Are forum posts public information?

A friend of mine is doing a study of MMO player vocabulary and he wanted me to write some script that would gather all the forum posts for him. I dont think any personal information would be disclosed, he probably just wants some word count statistics and english usage patterns. I told him I wasnt sure if this would be allowed by the ToS, and to contact LL about it. While we wait for their reply, I was wondering what you all personally feel about this.

i dont mind... just throw in a few sl00ts

I see the forums as public info....as long as all the info is left anonymus (sp?..it's early), I see no problems with your friend using the info.

I wouldnt mind either, but I would definately wait on a Linden response. Unlike how it used to be, people have to Log in now to see these posts. It used to be open to all.

Would our names be used in his research?

I don't mind personally; can I get a copy of the study once it's finished?

if it's a publicly readable forum it's public. there's no expectation of privacy if anybody on the web can read the entries names and all.

if the forum requires a login limiting the reader base to those with valid accounts, it is not public. the information can be gleaned; but identifiers should be removed before the results of the study are made public.

When I post an opinion on any public forum, I assume that said opinion is a matter of public record.

Your friend should not have any ethical concerns about using such info.

- Ace

I dont think so. I think its just a matter of linguistic analysis. He often comments on the LOLification of english language so maybe it's related to that? I don't know really. Next time I talk to him I will ask him for details and stuff.

LOLification, my new favorite word. i got to go with the "anonymous is fine" opinion on this.

I don't view forums posts as truly public information, for two reasons.

First, the Lindens can obviously manipulate the forums by deleting words or whole posts (as evidenced by the missing posts many people noticed in the past day or so). I view something that is truly "public" as being tamper-proof.

Second, the Lindens clearly state in the TOS that you cannot repeat any information about another player if it's not listed in his/her SL profile. They say nothing about forum posts. So, for all we know, we could be banned for repeating something said in a forum post by a player *if* that information isn't in that player's profile. It's just not very clear.

Also, the fact that you must have a SL account to access forums puts one more wall between the general public and forum posts.

I certainly view anything I post on forums as being public knowledge; if I didn't want the general population at large to know it, I wouldn't post something on forums. However, I'm not sure if SL forums are legally viewed as public information.

yes, they are public. if he doesn't get permission (informed consent) to quote someone's text, then he should make sure that the text cannot be identified as coming from a particular person.

from a research/academic standpoint, you are mistaken. there are ethical concerns even when using public observations.

I am not sure if this has any implications to this situation, but in dealing with a situation at SLUniverse, I did have an attorney send a DMCA takedown notice to a site for copyright violation for reproducing a thread from my site without permission. The material was removed without needing to proceed further legally.

> I did have an attorney send a DMCA takedown notice to a site for copyright violation for reproducing a thread from my site without permission. The material was removed without needing to proceed further legally.

Interesting. How much does such an action cost? How does one go about finding an attorney for this?

Azelda

I imagine it would vary in price, depending on the attorney - I have a close friend who specializes in IP/patent law, so he was able to help me at a fraction of what I would imagine it would normally cost. Ultimately, it is just a letter that is sent to an ISP on behalf of the copyright holder. If you are interested in pursuing something similiar, I would recommend contacting a law firm that specializes in Intellectual Property law - especially in the technology spectrum.