Great discussion all. Just to chime in again: I have to agree that universals are not what we need here. (Per and earlier point from Thomas, though, yeah--I am beholden to an IRB in the end, if nothing else). And I don't mean to sound "consequentialist" here either--but, it does have a lot to do with if people get hurt. Some newsgroups and some blogs and some chatrooms are a lot like the street: I see you there, I report that. Its normal. Some blogs, even, are a bit like Hollywood Blvd. I see you there, and you WANT me to report that. However, some places have expectations of privacy. So . . .even if you are "covertly" watching people--if it seems "covert" to them, I am not sure what justifies that. I guess, being a weirdo ;) ["Dude . . . are you starting at me?"] for the sake of science is one thing if you really have some sort of valuable result to come up with. (Again, my IRB demands to know what that benefit is no matter how "invulnerable" my respondent population is.) But if you don't, again, why be rude? In all seriousness, admitting you are there is, in the case of most social behavior, going to have very little impact. Unless, again, its a sensitive situation. Hence, if it is a sensitive situation you probably shouldn't be misleading people! Rude researchers make it harder for us all to do research. Which isn't' to say I haven't been flamed or I haven't made mistakes. It happens. But still--its a judgement call, and doing no harm is obviously a good thing to aim for. So, again, I have noticed that when I am tempted to be "covert" there is often some very good reason why I might be in a position to do some harm. So, I guess--when you aren't risking much by going "covert" then maybe its fine. But in those cases, I suspect the forum you are observing has rather low expectations about privacy; who is gonna complain if I publish to the world that they were walking in Hollywood? Or in Paris? What about Baghdad . . . ? (To gesture to the other thread on the list.) Rob
Andrea, At 19:00 08/05/2004, you wrote:
I also disagree that posting in a newsgroup is analogous to walking down the street.
Of course, it is not, even in the age of omnipresent CCTV, it is far more public to post in a newsgroup, then to walk down the street, which is, indeed, semi-private.
Thomas
-- thomas koenig department of social sciences, loughborough university http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/mmethods/staff/thomas/index.html
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