I would like to take a meta-moment about this discussion of ethics. This is a fascinating discussion about ethics. The conversation is happening in the context of this AOIR mailing list. Each post argues points from a previous post. Furthermore, there's an expectation of shared interest in internet research and the language being used implies a shared body of knowledge. Yet, with every post, this conversation is not just unfolding on a mailing list of practitioners. It is going down on the public record of the archived web. I Googled a few of the people on this thread and found that their posts to AOIR showed up in the top 10. Perhaps we should turn the questions we are asking inward for a moment. Is everyone contributing to this thread constructing an argument for the public record? Are your word choices, argument structure and logic the kind of thing that you would publish in journals? It appears to me that, while you might not object to having a public record of these conversations, the language being used is far more conversational, intended for an intimate discussion, not a persistent publication. There are spelling errors, grammar problems and linguistic shortcuts. How would you feel if your peers quoted your words here in publication? Presumably, we are having a debate. In theory, some people might change their minds. Might this challenge your authority in a classroom setting if you try to argue an alternate viewpoint in the future? What about to a tenure committee? What if a journalist quotes your post here as-is as the stance on ethics? Might asking yourself these questions help explain the reasons why the Internet cannot be easily compared to offline scenarios? It's not a matter of being "not in this world" but of the fact that people have different understandings of public/private and that none of us have gotten wholely accustomed to the concept of persistent, searchable data that was constructed under a situation that felt far more like ephemeral conversation. How do you feel about the fact that, in my qualitative methods class, we printed out a series of posts from this discussion for analysis and situated these arguments in the qual methods literature? Was that an audience you were expecting when you crafted your rant? Was it ethical of me to do this? It is easy to dismiss what i'm saying because you probably will never experience any consequences of your posts here. But, i'd urge everyone to be reflexive for a moment. We're all exhibiting the kinds of behaviors that we're studying. Many know it's public and don't care. Some probably didn't realize that this list was publicly archived and searchable by Google. There are hundreds of lurkers on this list whose lack of participation might be connected with this issue. [Personally, i'm in this camp. I have no desire to pretend like i'm in an intimate discussion with my peers knowing that my research struggles and reflections are going down on public, searchable record. There is value to ephemerality.] The whole point of consent is to make certain that no one gets hurt in the making of our research; there are guidelines to reach that goal. The debate that is unfolding is split between reading the letter of the ethics guidelines or the intentions behind it. If we solve that problem, we should all consult judges. In part, people's take on this issue is about justifying their own research decisions. Frankly, this thread is a fascinating example of conversation on the Internet. There are different desired outcomes, different approaches to articulating the ideas, different social norms about addressing others' posts. Go meta for a moment; it's fascinating. danah