kileyay wrote:
We didn't know there was some standard you had to meet or some level of peer social proof you had to display for your testing to be legitimate.
I think what Tom and others are saying is that your study borders on a "scientific experiment." Which I, being an engineer myself, would agree with. But that's great! I think that's where your heart lay in the first place; trying to standardize a testing environment, removing as many variables as possible etc. etc. This is essentially what any kind of scientific experiment (on the physics/engineering/aerodynamics side anyway) tries to do.
I think you have inadvertently arrived at this standard you refer to and if you so wish, could complete the "process" and call it an official "peer-reviewed scientific study" and even publish it in "aerodynamics weekly" (or whatever journal willing to publish it).
kileyay wrote:
So help me out...what's the standard? How does this study earn legitimacy in the eyes of people who 'care about protocols' if the ability and experience and expertise of the people involved is not enough?
In the "scientific community" of which you could now call yourself a member of, legitimacy is brought about by transparent reporting of your experiment, and asking appropriate "peers" to review your work prior to publishing. Sometimes when you submit your "paper" to a scientific journal, they will have a board/pool of reviewers and get a number of them to review it. Have you found any similar published articles online? Who reviewed those?
I'm my opinion you have no obligation to undergo any of the above process. I think you've been extremely forthcoming with your intentions at the outset, transparent throughout your testing process and steadfast in sticking to your guns regarding the likely audience of this report and it's level of detail.
However, as an engineer I will always say "YAY Science!!" or as Jessie in Breaking Bad said, "Science BITCH!"