Hi, I am Pawan Singh, a PhD. student in Communication at UC, San Diego. I am currently working on a paper that looks at questions of identity construction and performance online by gay men in the Indian context. I am basically looking at some of the user profiles on a popular dating/hook-up site used by gay men to understand how they self-construct identity and form relationships in this space. I understand that the data on these profiles is private even though it's in a public space. When I chose some profiles using purposive sampling, I contacted the users for their consent. Very few responded while others dismissed the research as hoax. I am investigating how I can go ahead and produce an virtual ethnographic analysis based on this profiles in an ethical fashion. I could change the names of the user profiles but does that suffice? If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. It'll be a great help. Thanks, Pawan Singh