Mrs_Toona

Is there a need to go so far as to appoint an adjudicator to each team incase Photoshop is used?

I know Iggy would do something like that

Without second guessing what Toona wants to do with this I would suggest 5 different TF/SFs that can be chosen, all of which can be run under 45 mins.

<ul type="square">[*]Statesman's Task Force [*]Lord Recluse's Strike Force[*]Imperious' Task Force [*]Lady Grey Task Force [*]Dr Kahn Task Force[/list]
If it were up to me, every team wanting to compete in this challenge would have to complete all 5 TF/SFs within a given period of time (say a week) and the aggrigate total would be tallied for each team. Winners have the lowest total time.

But this isn't Iggy's show.

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I think they need to be 48's

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Anyway, I'm still outraged.

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Lvl 47+ drops purples

Your mail box is full so i can't send you that number :P

Happy Birthday :P

Do you remember Dec 07, uggg it was always down or the zones where crashing and it was the only server doing that.

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yea a new retail box in stores that you can't use the advertised feature to take advantage of double xp? that'll happen

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And just where on the retail box does it give anyone the impression that will be allowed during the 2xp event.

Provide pics please.

The devs haven't said anything yet one way or the other.

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I thought they specificly said double XP would not apply to MA....crap now i have to go search where think (key word) i read that.

edited to add: I think it came up re. patrol xp and it excluding "bonus xp" still serching....

It's all Cho's fault

I just got nakies and i am ready!

Girls just want to have fun!

Silly Lady Bug

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However, my example regarding the study in the library fits within the realm of TWIXTs study (regarding, specifically, the misinterpretation prior to the explanation/debriefing). There was no waiver prior to the administering of the experiment (which is why the one lady ran out of the library...she didn't know she was a part of a study and came to different, more frightening, conclusion). In this way the misrepresentation is the failure to mention that an experiment is taking place, most people assume they are not participating in experiments during everyday life.

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The other quote to which I was responding is germane here. If there was no reasonable expectation of harm (and harm gets defined VERY broadly by IRBs), then this would be approvable research. If there was predictable harm, it becomes more difficult to approve.

I think that what Myers proposed (and he had to propose something; even if he proposed it as exempt research, it had to go through a separate board who had to review it and make sure it qualified as exempt status, based on what's been posted to these forums) would have predictably led to a stress response on the part of those he targeted. I've been at other universities where studies evoking stress responses received heightened scrutiny (I saw one bounced because the person used 42-degree water instead of 45-degree water to create physiological stress...).

If, on the other hand, he never submitted any type of proposal to his IRB, then conducted his research while in their employment and allowed himself to be identified as a faculty member at Loyola while presenting research the university had never reviewed or sanctioned, that strikes me as a pretty big problem. I will act on the assumption that he did submit something, and go from there.

The reality, unfortunately, is that I don't know what Myers proposed/submitted.

With only what's been made public knowledge, I have the following opinions:

I think he made questionable decisions. I do not think the failure to obtain informed consent was one of them that will ultimately be actionable. Naturalistic observation/ethnographic research cannot be conducted if you ask the population, "Will you be in my study?"

It is unclear whether Myers ended his research when he received his "death threat", which should have been a clear indication that things had gone too far and that even if harm had not been anticipated, he was creating more stress and frustration than was healthy. If he stopped at that point, then I put him in the same general camp as Zimbardo, who pulled the plug on his Prison studies when it became clear the reactions were more than anticipated - harm should have been predicted, but at least was acted upon when it became impossible to ignore. It is worth noting that Zimbardo was "too close" to his research to recognize the harm it was causing himself, and had to have it pointed out to him by an assistant. This may be another parallel between Myers and Zimbardo - both may have been too close to their research to recognize the human harm that potentially went along with the situation they created, instead focusing on the study itself. It's possible for scientists to get tunnel vision, after all. Additionally, Zimbardo did at least have group discussions after he was done, to help participants deal with what they'd experienced. If Myers did not stop his research after it became clear that his methods could lead to death threats (and it doesn't sound like he did, since the threat came 2 years ago, and his "quit" blog was November of last year), I think that's a problem.

His descriptions of his/Twixt's activities do not make it sound like he remained objective as he engaged in his data collection. Narrative information from others suggest that he was far from it. I point to iltat's posts, and those of others, as references.

I believe that utilizing his manipulation with a population that would predictably include minors was very ill-advised.

I believe that inducing stress and making people angry when he has no way to know whether any of the individuals with whom he is interacting are naturally aggressive (I'm sure that's not true of anyone who PvPs in this or any other game, of course...) or have anger management issues would be a questionable decision.

I think that, despite what he seems to say (the academic in me keeps wanting to cite, but I'm too tired to go searching through all the websites I've read related to this topic in the past few days), systematic norm violation could predictably have led to frustration, anger, and stress responses, particularly in a population where aggression against other players is rewarded, all of which in the eyes of many IRBs constitute "harm" and which may have other unforeseeable side effects.

I think that an internal review at Loyola (which has been reported somewhere around here - was it in the Champion thread?) is the proper response, and trust that the individuals who have full information on precisely what he proposed, and Myers' public behavior since, will be able to reach a satisfactory judgment of his culpability, if there is any.

I think that if Myers submitted a proposal in which he did not specify that the population would include minors, that the population in PvP zones may be more aggressive/competitive than the population average, and otherwise did not adequately describe the group to be targeted with his manipulation, some of the blame must fall on the responsible reviewers for not requesting more detail. An IRB that approves research it does not understand cannot possibly be protecting the interests of participants. I'm not saying this is what happened; I'm just saying that Myers may not be the only one who needs to be held responsible.

If the study were proposed at "face value" - that is, if a professor submitted something that said he intended to repeatedly violate social norms in an online community in order to observe the results - I would like to think that I would not approve it on the grounds that it might result in psychological harm, however minor. Without knowing exactly what Myers proposed, though, it's hard for me to say.

I hope the concerns that I outlined above are sufficient to answer your question.


tl;dr version: Without knowing precisely what he proposed to do, I'm not sure of the ethics, but have an awful lot of opinions based on the partial information available to those of us outside the study.

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Thank you so much for this point of view I depreciate you taking the time to look into it. This is just a guess but based on his answers to my questions here i don't think he submitted to the Loyola IRB. As far as i can tell this paper was only published on his blog not a journal (if anyone finds it published please post it here as i had a very long experiment today and i couldn't find it) and he did not attach Loyola in the title. He did present it at some meeting in which he probably used his position at Loyola as status.

I am proud to say that i slow them down by a good 5-10 min and i am damn proud of it

besides i make the team uber smexy......

I said girls Cho :P

Oh i would love your take on all this then Earth....

I am coming from the Pharmacuticl interpretation and also the current Regulatory affairs classes I am taking for my Masters.

I would love to get your take on the the ethics or lack there of also if he didn't put Loyola on the essay would that opt him out from that responsibility? Also i have made the argument in another thread that this work if it went before a board would not have been approved based on the methodology, the risk/reward ratio, the population used (small and unknown), and the lack of informed consent. I would love to get your take on that as well.

I know people are wishing the ethics would be droped based on the fact it's just bad science, but it's so damn clear it's bad methodology that even he admits it so i don't see the point in discussing that. For me ethics in human research is where i find this particular "experiment" interesting.

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A few comments: field (or observational) studies don't usually require consent, but when a researcher actively takes part, it's no longer a field study. It's an experiment.

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Which is why it's presented to an Ethics Board...maybe that wasn't the best quote (but it was easily available and allowed for me to still be lazy!)

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Ahhh I see then at that point they do not need IRB approval. My point is for what he did IRB approval and Informed consent would have be necessary.

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No, they still need IRB approval. The IRB and the IRB alone has the authority to determine what sorts of measures need to be taken. Only the IRB can determine if research is exempt or not.

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No I believe it needs to be reviewed by them but then can be exempted from the approval guidlines.

For the aggresion/testosterone one did you sign a new consent at the end? I would think that they would have to allow you to opt out once you knew the true nature of the study.


I understand the need for "blinding" but in your examples there was no harm or stress. IMO it isn't really like what Myers did at all, he purposly stressed these people.

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I would imagine that any actual ethical scientist wouldn't NEED to ask a board. They wouldn't have DONE it this way.

He's not a scientist.

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Untrue, absolutely untrue. Sometimes a scientist NEEDS to experiment on subjects that DON'T KNOW they are the subject of an experiment. The very moment a subject signs a waiver their reactions to stimulus will change. They know they are a part of an experiment and, even if they don't intend to change, they invariably do. Even if there's a handful of people who don't change they are outliers and aren't representative of 'normal' people (the subject of most papers).

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This. Sociological and psychological experiments, especially of the type this is supposed to be (but isn't), often require uninformed subjects.

Please go away from the ethical complaints, because the bigger point is that he simply did not conduct the research well.

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He already admits that himself
"Hi Lisa,

I agree, this study is not really an experiment. I label it as a “breaching experiment” in reference to analogous methods of Garfinkel, but, in fact, neither his nor my methods are experimental in any truly scientific sense. This should be obvious in that experimental methods require some sort of control group and there was none in this case. Likewise, experimental methods are characterized by the manipulation of a treatment variable and, likewise, there was none in this case. This is, of course, explained in the paper in the following paragraph…."

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A few comments: field (or observational) studies don't usually require consent, but when a researcher actively takes part, it's no longer a field study. It's an experiment.

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Which is why it's presented to an Ethics Board...maybe that wasn't the best quote (but it was easily available and allowed for me to still be lazy!)

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Ahhh I see then at that point they do not need IRB approval. My point is for what he did IRB approval and Informed consent would have be necessary.


Here from Loyola's IRB site:

Exempt Review

All research proposals involving human subjects must be reviewed by the Institutional Review Board (IRB). If the research falls within one of the categories itemized below, the project may be determined to be exempt. Note that Title 45 CFR Part 46 (Subparts B-D) provides additional protection for several groups of research subjects.

Projects that qualify as exempt pose no risk to extremely minimal risk to participants.

Federal law specifically requires that an investigator, department chair, and/or other supervisor of an investigator may not make the final determination as to whether a project merits the exempt designation.

The IRB has assigned the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) to determine whether exempt status is warranted. At its discretion, the ORSP may choose to submit an exempt protocol to other IRB committee members for review.

Exempt projects still must be conducted in accordance with the general principles of human subjects protection.

Any proposed changes to the research need to be reviewed by the IRB.

Human subjects applications must be reviewed by the ORSP to confirm that they meet the criteria for exempt status. Once an application is received by the ORSP, it will take approximately 2-3 business days to review. The ORSP may send applications submitted as exempt to additional IRB committee members for further review. This review process will take approximately three weeks.


Pure field observation offers no risk and would most likely be exempt from IRB approval. My point is if you need IRB approval then you need informed consent.


On an interesting asside Loyola recieved a non complience letter back in 2002

http://www.hhs.gov/ohrp/detrm_letrs/YR02/sep02c.pdf

To be fair to Loyola though he never put their name on this paper, thus he never attached them to it.

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Actually most institutions take ethics very seriously and our government takes research on human subjects even more serious (although they were the worst violators in the past)

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And you dont think anyone at Loyola reviewed his work prior to it being published?

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No i don't actually. He did not put Loyola in that paper and as far as i can tell by "published" they are refering to the fact that he placed it on his blog. I can find no Journal refrence.

Here is one of my papers you can see that both the journal and the institution are refrenced.

Identification of a survival-promoting peptide in medium conditioned by oxidatively stressed cell lines of nervous system origin.Cunningham TJ, Hodge L, Speicher D, Reim D, Tyler-Polsz C, Levitt P, Eagleson K, Kennedy S, Wang Y.
Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Allegheny University of the Health Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19129, USA. J Neurosci. 1998 Sep 15;18(18):7047-60

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I published something once. It was a study on the effects of alcohol on people who are specifically attracted to one race yet find themselves in a room filled with everything BUT that race of the opposite gender. I called it "Phillipino, Mexican...close enough."

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LMAO sounds like a ground breaking piece of research and a must read!

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Then those of you trying to take this to another level better be ready to step before a ethics review board to state your case. Otherwise, its your word against again...a ""internationally-recognized scholar".

Good luck with that!

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internationally recognized scholar? Did they put that in the article seriouslyor did you call him that? I wonder what makes you that. I've had abstracts in international meetings as well as the major one for my field. Does that make me an internationally known scholar? Or do i actually need a PhD for that?


Here is my whole thing with it usually science is peer reviewed and that is what alot of these critiques are, perr reviews.

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Actually most institutions take ethics very seriously and our government takes research on human subjects even more serious (although they were the worst violators in the past)

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And you dont think anyone at Loyola reviewed his work prior to it being published?

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No i don't actually. He did not put Loyola in that paper and as far as i can tell by "published" they are refering to the fact that he placed it on his blog. I can find no Journal refrence.

Here is one of my papers you can see that both the journal and the institution are refrenced.

Identification of a survival-promoting peptide in medium conditioned by oxidatively stressed cell lines of nervous system origin.Cunningham TJ, Hodge L, Speicher D, Reim D, Tyler-Polsz C, Levitt P, Eagleson K, Kennedy S, Wang Y.
Department of Neurobiology and Anatomy, Allegheny University of the Health Sciences, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19129, USA. J Neurosci. 1998 Sep 15;18(18):7047-60

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I posted most of this on the Justice board

Please note below the governmets guide lines for IRB approval there is a mention of both informed consent and privacy.

*SNIP*

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You also posted it here once before, which was then replied to by MrQuizzles with the following quote (and link).

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Requiring forms of consent is a restriction that can be waived by a university's IRB. In this case, it is very likely that the requirement would be waived.

Here, URI has a nice and informative IRB page: http://www.uri.edu/research/tro/NewS...IRB/index.html

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To quote a friend of mine who knows more about this subject that I:

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In the field type studies do not need explicit consent of the people involved. They do need to pass the ethics board for not causing lasting harm to those who are involved without their knowledge.

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She also has informed me that internet alias' count as this sort of coding you refer to (since no personal information is given).

If you would like to continue this argument I can actually do some research myself...but I've been lazy so far.


Edit: Doh! Wrong quote!

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You can ask your friend if this is true because i am not in the social sciences I am a biologist for us informed consent is first. In a field study they would as you said debrief the subjects and at that time get informed consent. If they were unable to get the consent i believe that subject needs not be included in the research. I could see them waiving informed consent if there was no interaction, but at that point i don't think you need IRB approval (getting to busy to look that up). In regards to that link posted that is for the URI IRB I posted the federal guidelines. You can go to Loyola's IRB site as well.

The alias thing i think is a bit iffy the name can be tied to a global the global tracked back to an account the account to the person. Also the name is readily identifiable to people who know that toon so not seeing how that is anonymous. Numbers would be better.

And if i had a minor who was one of the people he did this to I would be pissed.

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At the request of a friend, I’ve read through this thread, the newspaper article, iltat’s and VikiVee’s letters, and Prof. Myers’ paper. Let me add a few things to the discussion as someone with a background in social research online. I know some of what I’m posting isn’t going to make some of you following this thread real happy, but don’t shoot the messenger bearing the bad news. I’m just adding a few points that might be relevant to the discussion. I have a tl;dr at the bottom for those of you who don’t want to slog through all of this.

First off you might be asking, “Who is this clown?” I’m a sociology grad student who is also doing qualitative research into online games. My interest is social support, not deviant behavior, and my methodology is rather different from what Prof. Myers used. For those of you interested in such things, I used participant observation combined with focus groups for my data collection.

I agree with Mysidia that Myers’ work was more or less an observational case study and not really an experiment in the classic sense of a scientific experiment. It falls out of being a participant observation since this study was not watching the “natural” social processes in the field, but instead engaged in deliberate set of behaviors in order to provoke a response. Myers’ paper was a piece of qualitative research more interested in the dialog and actions of the observed rather than the quantitative counting of noses or comparing results between a test and control group.

On the point that Myers did not get informed consent from his observed subjects: Sorry folks, he’s probably in the clear on that one. This kind of observational data collection is of behavior taking place in an environment with no expectation of privacy (see NCSoft’s privacy policy), so as long as he maintained confidentiality by not using anyone’s real name (in-game and forum handles should be changed as well), he would not be required to gain informed consent from those he observed in game. Same for getting the go ahead from the game company hosting the game. For example, if I was observing mosh pits, I wouldn’t be required to get permission from the club owner to watch a mosh pit in their club. I can just pay at the door, go in, and conduct my observations.

As for the consent of the parents of minors: When you combine this from the EULA;

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(a) Eligibility. By clicking the "I Accept" button you represent that you are an adult 18 years of age or older or, if under 18 years of age, that you have the consent of a parent or guardian and will provide their details where requested.

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with the afore mentioned no expectation of privacy, he probably won’t get into trouble for that either. His Institutional Review Board (IRB) committee will probably see it something like this: While the game is something the players pay to participate in, the game world they play in isn’t like a bathroom where there is that wonderful expectation of privacy. It’s more like the nightclub I used in my earlier example. Now if Myers conducted interviews or focus groups, then he would have to get the proper informed consent and have the opt-out option from those participants. My own IRB review covered this extensively, and I specifically talked to the head of the committee about it. Chances are there will be no reprimand based solely on not getting informed consent.

On the other hand, unlike my research, Myers did not just watch people interact while playing. He engaged in provocative action in order to test social boundaries. This is where he hits the line of questionable ethics. His “breaching behaviors” did cause people distress and made at least one individual mad enough to issue a death threat. Applying that sort of stimulus to a group without informed consent or offering therapeutic counseling to those who feel they suffered harm afterwards may be something he will get reprimanded for. However, since Myers claims he did not break the rules of the game with his bad behavior, only the social rules of the players, he might be able to argue that his breaching behaviors were something players should have reasonably expected. Additionally, he can argue that his actions were the only way to successfully assess those social boundaries. Personally, I think his methods were a bit dodgy here. There are other means of assessing those boundaries without honking people off in a persistent fashion. I can only guess what, if anything, Myers’ IRB committee will do about this one. My bet, no action.

Now before I get strung up as a heretic, sympathizer, or collaborator, let me say that I wasn’t all that impressed with Myers’ paper or his methods. In the realm of qualitative research, there is an expectation of self-discloser about your role as researcher in conducting the study. To quote iltat:

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Myers presented the extreme negatives of our community as the standard. No one condones the threats that were directed towards Myers, but he leaves out that he verbally attacked, insulted, harassed, and stalked many of these same individuals. Some of his harassments are still present on our forums.

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Now if this verbal abuse was not approved by his IRB in advance, that could be some hot water right there. Stalking is prohibited under the EULA, which would leave him a leg short in defending his research methods before the IRB. Even if it doesn’t result in a reprimand, it constitutes inadequate self-discloser, at least in the reporting, and should be considered sloppy.

Additionally, as most social researchers do when reading an article, I looked over Myers’ bibliography. The thing that struck me is that we have a grand total of one author in common. Myers did not reference some of the leading names in online research such as Wellman, Rheingold, DiMaggio, Hine, and particularly Williams, who actually did a study of deviant behavior in an online environment already. Part of doing research is doing a literature review to become familiar with what has already been done. Again, sloppy in action.

My last “sloppy” to cover is something iltat pointed out in his letter to the editor:

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Myers portrayed our community as one filled with anger and hate, but a minimal amount of research would quickly find the error in this assessment. Our community includes a player-founded “taxi service” and “emergency medical technicians” who voluntarily help new players. Our forums include well-wishes for players who have babies, get married, or go off to war. We have sponsored charities, conventions, and even a few weddings. None of these made it into Myers’ paper.

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iltat is right. Doing research in an MMORPG is doing research in one small part of a very large online world. By only looking at the one small part of what is already a small part of that world without trying to take the larger MMORPG community you are studying into account is doing a disservice to that community and will skew your conclusions.

For those with a case of tl;dr:

Chances are that Prof. Myers is not going to be in trouble with his IRB committee over his research. There is one area I think he pushed the ethical lines, and in my opinion should not have done so, but he may still be on the safe side of not having an ethical violation. (Hmmm, strictly within the letter but outside the intent. Sound familiar?)

Even if nothing comes of an IRB review of Myers’ research, I believe it is not up to snuff with much of the preexisting research into online interaction. Unless one of his other articles is far better than this, his work will not be a source for my own research.

This PSA brought to you by Night Mission Enterprises. Don’t call us, we won’t call you.

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Not saying he will get in trouble because i am not sure he did this as a "loyola professor". I do disagree about the informed consent though if he did go to an IRB. He used human test subjects in which he manipulated their environment in a stressful way. The AAS and NIH are starting to look into the ethical implications of online research and the perceptions of privacy. See the wording is perception so even if it is not realistic if you have a perceved notion of privacy things start to get a bit hairy. I brought up to Mr. Myers weather the EULA would be a psudo informed consent and he got confused about that question. He answered by telling me he didn't break the EULA. Other issues with IRB would be poor experimental design, population, and risk/reward ratio. There are several things the board looks at I posted the CFR for IRB aproval on the Justice board and i think i reposted it on the city life.

But my thought process was similar to yours a few months ago when him and his work came up due to this blog . I asked him alot about IRB, informed consent and minors but he eventually just blew me off. He did state it wasn't research in an scientific way.

I just hate bad science.

Actually most institutions take ethics very seriously and our government takes research on human subjects even more serious (although they were the worst violators in the past)