Re: [Air-l] last.fm group
Nancy, I can sort of explain the 108,323 tracks thing, I worked at the BBC last year in Radio and Music Interactive (all radio interactive sites) and one of the things we did was to pump all of the tracks played into a last.fmaccount from the stations that used digital playout systems. As you can imagine this showed some interesting trends. 1xtra for example was very good at predicting future hits. Martin. On 5/29/07, Nancy Baym <nbaym@ku.edu> wrote:
Thanks for the reference. I did once check into the "top players" of particular groups and they seem to be playing those tracks an infeasible number of times. As you say, there's definitely an element of gaming the system going on. Relatedly, I wonder if we'll get a story of "so and so" sacked/disciplined for playing unsuitable music during working hours with their scrobbler record being used as evidence.
out of curiosity, what order of magnitude is "an unfeasible number of times" in this case? 10^4+? or somewhere around 10^3?
Last.fm has moved away from designating "top fans" based on # of listens and don't report that info anymore (or use the word "fan" which seemed to encourage this kind of gaming). Now they report the week's "top listeners". I assume this is in response to ongoing squabbling over 'cheaters' (last.fm forum terminology, not mine). The discussions of this on the forums is interesting, because some people are really offended by the fact that others do it, while still others find it very hard to understand why it matters. It also leads to all kinds of value judgements about the 'right' way to listen to music and the right to judge how others' listen.
To answer the question about what constitutes unfeasible, here's an example: I found it hard to believe that someone's listened to 108,328 REM songs since registering in March 2004. That's about 45 hours/week of REM every week for 3 years. On his profile he writes:
"I listen to a lot of music, I don't sleep very much. I've (knock on wood) never lost my stats due to server problems. Therefore, I have a massive playcount. Now quit bothering me about it. Jeez. And yes, I do listen to that much R.E.M., so consider yourself informed."
which speaks to the notion that some Last.fm users are policing the system looking for suspected cheaters and calling them to account for what they perceive as unfeasible numbers of listens.
Nancy _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Hello everyone, recently I was surfing Russian facebook-clone vkontakte.ru and decided to count statistics of political preferences. I don't consider my results to be valid, so I've decided to ask about any thoughts, articles etc. on the validity of blogs as a source of socio-demographic data (age, gender, location, political and religious preferences etc.). While I think that other interests such as music, reading, films etc. are quite reliable I can't say the same about socio-demographic data. What do you think? Thanks in advance. Best wishes, Alexander Semenov. MA student Faculty of Sociology Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES) http://www.msses.ru/English/index.html
I can only speak as a user, but I would be extremely cautious about the relationships status area. People often list fictitous relationships that are in-jokes between friends. About half the time 'in a relationship' is correct, but of the 5 people who I am friended with and are listed as married, only 1 actually is. Also, now that it doesn't restrict for school emails, people can make fake accounts, or accounts for pets. As an example, I made a facebook account for my iguana who has a hometown of "In the corner next to the snakes, IL" and is listed as married to my roommate. As for location, hometown, political, and religion, I can't really say much other than it is not uncommon to see people put in joking answers. On 5/30/07, Alexander Semenov <semenoffalex@googlemail.com> wrote:
Hello everyone, recently I was surfing Russian facebook-clone vkontakte.ru and decided to count statistics of political preferences. I don't consider my results to be valid, so I've decided to ask about any thoughts, articles etc. on the validity of blogs as a source of socio-demographic data (age, gender, location, political and religious preferences etc.). While I think that other interests such as music, reading, films etc. are quite reliable I can't say the same about socio-demographic data. What do you think? Thanks in advance. Best wishes, Alexander Semenov. MA student Faculty of Sociology Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES) http://www.msses.ru/English/index.html _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Yes, I'm totally aware of such things. So, my interest is to find some data about the persentage of real/fake data, ways how to measure it and so on. Perhaps there were any kind of surveys about this matter? On Wed, 30 May 2007 22:30:26 +0400, Ellie Wix <elliewix@gmail.com> wrote:
I can only speak as a user, but I would be extremely cautious about the relationships status area. People often list fictitous relationships that are in-jokes between friends. About half the time 'in a relationship' is correct, but of the 5 people who I am friended with and are listed as married, only 1 actually is. Also, now that it doesn't restrict for school emails, people can make fake accounts, or accounts for pets. As an example, I made a facebook account for my iguana who has a hometown of "In the corner next to the snakes, IL" and is listed as married to my roommate.
As for location, hometown, political, and religion, I can't really say much other than it is not uncommon to see people put in joking answers.
On 5/30/07, Alexander Semenov <semenoffalex@googlemail.com> wrote:
Hello everyone, recently I was surfing Russian facebook-clone vkontakte.ru and decided to count statistics of political preferences. I don't consider my results to be valid, so I've decided to ask about any thoughts, articles etc. on the validity of blogs as a source of socio-demographic data (age, gender, location, political and religious preferences etc.). While I think that other interests such as music, reading, films etc. are quite reliable I can't say the same about socio-demographic data. What do you think? Thanks in advance. Best wishes, Alexander Semenov. MA student Faculty of Sociology Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES) http://www.msses.ru/English/index.html _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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What I see happening on MySpace is personas being created that allow the person behind the account to be more real, more open and less selective about the kinds of information that is put out there. Many profiles and blogs begin as fishing expeditions put up by persons who are very isolated in RL and are searching for a virtual community were they can enact themselves much more fully than they ever do in RL. People who do this typically create a mask or persona to use in this pursuit that is not easy to trace back to a RL source. The value of the persona is the opportunity it creates to enact a self that is often spoiled in RL within a community where the presentation of this stigmatized self will be validated by people like me who come together to make a virtual We community which is based on a counter-narrative invalidating the spoiling narrative. Many people involved in such counter-narrative based online communities come to feel that who they are within that community is a true presentation of self. The RL presentation of self, in turn, is seen as being a mask that must be worn to avoid negative consequences and maintain access to social resources that would lessen or vanish in response to a RL presentation of the authentic self. The bottom line is that the profile that you have trouble tracing back to a RL source is more likely to contain accurate information than one that is easy to trace to its RL source. Im clueless about Russia so this example may be silly but, suppose you compared 50 profiles that were easily traced back to their RL sources to 50 that were not. We will assume for simplicity that both samples are random in relation to the larger populations being sampled. What would it tell you that 10/50 hard to trace profiles claimed atheism whereas only 3/50 easy to trace profiles did? One good way to find out what is stigmatized and how strongly is to notice where the percentage of people claiming an allegiance or characteristic varies significantly depending on whether the profile is hard to trace or easy to trace. These are just random thoughts off the top of my head. I hope they are useful but, if not, never mind. --- Alexander Semenov <semenoffalex@googlemail.com> wrote:
Hello everyone, recently I was surfing Russian facebook-clone vkontakte.ru and decided to count statistics of political preferences. I don't consider my results to be valid, so I've decided to ask about any thoughts, articles etc. on the validity of blogs as a source of socio-demographic data (age, gender, location, political and religious preferences etc.). While I think that other interests such as music, reading, films etc. are quite reliable I can't say the same about socio-demographic data. What do you think? Thanks in advance. Best wishes, Alexander Semenov. MA student Faculty of Sociology Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES) http://www.msses.ru/English/index.html _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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We have to think of ways to use games not just to escape reality but to re-engage with reality. Henry Jenkins ____________________________________________________________________________________Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting
Your points (dr_haqiqah@yahoo.com) presuppose a lot of psychology and may be real research but your saying it is what "you are seeing"... also I see you as saying your superior to these socially awkward others and in my opinion I am seeing that as a root of bullying in groups. That is just an opinion based on RL and my feelings reading this type of identity psychology. I am critical of it all. But you are just putting these few thoughts together as I am... I would be curious for the origins of *identity politics* as I presently trace this to late 1980's international socialists that is outside North American sociology and *identity^ where I might know Goffman. two points... 1. to study some parts of myspace such as my old jam band's page one would have to have knowledge of fame and the music business. And just ask a musician. No need for presupposing what is going on on music pages. People are trying to get famous or as in my case share my music on-line with not much effort. Apparently Robert Murdock the owner of myspace now owns the rights to our songs. 2. I joined Face book two weeks ago... late to the party because previously when I visited it it was a youth site but now has opened up and my boss is there on facebook. Ok so are a few friends at work maybe 800 / 6000 workers. Then I find all my anarchist union comrades are there, my high school friends in Toronto are there, my relatives are there. I can't agree that these people are really any more socially isolated than myself. My point may be some users fall in your made up community but there are too many RL people there too IMHO. Now all the educated people are making witty things on their pages but are they real or virtual? more or less? I am not sure that can be measured. Is this anything but self expression...Do you really know someone's self better than they do? to paraphrase Jean Paul Sartre? back to your point (dr_haqiqah@yahoo.com) how do you include people who hide data in a study are these less reliable data? Your point about the data validity is taken. Peter Timusk, B.Math statistics (2002), B.A. legal studies (2006) Carleton University Systems Science Graduate student, University of Ottawa (2006-2007). just trying to stay linear. Read by hundreds of lurkers every week. On 30-May-07, at 2:35 PM, Dr. T. Michael Roberts wrote:
What I see happening on MySpace is personas being created that allow the person behind the account to be more real, more open and less selective about the kinds of information that is put out there. Many profiles and blogs begin as fishing expeditions put up by persons who are very isolated in RL and are searching for a virtual community were they can enact themselves much more fully than they ever do in RL.
People who do this typically create a mask or persona to use in this pursuit that is not easy to trace back to a RL source. The value of the persona is the opportunity it creates to enact a self that is often spoiled in RL within a community where the presentation of this stigmatized self will be validated by “people like me” who come together to make a virtual “We” community which is based on a counter-narrative invalidating the spoiling narrative.
Many people involved in such counter-narrative based online communities come to feel that who they are within that community is a true presentation of self. The RL presentation of self, in turn, is seen as being a mask that must be worn to avoid negative consequences and maintain access to social resources that would lessen or vanish in response to a RL presentation of the authentic self. The bottom line is that the profile that you have trouble tracing back to a RL source is more likely to contain accurate information than one that is easy to trace to its RL source.
I’m clueless about Russia so this example may be silly but, suppose you compared 50 profiles that were easily traced back to their RL sources to 50 that were not. We will assume for simplicity that both samples are random in relation to the larger populations being sampled. What would it tell you that 10/50 hard to trace profiles claimed atheism whereas only 3/50 easy to trace profiles did? One good way to find out what is stigmatized and how strongly is to notice where the percentage of people claiming an allegiance or characteristic varies significantly depending on whether the profile is hard to trace or easy to trace. These are just random thoughts off the top of my head. I hope they are useful but, if not, never mind.
--- Alexander Semenov <semenoffalex@googlemail.com> wrote:
Hello everyone, recently I was surfing Russian facebook-clone vkontakte.ru and decided to count statistics of political preferences. I don't consider my results to be valid, so I've decided to ask about any thoughts, articles etc. on the validity of blogs as a source of socio-demographic data (age, gender, location, political and religious preferences etc.). While I think that other interests such as music, reading, films etc. are quite reliable I can't say the same about socio-demographic data. What do you think? Thanks in advance. Best wishes, Alexander Semenov. MA student Faculty of Sociology Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES) http://www.msses.ru/English/index.html _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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“We have to think of ways to use games not just to escape reality but to re-engage with reality.” Henry Jenkins
______________________________________________________________________ ______________Building a website is a piece of cake. Yahoo! Small Business gives you all the tools to get online. http://smallbusiness.yahoo.com/webhosting _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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Hello once again, I really appreciate all your comments in this topic. Recently I found an article that suits my request a little better than the others: Stutzman F. An Evaluation of Identity-Sharing Behavior in Social Network Communities (www.ibiblio.org/fred/pubs/stutzman_pub4.pdf) It doesn't relate the topic of validity of the personal data in social networks like Facebook, but it at least concernes the problem of students attitude to identity sharing. So, I need more papers of this kind. Perhaps someone tried to compare smth like political views of Facebook users with data on political views and preferences of a more general offline sample, or something of that kind? I'm simply interested how such data, given in social network profiles differs from that one given in offline surveys. And which one is more valid? Has anybody seen something like this? Thanks in advance. -- Alexander Semenov. MA student Faculty of Sociology Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES) http://www.msses.ru/English/index.html
see this student's work. papers from Fred Stutzman found at this web page http://www.ibiblio.org/fred/academic.html He has some qualifiers for his studies and attempts some sampling. Not the best but may be one of the first. Peter Timusk, B.Math statistics (2002), B.A. legal studies (2006) Carleton University Systems Science Graduate student, University of Ottawa (2006-2007). just trying to stay linear. Read by hundreds of lurkers every week. On 30-May-07, at 1:14 PM, Alexander Semenov wrote:
Hello everyone, recently I was surfing Russian facebook-clone vkontakte.ru and decided to count statistics of political preferences. I don't consider my results to be valid, so I've decided to ask about any thoughts, articles etc. on the validity of blogs as a source of socio-demographic data (age, gender, location, political and religious preferences etc.). While I think that other interests such as music, reading, films etc. are quite reliable I can't say the same about socio-demographic data. What do you think? Thanks in advance. Best wishes, Alexander Semenov. MA student Faculty of Sociology Moscow School of Social and Economic Sciences (MSSES) http://www.msses.ru/English/index.html _______________________________________________ The air-l@listserv.aoir.org mailing list is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http:// listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org
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participants (6)
-
Alexander Semenov -
Dr. T. Michael Roberts -
Ellie Wix -
Martin Garthwaite -
Peter Timusk -
Semenov Alexander