[ad404b8a372f2b9]

This is not Princeton's organizational policy or internal regulation, this is the regulatory definition of human subjects research as set by the government. Its semantic interpretation and the "about whom" requirement is exactly how you go about making a determination about whether your research is human subjects research.

[vmception]

In that case I care, and would say that’s an inadequate way to prevent trolling by researchers

[msla]

Any research which involves human subjects is human subject research.

Nobody can disagree with that.

[ad404b8a372f2b9]

The US federal government does, as do many western governments. Research that involves humans usually comes under many delineations and sub-delineations with precise names that reflect specific ways in which the research takes place and the corresponding laws and regulations which the researchers must follow.

Determining which category a specific research project comes under usually involves checking specific criteria, in the US they have flowcharts, in Europe they have tables. Either way you can be sure a lot of people are going to be looking at it, most of whom have had to undertake ethics training as part of their career, and some of whom have spent their entire life studying these questions and seen them put to the test over hundreds of trials.

In that light, whether this category of research has got "human" in its name is not going to get you far wrt understanding the problem at hand.

source: I've undertaken interventionist medical research in the U.S and Europe.