Panda in a petri dish

Wow...

I own a 512 lot and was getting very into building a new house, until a huge building appeared cordoning off my little plot. It happens, and it didn't bother me that much until i looked at the owner.. a brand new account with the last name "Pitt" belonging to a group called "digi-disc". Looked at the "digi-disc" group and it turns out that it is the virtual classroom for the University of Pittsburgh.

Now i was bothered. I personally don't approve of an institution that is in-part publically funded being given SL assets without community approval. But, again.. no rules were broken.. and things happen. Not that big of a deal.

Except for the fact that I wasn't being told that I am a subject of study.

And it looks like I am involved in this "experiment" now.. after ONE conversation with a student.

Please note that i did not give any permission for my conversation to be posted on a blog, and not only that, but the student who posted seems to have edited out some intertesting viewpoints he/she had regarding the whole situation ---- in essence creating a "sound-bite" of my opinions.

http://www.richardparent.net/fs0003/2004/10/ethics-metaverses.html

Where do you live in SL, pandastrong?

cortina 144 133 I think.. somewhere around there. hehehe

I really would like to post what the student said about what he thinks LL's motives are for university involvement.. but then I would be violiting his privacy rights in my opinion...

I can't believe that 1) this conversation was published without my knowledge or aproval and 2) that the full conversation was chopped up and put back together to suit his/her own needs.

ech

I don't think I like this one bit. If they are here to study us they are going about it the wrong way and you can be sure some people are gonna get pissed. Publishing chat logs can be a very sensitive issue as well especially when they aren't asking permission and they are putting them up in a public space. They can come study me if they like but I would bet the chat log would have to be heavily censored

play there game.. publish who this person is so we know that whenever we speak of them we only help ourselves and speak only highly of sl so it attracts more people when they release there findings.. free advertisement use it to your advantage!

Better yet I think we should start a group to study them studying us.....we should post our findings here.

From what I read of the blog so far it seems they are already trying to sidestep Robin's e-mail to them....doesn't sound as if they are starting off with good intentions

I know of a similar situation where a person joined a MUSH with the purpose of using her experience as the basis for her sociology thesis. However, she was open and above board about the process from the start.

She became a full member of the community, and even discussed in the thesis whether her objectivity was affected by the experience. She's still a member of the commuinity now, even after the work is completed, and in fact sent copies of the thesis to all other member before publication, for their comments.

In that case, I was delighted by the one small conversation quote I got in her work!

In pandastrong's case, I would be less than delighted. Though I am amused that we now get to watch them discuss us in their blog, as well as have them watch us discuss them in this forum.

Who's watching who?!

Maybe pandastrong is a researcher studying the ethical questions arising from a small sample of students who have been led to believe they are studying Second Life.....

(Not a serious suggestion, panda! Love pandas. My RLSO has a panda AV he wears all the time)

Excellent, Orwell on hallucinogenics !! I vote for Talen's idea ! Send me the invite dude I will clear a slot for it !

Since I tore down the house I was building.. maybe I can put the land to good use... a statement maybe?

I'll make my land editable.. anyone who would like to build something.. a sign with your thoughts.. anything really... go for it.

As to who is studying who.. my land is joined with another 512 plot under the group "Alien Scientists".

Done and done...I'll start the group tonight Lecktor...I have a feeling they will love us

What nerve

Maybe our new group can use it as an observitory...so that we might better study and understand our subjects....If you like we can buy the land from you so you can find more suitable living arangements....I'll be on later this evening let me know...

Hey Talen... don't start another group.. just use alien scientist since that land is group owned and you may use it as you wish

The name itself was just something random my friend made when he joined SL.

Self-fullfilling prophecy?

Might work but I think a really long scientific name is needed lol....anyone know where I can get a Beaker AV...you know the muppet

I'd have to talk over selling you the land with my RL friend who also has the ajoining plot.. he is barely on SL these days so it might be tough. Both plots were our "land for landless" purchases ... so it looks like we would have to find a nice overpass to move in under.

Hopefully I'll see you in-world tonight and we can figure out something (can you rename a group once it is already created?)

This is an enlightening post.

I'm wondering if it just slipped Robin's mind to warn us about the Pitts?

Edited to add: There are 21 members of the Pitt Family. Only Richard and David seem to have ventured out into the community (i.e. joined groups, got more than 2-3 rates). Sweaty is the only person with a silly name. Everyone joined on October 14th.

I'd like to submit the above research as my first submission to our study!

Hey Lissie... this is my favorite comment from them -

"By creating this alternative universe, its users are creating all new identities for themselves, masking their true selves and perhaps trying to compensate for some social defect."


Is this person talking about SL or college?

Indeed! I especially liked this comment ! " At 5:28 PM, Jon said...

I think the name Pitt is an appropriate name that doesn't require to much intellectual capacity to understand. I do not like the idea of using an already established media name like "the simpsons", in part because i'd rather be original, and also because it would be hard to agree on a media name that everyone likes . . . (for example - i don't like the simpsons) . . .

I am a big fan of acronyms, especially clever acronyms that spell out another word. However, i had trouble coming up with a clever acronym . . . the UPS (university of Pittsburgh Students), SOUP (Students Of the University of Pittsburgh) SAUPWAIDD (students at university of pittsburg who are in digitial discourse). . . SOUP would be pretty cool . .

Pitt is cool with me, unless we come up with any other witty ones . . ."

I can't wait to meet the Pitts!!

Hmmm, I dunno, I think I don't like this at all. I often don't care if an individual quotes me, publishes things about me, et cetra. I feel this way for the fact that both in RL, and SL, I live by the principal that I have nothing to hide. Go ahead, ask me my name, whereabouts I live, et cetra.

Now having said that, here's the "dunno" part. I am infact very apposed to this group. Why? Its not the matter of publishing without permission as previously mentioned. Its the attitude I felt from the blog comments. The fact that they seem insensative to the fact that people are fundamentally the same, whether in SL or RL, and they must be respected. Some individuals with the group indicate that they have very little to no respect for this, and we are nothing but subjects.

So having said this, I have resigned myself to, "Hello, I'm a student doing resea", "No, I am not interested in aiding your research study. Please remove yourself from my land immediately."

As I said, not a matter of privacy, its a matter of respect. If the group as a whole understood the principal of respect (privacy and the person), then infact I would welcome them with open arms. LL, please, help them understand your resident's point of view on this one, and teach them some sensativity; otherwise, you may have the new incarnation of the days of the Jessie wars on your hands. It may be fun, but it would be very agrevating. Till I see a change in their tones, they're not welcome around me.

Uhh... errr...

What?

They built a building around your ENTIRE plot? That's a TOS violation, last I checked. LL's forced people to provide gaps in walls that block access before.

Now, if they've only built on one or two sides of you, just make sure they're not over your properties lines and live with it. Happily. Quietly. When I had the worlds sixth worst looking "Mall" on one side of me, the second largest (and just plain second) SL club in the sim with me, a giant gaudy purple castle built of badly matched 10x10 prims, or a sex shop stuffed with giant glowing red Light prims next door, I didn't complain.

Well, I complained slightly about the giant purple castle, but that's only because the designer asked my opinion. And I don't comprehend 'tact'.

Though the 'communications' experimentation mention DOES give me a bit of reason to worry. You might want to think about contacting LL and just mentioning that fact, make sure they know to keep an eye on what they're doing. Recording devices that don't VIOLENTLY annouce themselves to anyone nearby are forbidden. Sounds like "communication" experiments could easily cross over into creating something like that.

I don't think you guys understand the significance of Academic Research in SL. It is a great environment to study many things, from social interaction in MMOPG, to the SL Economy, support groups, etc.... It is also great publicity.

As far as some crazy ideas about privacy in SL:

1) I would never assume you have privacy. LL most likely logs every conversation you have.

2) It is good Acedemic policy to scrub any private information. So although they may publish your conversation, it would be unlikely that they would publish your real Av name.

3) How is this different from a socialogist sitting in a park making notes about they way you eat lunch?

Note, I'm not a Pitt... my University research group is going to use SL for research purposes. But we are buying our own private island and not letting SL residents on (except for our Dog and Pony shows)

I don't think it is the privacy issue at all Satchmo, of course I don't speak for Panda. Have you visitied the blog link ? What got me was the condescension and assumption the SL folks are somehow intellectually inferior ?!!

...and don't forget we're also socially inferior! And we're compensating for, uh... something lacking in our First Lives by being here.

First.. Mole - I don't want to there to be any misunderstandings... they didn't build "around" me - there is a mountain behind me.. and them in front. They didn't break any TOS. That is why it bothered me, but not to an extend to mention it to anyone. Just wanted to give a background of the situation.

Satchmo:

1) I know full and well that LL has the right to log my conversations. If they chose to publish them without my consent, I would immediately quit.

2) "it would be unlikely that they would publish your real Av name" ---- read the blog, they already did.

3) If the sociologist blantantly misrepresented how I ate my lunch and named me in his findings, he wouldn't be much a of a sociologist in my opinion. Read the conversaton on the blog... you can very easily see how it is not conversational in some areas. Those areas are where he/she ommitted either parts of what i said or parts of what he/she said.

I thought it was all because I wanted to sleep with my SL Mom.... wait a second... I don't have a SL mom... *runs off and pouts*