I'm studying you. Is this ok?

[bariboh]

( Let me apologize for posting this at the last minute. It took me a while to clue in to the 5-post minimum. It's a hectic time of year and I'm a bit jaded. )

Hello!

I am a third-year undergraduate student of public policy at Carleton University. As a term paper for my policy research class, I am conducting a content analysis of six Canadian political message boards, including this one.

A content analysis is a systematic assessment of the form and substance of a medium of communication. Ethical considerations play a very minor role in this type of research because researchers can imply consent from the fact that the material they are examining has been published. Also, there is no direct contact with the researcher and the authors of the content, so nothing that the researcher does can severely impact the authors’ well-being. University ethics codes contain rules that reflect these assumptions, and they consider anything that is freely available on the internet to be “published material”. For this reason, I began my study without asking for your consent.

My research looked only at messages that related to Afghanistan and were posted in September 2006 or December 2008. I looked for differing opinions about Canada’s mission, how these were articulated, how the debate progressed, and how the medium of communication affects the conversation.

Over the course of my research, I got the feeling that I was eavesdropping. I learned in class to trust my intuition when it comes to ethics; uncomfortable feelings are often an indication of ethical issues that need to be discussed.

This message is a part of what sociologists call “debriefing”. Once the observation phase of a study is complete, researchers conduct interviews with their subjects in order to better understand how the research affects the subjects personally. This helps to clarify ethical questions for future research.

I want to know what you think about my study, especially in regard to the following questions:

1) Do you consider your forum posts to be public information or a private conversation?

2) Do you feel that I violated your privacy in reading and/or studying your posts?

3) Should I have asked for permission first?

4) Would it violate your privacy if I quoted your post in my paper?

5) Would it violate your privacy if I referred to your username in my paper?

6) Would your opinion be different if my paper were to be published? (It won’t.)

7) Would your opinion be different if I were working for the government? (I’m not.)

Feel free to offer anything that you think will help me with these ethical questions, and my research in general. I am also curious about who you all are in real life (e.g. age, occupation, etc.), though I understand if you want to preserve your anonymity. I will check back in a couple of days to address any concerns you might have. I am also happy to post the final version of my paper, once I am finished writing it.

Thank you!

Grégoire Baribeau

3rd Year Public Affairs and Policy Management

Specializing in International Studies

Carleton University

Ottawa, Ontario, Canada

Edited April 14, 2009 by Charles Anthony
This post meets moderator approval.

[Michael Hardner]

Mr. Baribeau

I want to know what you think about my study, especially in regard to the following questions:

1) Do you consider your forum posts to be public information or a private conversation?

2) Do you feel that I violated your privacy in reading and/or studying your posts?

3) Should I have asked for permission first?

4) Would it violate your privacy if I quoted your post in my paper?

5) Would it violate your privacy if I referred to your username in my paper?

6) Would your opinion be different if my paper were to be published? (It won’t.)

7) Would your opinion be different if I were working for the government? (I’m not.)

1) Public

2) No

3) No

4) No - but there are likely legal considerations with MLW

5) No

6) No

7) No

I consider forum posts to be transcripts of public conversations.

Be sure to let us know the responses to your paper.

mh

[Smallc]

1) Public

2) No

3) No

4) No - but there are likely legal considerations with MLW

5) No

6) No

7) No

Those accurately reflect my feelings as well.

[Barts]

I want to know what you think about my study, especially in regard to the following questions:

1) Do you consider your forum posts to be public information or a private conversation?

2) Do you feel that I violated your privacy in reading and/or studying your posts?

3) Should I have asked for permission first?

4) Would it violate your privacy if I quoted your post in my paper?

5) Would it violate your privacy if I referred to your username in my paper?

6) Would your opinion be different if my paper were to be published? (It won’t.)

7) Would your opinion be different if I were working for the government? (I’m not.)

1. Public

2. No

3. No

4. No

5. No

6. No

7. No

[M.Dancer]

1) Do you consider your forum posts to be public information or a private conversation?

2) Do you feel that I violated your privacy in reading and/or studying your posts?

3) Should I have asked for permission first?

4) Would it violate your privacy if I quoted your post in my paper?

5) Would it violate your privacy if I referred to your username in my paper?

6) Would your opinion be different if my paper were to be published? (It won’t.)

7) Would your opinion be different if I were working for the government? (I’m not.)

1) Public

2-7) no

[madmax]

I am a third-year undergraduate student of public policy at Carleton University. As a term paper for my policy research class, I am conducting a content analysis of six Canadian political message boards, including this one.

I want to know what the other 5 boards are??

[Molly]

I agree with the above, but am not so entirely satisfied with the answers to 5,6 and 7. The uniform 'no's describe what we must expect, are the 'real world' answers, and I would not change them... but....

Certainly these are public conversations, but I, for one, would generally consider them to be primarily for the consumption of the folks sharing in them. There is a degree of comfortable, assumed anonymity that encourages an extremely high degree of candour. The loss of that sense of 'semi-privacy'- establishing an awareness of a larger audience- would/could interfere with the easy flow of conversation, and in so doing, harm the medium.

I would not want the public nature of this medium to put those who spout falsehood, hate speach, threats, hyperbole... what have you... at any risk of legal action. Those messages are part of the search for real understanding that brings us here.

[Peter F]

1) Public

2-7) no

[Shakeyhands]

1) Public

2-7) no

ditto

[Keepitsimple]

I agree with everyone else - Public on the first and "no" to the rest....but a word of caution. Make sure you view postings within the context of the original subject and the entire thread in general. some posts are complete and can stand on their own merits but others have to be considered in the context of the ongoing thread......there are even some "tongue in cheek" comments so be careful. You'll find some very thoughtful and insightful posts but you'll also come across many posts that express the frustration of a disjointed thread and must be viewed in that context.

[Machjo]

1) Do you consider your forum posts to be public information or a private conversation?

A public conversation.

2) Do you feel that I violated your privacy in reading and/or studying your posts?

No. If I intended for my conversation to be private, I would not conduct it in a forum.

3) Should I have asked for permission first?

Yes. I'm not offended by what you did at all, but asking permission would always be more polite. Whenever we're in doubt, it's preferable to be too polite than not polite enough.

4) Would it violate your privacy if I quoted your post in my paper?

No. I view forums as means to promote ideas publicly. Granted, owing to the informality of forums, I sometimes take liberties in the following ways:

- Sarcasm.

- Hypothetical situations. I might throw an idea out even though I don't necessariy agree with it myself more as a way to test the waters before getting into more controversial issues, or just to learn more aobut the others in the forum in general.

- testing out ideas. I might throw out an idea even though I'm not sure myself whether or not I agree with it. Sometimes it's a way to explore my own ideas.

5) Would it violate your privacy if I referred to your username in my paper?

No. I view my identity under my user name to be a public identity, not necessairly reflective of my real identity. See my response to 4) above. I must say however that my public identity does reflect my private identity considerably, but may still express ideas at times that I don't necessarily agree with more as a way to explore ideas. Then again, i do do that in real life with friends too. So maybe my public identity does in fact reflect my private one to a considerable degree.

6) Would your opinion be different if my paper were to be published? (It won’t.)

No, it wouldn't.

7) Would your opinion be different if I were working for the government? (I’m not.)

No, it wouldn't.

[Machjo]

I was wondering. Did you include a French-language message board too? Topics in English-language and French-language message boards can be quite different.

[roof_top_eagle]

I want to know what you think about my study, especially in regard to the following questions:

1) Do you consider your forum posts to be public information or a private conversation?

2) Do you feel that I violated your privacy in reading and/or studying your posts?

3) Should I have asked for permission first?

4) Would it violate your privacy if I quoted your post in my paper?

5) Would it violate your privacy if I referred to your username in my paper?

6) Would your opinion be different if my paper were to be published? (It won’t.)

7) Would your opinion be different if I were working for the government? (I’m not.)

1) It's a public forum that anyone can join, so it's anything but private coversation

2)No

3)Maybe

4)No

5)No

6)No

7)No

Feel free to use any post I've made in your paper and feel free to PM me if you want to talk more.

It's good to see people looking at actual people's point of view for papers instead of only formal studies, articles and polls

[cybercoma]

1) Public

2-7) No

As others have already said, but not because others have already said it.

Now if you were to lift someone's ideas from the board, publish them in a paper and not reference the ideas as someone else's... that might be ethically questionable. Of course, then you run into a grey area... how do you reference a message forum? What if the person that made the post was plagiarizing someone else's work and you unknowingly attributed to that poster, even though it is not theirs. Those questions should probably be considered.

Edited April 19, 2009 by cybercoma

[Muddy]

If we were not exhibitionists we would not be posting here and on other forums.Once something is written in this space it can not be retrieved.It is public domain. With saying that , good manners are always in style as our Mom`s taught us. So yes ,to keep Mom pleased with you ,ask first. Good luck with your paper.

[Borg]

Other five boards please/

It is only proper - afterall research needs to be open and transparent

Besides, maybe I want to go there as well.

Borg