Panda in a petri dish

Sing along with the common people
Sing along and it might just get you through
Laugh along with the common people
Laugh along even though they're laughing at you
And the stupid things that you do
Because you think that poor is cool.

Like a dog lying in a corner
They will bite you and never warn you
Look out.

They'll tear your insides out

`cos everybody hates a tourist
Especially one who thinks it's all such a laugh
Yeah and the chip stain and grease will come out in the bath

We are talking about kids here...most of them are likely on the low end of the age curve in SL. The Prof seems to have a tendancy towards sweeping generalizations and broad statements...but so do most freshman year English 101 prof's. They use that to light a fire under the students rumps in order to excite them about an idea. The only thing I wish would have occured was more of a proffesor guided conversation between those in sl and the classmates on the blog. They could have used this as an opportunity to search for answers to some serious questions regarding the viability of online relationships and the next step towards a standardized code of internet ethics or even how the manner in which they conduct themselves within a virtual society is much different than how they would conduct themselves in a face to face meeting. We all know these students would never speak like that if they were studying the inner workings of a communications company. These students are likely too young question their own motives and too young to realize the intricacies and subtleties of human behavior online or offline.

We were all there once. We all came to the age where we felt omnicient and then we quickly fell into the age where we realized that we know absolutely nothing past our own nose and then our knowledge is meager. But it takes times like this to force us to question both ourselves and the world around us and learn to formulate opinions knowing that those opinions could (and will likely) change within the next heartbeat... and that is part of growing up, both for the students and for the sl community.

As an academic, I have to say, this guy seems like someone I teach, or try to teach, my students what not to act like as researchers.

Arrogant, self-absorbed and self-righteous come to mind.

5 page flame-fest? You are kidding, right? You obviously need to go do some more preparatory research if you think this thread is a flame fest.

I truly worry that Richard is going to do something with this publication-wise and really screw up the current literature in my field. With an attitude like that expressed in his post, I have no confidence in him, his study or his research ethics.

Public notice: I will not participate voluntarily. Pitt family, you are not welcome on my or my group's land.

Those of you that don't wanna be studied are all a bunch of sissy labrats! I mean, people!

start here and go down the list
http://www.richardparent.net/fs0003/2004/10/ethics-metaverses.html
http://www.blogger.com/profile/4196180
http://www.richardparent.net/
http://www.richardparent.net/FS0003.pdf

the pdf describes the course... and his department explain his cavalier attitude toward human subjects.

u pitt office of research contacts info
http://www.pitt.edu/~offres/staff.html

These are not "researchers" as I understand the term, beyond research for their own personal use.

No statistics will be polled, no surveys filled out. Just personal experiences written down in essays entitled "My Second Life" about their experiences of digital communication within a virtual world.

This isn't an organized study on digital communication, unless these students essays are going to be handed off to another researcher to somehow compile. This is a writing instruction course. It could just as easily be about coin collecting.

Thanks for the links - Avatar formally known as His Grace...

I got a good laugh.. especially the 'as a serious investigator' comment.

All I can say is - you want serious investigation and a crash course on what you can and can't publish/broadcast (seeing how the web is simultaneously doing both) -- I'll arrange an internship here at work and you can see how that works in the real world.

You'd be suprised at how easy it is to have your ass handed to you with a side order of legal papers for seems like the stupidest thing.

Siggy.

I dont like being used. I realy dont like being used when I am paying for a service. I realy don't care Rickard Parent and the assumption that he can copy and past text to any web he wants. All this makes me very uncomfotable. Good thing his email address was easy to find.

1) people aren't coins
2) research isn't just about numbercrunching
3) it's one thing for an individual to do these things, and another for an instructor to direct a class in this direction without human research review. it's not good for the field, it's not good for the student, and it's not good for the university.

part of the problem is that a university english instructor has entered the grey area between a writing exercise and an enthographic study. enthographic studies do fall under the category of human research protocols.

I did not agree to be a part of this study.

I am not being paid to be a part of this study.

And for them to post conversation is a violation of the CS. So ban em

Wow.

As I am constantly analyzing SL myself for my own personal understanding, I find Academic assessment to be an excellent goal. I think a few things to keep in mind:

1. Heisenburg's Theory of Uncertainty.
You can't know the object without altering it. And vice versa. You want to study SL? You will help alter it, and it will alter you. It is the changes that are probably what is most interesting to study. In this respect, I think the Pitts are on target.

2. Transparency.
If you want to know what a place is like, you need to blend in. By having the last names, free accounts, and not dealing with land barrons, they are seperating themselves from the normal residents and not getting a true experience. I propose a better way would be if LL would have provided them with debit accounts and let them learn to deal with things themselves.

3. Ethics.
Science without ethics is atrocity. It seems you have two options:
A. Get permission from study participants.
B. Keep any study subjects completely anonymous.
I would STRONGLY encourage residents whose personal conversations are intruded on, or TOS trampled on in any way to REPORT them. This will actually help their study since abuse and dealing with griefers is something that is part of the SL experience.

The Pitts seem to want to use "deception" to study without interference. The problem is that their surnames already give them away.

But further, research is supposed to be ANONYMOUS if you're not getting peoples' permission. You've posted names already. You've violated the TOS. Your whole study is in question, and sorry to say, if I were reading your study this may be sufficient to invalidate any of your results.

Perhaps Linden Lab can learn from this obvious, unethical mistake and provide a healthier, ethical ruleset for future academic studies.

The students are not the problem here though. If by chance the prof is using the information in a "study" then that is another situation on the whole and he should be held to strict codes of conduct and ethical principles detailed by several other posters. So far he only asked a question of his students regarding the ethics of studying virtual reality users through their avatar and posted his own personal feelings regarding the use of deceptive tactics in psychology. It seems this was for a writing assignment simply detailing their views on the topic. I still can't get past the fact that these are freshman. If people want to lash out at a prof for not taking the time to create a suitable curriculum then so be it. But accusing the freshman of sloppy science in an english class is laughable to say the least.

the prof deserves a great deal of criticism for his lack of preparation and for his poor attitude.
i don't think anyone is accusing the freshman of sloppy science per se. it's not their fault they weren't prepared, so it's not their fault they wound up doing bad science.

but they are in college to learn, and they should learn that interacting with the public for academic purposes is a touchy subject, and that there is a right way and an wrong way to do it.

there is a whole meta-discussion that can be held over the duties of a writer to the subjects he writes about. but that's really not the point here.

this instructor sent his students into the field to do what ammount to an enthographic study, and he didn't prepare his students methodologically or ethically, and his students stepped on a landmine. not the freshmen's fault, but it's their (and their instructor's) mess none the less.

What I find most unfortunate about this situation is something that I see happening from Linden Lab a lot of the time - being re-active to issues on the forums, rather than pro-active. This thread was rightly posted and, prompted by this, Robin makes a post in the announcements forum giving the low down on what's happening - this really is something that should of happened without prompting, before people were left to feeling this way. It happens so often with them, it's unbelievable. Somebody posts something on the forum about a subject and suddenly there's a post in the announcement forum about it – it’s like they forget or, maybe worse, wanted to keep it quiet.

Is the presence of education establishments in SL a problem? Not necessarily but it appears that Linden Lab didn't do two things here that they should of:

1. Announce to the community that this was going on before the brown stuff hit the fan.
2. Explain their own TOS and community standards to those entering under this project.

As for the response from the Professor on this thread, well I've never been a fan of academia as I've experienced the arrogance and condescension first hand on numerous occasions that seems to prevail in those arenas, so I'd have to say the tone of the post doesn't entirely suprise me.

And?



And neither is this writing project! God, how long has it been since you've been in college? Did they have ANY required writing courses in there? It's just a TOPIC on which to be written! That's all! They won't be involving numbers, statistics, or anything else, unless they spontaneously and individually decide to.



So if the writing course were about their methods of communication in the real world, you would have exactly as much problem with it too? How the fuck would you ever know? And how the fuck would you ever think to have the RIGHT to tell a person they can't write about THEIR OWN LIVES. SL is now just as much theirs as it is anyone else's. They'll be writing about their own Second Lives. If you think you have any say in what they can or can not write, you've got another surprise coming. And LL only has meager, if any, control over what they can or cannot write.



Mind sharing what enthographic means? My dictionaries are choking, and despite a perfect verbal PSAT score, I'm drawing a blank too.



And as The Professor pointed out (and it's not something he made up, as I've heard it myself on many occasions too), "distanced, silent observation" that reduces or practically eliminates this so-called interference comes up with what essentially is CRAP results. They won't be getting a 'genuine' experience of what it is to live a Second Life without LIVING A SECOND LIFE.

Part of that seems to be A) Pissing people off and B) Knowing that at any moment personal details about your life might be violently exposed to the surrounding world.



And to be perfectly honest, I doubt anyone you walk up to today in SL would know what the hell is so special about the Pitts. The mass public of SL does not read the forums, and unless LL just made a MOTD on the fact that the Pitts are here, a large majority won't have a clue. The Forums != Second Life. As much as many of us (myself included) would like to think so.



B is the only possible option here, because unless LL includes a "Be a part of study" clause in their TOS and makes everyone sign it, they've got no chance of ever obtaining A fast enough for the class. I agree, privacy was infringed upon, and unethically so, but as we saw with the TV-Code/AngelLeviathan case, LL will not go out of their way to block EXTERNAL sites from posting SL information, and that quite probably extends to things we believe to be TOS violations.

Lemme say that another way:
The things we believe to be TOS violations are apparently NOT TOS violations if they're done on external, non-LL run sites. It's a fine distinction, but I never saw LL remove a SINGLE post from Angel linking to her "webpage" containing the TV code, yet they consistantly removed her posts from these forums. Which means that external sites are apparently fair game. That's just something we're going to have to learn to live with, or change LL's mind about (but good luck doing so).

The other alternative, of course, would be to try to sue the student/school for unauthorized recording of a conversation, but in some states you only need permission from one of the participants, and until you actually SUE, complaining about it will be just that. Complaining. Nothing more.



Well, if ONE STUDENT hadn't fucked things up, we might not have ever known they were here. Which I, for one, would have been fine with. Now I just want desperately to go build that giant microscope as a joke, but feel that others would probably use it as a "rallying point" to harrass the poor freshmen newbies.



This is NOT a study.

Lemme say that again.

THIS IS NOT A STUDY.

This is a damn writing course. This MIGHT be associated with a college of sciences, but more than likely it's associated with a college of arts! This is a course on learning how to write like a college student! Their chosen subject could be ROCKS someday, who knows! This is not an organized study under scientific controls with surveys and control groups and such. This is an informal "Here, have this, write what you think about it, and I'll grade your paper on the structure." The STRUCTURE. The way the content is PRESENTED. Not the content itself!



Ptht.



This is not science! It's writing! ART! MAYBE the science of how to write an essay that won't get you an F, but it's JUST WRTIING. The art of writing well! That's all!



Hello?! The Professor (I swear, that should be his name!) is a damn newbie too! He didn't fully understand there were a bunch of overreactive, oversensitive, whackos in SL! He probably didn't even fully read the rules himself, figuring that like most other MMOs, they're generally ignored anyway. Now he'll know for next time! And I damn well HOPE there's going to be a next time!

On top of that, read what I said above about external sites! Yes, he should have possibly figured out that because we're all used to LL being over-protective about their OWN FORUMS, he didn't stop to think that WE might have gotten used to it (god, I can remember when everyone HATED the "No Log Posting" rule). And we certainly didn't realize that the "No Log Posting" rule didn't extend to external sites. But it MAKES SENSE.

On external sites, LL has no real way of knowing who posted the log (if it was a friend of the av, or if the You's have all been altered to reflect other names) and more importantly LL has no way of actually preventing external sites from posting logs. So they probably aren't going to try. It's why that comment is still there un-removed.



Now this I can somewhat agree with. LL HAS been quite reactive lately. It started at LEAST way back in the 1.5 Preview, if not long before that. It's getting annoying.

But did LL have any real buisness posting the names and location information of individual users, when they themselves prevent us from posting the same (unless it's our own)?

I don't think the REAL problem here is the external log posting, but the fact that I NOW know that any person with Pitt as their last name lives in Pittsburg, goes to college there, and is taking a writing course focusing on so-called "digital discourse".

That's a HELL of a lot of personal information. Why the HELL does anyone here think they're entitled to that information when they're sitting here arguing that the students don't have a right to view our unprotected Second Lives?



LL already did that, actually. Apparently in some white paper or somesuch, or a news article about Second Life U or something that I DO remember reading a month+ ago, they mentioned that universities would be using SL as a studying ground.

LL should have left it at that.

Instead, they went and posted highly personal information about future users of SL in an attempt to appease the overreactive masses, and in doing so went too far. Yes, one of these Pitts posted a log on an external site. Whoopdy freakin' do. LL isn't trying to get the comment removed, and they don't seem all that overly concerned about it. Compare that to their reaction when such logs get posted to the forum. They typically suspend people, then. However, what they did do next was wrong, and that was react by posting even MORE personal information about other users. RL information, even, not just a stupid chat log. Not good.



They did so. Perhaps they didn't do it as efficiently as they should have, but they did so. They probably did MORE than they do for the average newbie. Newbies make this kind of mistake all the time. LIVE WITH IT.

Holy hanna, this is a long post.

This is certianly one of the best posts I've ever read on this forum.

I can't think of anything more to say than that.

-- Kex

It's obviously a misspelling of 'ethnographic', which is the branch of anthropology that deals with the scientific description of specific human cultures.

http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=ethnographic

Congratulation on you perfect verbal PSAT score. What was your score in deductive reasoning?

-Ghoti

What'd they grade you on flame construction?

And is that SERIOUSLY the only thing you have to comment on in my ENTIRE post? That I mistook a misspelled word for a real one? Out of that ENTIRE thing you just decided to pop in and flame me for assuming someone could spell correctly?

Sensitive? You have some good points, so don't let your ego make you sound like a raving troll. Here, a summary.

Disclosure
Residents are entitled to a reasonable level of privacy with regard to their Second Lives. Sharing personal information about a fellow Resident --including gender, religion, age, marital status, race, sexual preference, and real-world location beyond what is provided by the Resident in the First Life page of their Resident profile is a violation of that Resident's privacy. Remotely monitoring conversations, posting conversation logs, or sharing conversation logs without consent are all prohibited in Second Life and on the Second Life Forums.

Sorry, everyone. LL has created a weak rule. They specifically limited their culpabillity to their sites. Your privacy loses, regardless of how you feel about it. You have NO WAY to stop people from quoting you, even out of context, save for an actual libel case in an actual court.

-Ansi

woo, boingboing ran my suggestion!

http://www.boingboing.net/2004/10/27/mmo_anthropologists_.html

Hmmm, with that stated about the quoting aspect. Should we not ask for a Conversation Logging tool that will create Log files for the simple purpose of protecting ourselves if we decide to pursue a Liable suit?

Think that would be a viable thing to use that 8+ mil on to help protect the residents.

BTW none to pleased being the guinea pig under the lab glass.

But I wont say anymore as I dont want the context of my words being picked apart and examined.

Sincerely, Not a Microbe Shadow Weaver

Moleculor,

(To Ghoti): <<What'd they grade you on flame construction?>>

100% I should think! I would suggest the correct response should have been 'Touché'.

I am currently writing an analytical paper that examines the ethics and behavior of college freshmen who are in the process of analytically examining people who belong to a demographic different from their own. I hope to learn how their analysis bolsters their own self esteem and perception of quality in their educational institution.

I will be conducting scientific experiments, strictly adhering to all the scientific principals put forth by English doctoral candidates at the University of Pittsburgh (meaning I will be observing these students while hiding in nearby shrubs and passing judgment on their behavioral shortcomings).

This analytic paper builds upon my previous scientific experiments where I administered electric shocks to laboratory monkeys, observed the involuntary twitching, and concluded that I am much better than a monkey.

-aimee

First, let me thank all of the SL residents for their kind words in and out of world

I'm glad that this topic has come up, however the scope and circumference of the issue has broadened way beyond my inital reasons for posting.

Which I think is amazing, and I am somewhat shocked at the defensive posturing of "the professor" in this forum and on his blog. How better to show the true nature of online discourse then to study it in its raw form, even if it is a bit self-referential to the medium itself? This discourse has crossed digital boundaries from in-world to in-class to relevant blogs such as boingboing and clickable culture.

The naming of this thread as "Panda in a petri dish" was a little toungue-in-cheek. I do not truly think that I am being "studied" per say. However, I was a little pissed off at being quoted out of context on a public blog without any initial consent. It didn't devistate me and I don't really believe it is devistating others in the community, however we are free to discuss. The discussion may seem to be reactionary in nature, however that was a situation created by the professor and his blog and the conversation about how they should deal with "us".

And to that effect.. let me quote the professor, the first person to actually bring up the concept of SL residents being studied in the first place:

"If I thought that the people around me in RL were studying my every move to prepare some sort of report on my behavior, I'd be a nervous wreck. I wouldn't even be paranoid, because these people really would be watching me."

So, please forgive the community if it chooses to speak to the topic of being studied.

In addition, I do think the professor's following comment from his blog is very disheartening:

"The rest of it -- the explosion of hypotheses and assertions about myself, my class, and the Campus: Second Life program in general are, regrettably enough, digital discourse in action."

What is regretable about this discourse? The fact that underlying issues of digital communication are being examined by particapants? I think that this is awesome.

Also, an update:

The professor has contacted me in-world twice now to set up a time discuss this matter. I do not know what the nature of the conversation is that he has in mind. Since he has not removed my quotations from his website, I am walking into the conversation still a little pissed. However, since this issue has grown beyond me and my situation, I would like to have others participate in the conversation. Is anyone interested in this? If so, I will speak to the professor and set up and event.

I'd be quite interested in meeting with you guys, but then again, I might have to venture over at some othjer point because with my home team winning the world series, I've got to go to Boston to celebrate. IM me in world