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#### Why do I need 100 (or X) of my peers to sign before I act?
You don't! If you'd like to get started early, by all means do. But even if you're planning to preregister your next study anyway, there are still multiple benefits to signing this pledge. By signing this pledge, you'll be (a) signalling your commitment to open science practices (both to authorities and your peers), (b) increasing accountability (as we'll be assessing compliance with the pledges down the track), (c) helping to motivate others who may still be on the fence about preregistration or have some reservations given their current circumstances, and (d) bringing the campaign closer to the threshold, which will generate publicity and help grow our community of change-makers. Finally, if/when your pledge activates and you follow through with your pledge, you'll be demonstrating that you are committed to following through on pledges, which will be invaluable in convincing others that we are committed to widespread cultural change.
#### Why focus on simple actions (e.g., preregistration) and small thresholds (e.g., 100 pledges)?
On a practical note, we're still developing our processes, and starting small with simple actions like this gives us the best chance of reaching the threshold, rolling out the pledge activation phase, and assessing impacts once the campaign has run its course. On a more strategic note, our goal is to build a large community of researchers who act together to solve systemic problems in academia through collective action. Building this community will not happen instantaneously, and will likely require evidence that our community is committed to action. By starting small and collecting pledges across multiple campaigns at once, we give people the opportunity to demonstrate commitment to their pledges, which can then bolster confidence in our community and attract other people to the movement. In time, with data to show that our community follows through on their pledges, we plan to host ever-larger and bolder campaigns that push for widespread systemic change throughout academia. From little things, big things grow.
#### What happens if my circumstances change before my pledge activates?
Academia is a turbulent industry, in these difficult times more than ever. We're not interested in punishing you for circumstances beyond your control, so if your situation changes before your pledge activates, just let us know and we'll remove your pledge. Just please make sure to do this *prior* to your pledge activating, so that your pledge doesn't trigger other people's pledges ahead of the time that they have the level of community support they signed up for, or detract from our goal of demonstrating a commitment to pledges within our community.
#### How do I know that people will follow through on their pledges?
Unlike other pledge campaigns (e.g., [Cost of Knowledge](http://thecostofknowledge.com/)), we plan to analyse and share if/when people have followed through on their pledges (e.g., using different colours to indicate completed/broken pledges). In the short term, this approach will provide accountability and motivation for people to uphold their pledges. In the long term, this data will be essential in bolstering confidence that pledges will be acted upon. For example -- once a significant number of small-scale campaigns have been conducted and analysed -- future campaigns could include a confidence interval based on this data that indicates the likelihood that pledges under the current campaign will be acted upon in good faith. In turn, (we hope) this will bolster confidence that other people will follow through with their pledges and encourage new people to join the movement.