderately effective.

          [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          I would say that it's ineffective with side-effects: it did nothing useful, and suicidal ideation is definitely considered a bad side-effect.

          [–][deleted] 0 points1 point  (1 child)

          I just filled it out. didnt realise there are other SNPs that have possible implications for modafinil metabolism. Could you direct me to how I can know?

          I am AG, GT, CT

          [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          You can look up the other SNPs on SNPedia and I think you will see why I am interested in them vis-a-vis one's modafinil & other nootropics ratings.

          [–]seb012 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          I just completed the survey! just wondering if anyone else is aware of any other surveys/studies about modafinil/armodafinil?

          [–]nakedproof 0 points1 point  (2 children)

          I accidentally submitted before logging into 23andme for the gene data... anyone know how to find and edit my response?

          EDIT: I used this address: 1Lf7ER2QNTMWQimMtmhaMonVaTTcxKnyK5

          • SNP rs4680: AG
          • rs4570625: GG
          • rs4633: CT

          [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 1 point2 points  (1 child)

          As far as I know, you can't. The survey interface in Google Docs does offer a 'let users edit their responses' option but then mentions it requires logged-in users(Google users, presumably), so I didn't enable it. I can probably just edit those in by hand.

          [–]nakedproof 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Cool, thanks, I closed the tab and saw I had those 23andme tabs open. Interested to see the data set when the poll is closed.

          [–]andrei_atu 0 points1 point  (2 children)

          Any news on the results of this? Let us know! :) thanks!

          [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 3 points4 points  (1 child)

          Unavoidably delayed due to a higher priority project. If you're fine with gory preliminary results and unfinished analysis and writeups, or just want to look at the raw data yourself: http://gwern.net/Modafinil%20survey

          [–]andrei_atu 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Thanks, appreciate it!

          [–]Ancillery 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          So what ever happened to this?

          [–]LiterallySagan 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          In the "test question to ser if you're paying attention" what did we have to answer? I answered yes. I hope that doesn't exclude my answers.

          [–]Betterme215 0 points1 point  (2 children)

          This can be viewed as a [not so] subtle way of suggesting that 'ModafinilCat' is a reliable online retailer - given that 5 participants will win free supply from ModafinilCat. Are they that trusted?

          [–]gwerngwern.net[S] 2 points3 points  (1 child)

          It was not my intention to suggest that they are the best or anything like that... They just offered a prize and publicity on their mailing list, and I thought both would make the survey much better (and I think I was right to accept, inasmuch as the survey is now up to 1626 responses - well beyond my expectations, where I was going to consider 500 responses a big success and well worth detailed analysis).

          I do believe that they, Rx_Rex, and Modup (to name the ones that come to mind first) can be trusted* to honor their word about any prize and would in fact ship real modafinil to the winner. If you consider that endorsement, then make the most of it.

          * for now (a proviso should go without saying when talking about modafinil sellers)

          [–]Betterme215 1 point2 points  (0 children)

          I appreciate your response, and for what it's worth, I do believe your intent is sincere - free from any underlying 'marketing' agenda. And as others have articulated, I too am [eagerly] looking forward to your analysis.

          As a side note, I will be placing my first modafinil order shortly. (Feedback will be provided)

          [–][deleted] -1 points0 points  (0 children)

          I made it half way through and lost focus.. (I don't take modafinil on the weekend)

          [–]machete234 -1 points0 points  (1 child)

          So when do I get my bitcoin?

          [–]pl8er 0 points1 point  (0 children)

          Oh yeah, I forgot about the bitcoin - stupid mod.