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That is one of the most bizarre "academic" papers I have ever read. I'm an engineer, so I guess I'm just accustomed to a bit more rigor in papers -- you know, data to support your conclusions, detail of experimental methods, control groups, stuff like that. Judging by this paper, "social science" is a gross abuse of the word "science".
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Hence why we call the social sciences psuedo-sciences. I am a Computer Science major and I also find his paper lacking in empirical evidence or any manner of "data."
As I've stated before, he's a 30-40 year old male harassing people over the internet.
this wasn't a laudable social-experiment by any stretch and certainly falls in the ethical grey as it was done with parties that never consented to his "Social-experiment" in the first place.
If we are discussing anything it should be the legal ramifications of his actions. Harassment is harassment regardless of the medium and a study undertaken with parties that have not consented to said study is not lawful.
Wait, so we need a PhD to prove John Gabriel's Greater Internet F**kwad Theory?
Someone should post this story at Penny Arcade if it hasn't already been done.
I have to wonder just how many emailed death threats he's gotten now that the article is out.
More importantly, I wonder how many surprised Nerd Ragers have found themselves unexpectedly brought up on charges for crossing the line.
Now THAT would be a study worth reading.
I am a social sciences major... heck I'm a social sciences degree holder and I have worked on published research papers in the field of mass communication, a field that obviously pertains to research such as this.
Field research where you are studying people who are unaware of your research is a very gray area indeed. Ideally you would have complete cooperation and foreknowledge involved in the study; in fact this is the norm. But for some studies it is imperative that the subjects behave naturally.
If, for example, you are studying communication in small groups discussing what video to rent for the evening while at the store (A paper my advisor spent 6 months of his life churning out when he was in Grad school) then the subjects having foreknowledge of your study would alter their behavior. Let us be honest, not many people would cheerfully have a discussion about whether or not to rent Big Booty Babes if they knew a researcher was taking notes on their conversation.
Now there are some problems with this kind of study, you have to very careful to not influence the subject's behavior for one. For another you have to devise a rigorous and quantifiable criteria for studying the behavior observed that other researchers can duplicate to gauge the interactions that you see. For social sciences this can, not surprisingly, be a tremendous pain. But it's not really research if you don't have something quantifiable. Period. At least in my humble opinion.
Its on these two points that I have a problems with this professor's research. He is clearly setting out to influence his subjects behavior, and doing so in such a manner to guarantee his pre-determined results. If you behave in a socially unacceptable manner repeatedly and go out of your way to antagonize others they will react poorly to you. I humbly submit to you that this... this piece of knowledge we can already state as a known. Had the researcher acted in this manner in person he would have met with negative reactions from his subjects as well. And likely been gifted with a fat lip if he attempted this on someone with a low threshold for violence.
The other damning point against his results, and I have read his actual research on the matter, is that he fails to quantify his interactions adequately. He vividly describes the results of upsetting his research subjects but frankly the actual cold hard numbers that real serious research paper are built on are lacking. This is not so much research as journalism, and not particularly good journalism either.
All of which leaves aside the ethical implications of causing distress to your research subjects... while they are engaged in a recreation activity that they paid for. And I won't even bring up the controversy of whether or not, as some gamers claim, he misrepresented in his own research the activities he undertook to cause a negative reaction among his research subjects.
In short, this study is flawed, imprecise, prejudiced and a shameful display of what not to do in the study of a promising field that is rich in oppurtunities for research.
Damn good post, ChurchMouse
The only point I might make in defense of his antagonistic behavior, simply for argument's sake, is this:
Simply by signing into a game, and then zoning into a faction PvP zone, are you not, essentially, agreeing to becoming a target and/or being attacked? Are you not, simply by entering an area where an attack is possible, also *knowingly* placing yourself in a position where you might be antagonized?
Again, I only mention it for argument's sake, and the sheer fact that his treatment lacks quantifiable results makes any argument regarding the ethics of his methodology moot.
But coming from other, open-world PvP and zoned PvP games, I myself am well aware of the risk of being antagonized, and even "griefed," I am taking. I find it difficult to -- in a game where competition is a mechanic -- clearly state that being an antagonist is out of place in terms of the study.
Regardless, perhaps a more airtight method of study would be to observe as a third party the actions of someone behaving in this way, and their chatlogs... but that would have to be done with permission, and would of course alter the results (the individual being observed (the antagonist) would merely by being aware they are being observed alter their behavior).
EDIT: Something I have to wonder, however, is this- If someone is deliberately for purposes of data collection antagonizing another and causing them mental distress by their actions, are they not then open to Mental Anguish lawsuits? Or at least, the institution which sanctioned his study?
This guy makes me look good 
you know ur bad, when even the griefers hate you!
You are very much correct, you do open yourself up to a lawsuit. That's one of the points that was drilled into my head over and over again. People can sue you and they can sue the institution which sanctioned your study. It's one of those first cause no harm and second make sure they signed a waiver. Add to that it's likely that some of his research subjects were minors... it's the sort of thing that could cause a legal department for a university to lose a lot of sleep.
I do whole heartedly agree with your point about the nature of PvP. My nephew/room mate is a professional Halo player and lets just say that the way he and others refer to one another is... colorful? You have an excellent point, when you go into a PvP zone you do invite other gamers to... well... kick the daylights out of you.
My problem with his study in that regard is he prejudiced his research before he even started. The professor narrowed down his subject matter to the point where he was going to get the results he wanted to get for his paper. As others have noted, he did not employ a strategy of fighting fair sometimes and dirty at other times. He did not use multiple characters to see how the interaction changed for one that was well liked by his fellow gamers as opposed to someone who was openly despised.
It's not that he was engaging in PvP. It's that he limited his study to one particularly infuriating aspect of it and from that very narrow aspect preceeded to make broad generalizations about the community as a whole.
It would be like if I went out of my way to find a left handed Native American who works at Walmart and then stated, in an academic research paper, all Native Americans are left handed and work at Walmart. He cherry picked his methodology to get his desired results.
You brought up some really good points about the difficulties of making an ethical study in this type of environment. It does handcuff the researcher in many regards. There is a tremendous amount of research waiting to be made in this field. It's literally breathtaking. MMOs and the shifting societies and communities they create are fascinating for the social scientists who are aware of thier existence and scope.
The difficutly is coming up with ways to study a new social dynamic. Short cuts and baiting people into making hostile statements does not only the CoH community a disservice but science as well.
I hope that made sense, I really shouldn't type while juggling a cat on my lap.
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EDIT: Something I have to wonder, however, is this- If someone is deliberately for purposes of data collection antagonizing another and causing them mental distress by their actions, are they not then open to Mental Anguish lawsuits? Or at least, the institution which sanctioned his study?
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How about NCSoft's role in all of this? I'm willing to bet he didn't ask if he could use their service to do an experiment on their customers. While I understand that, in some experiments, you can't fully inform your subjects, I'm pretty sure if you decide to conduct that experiment on private property, you definitely need permissions of the property owner.
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Originally Posted by eltonio
This is over the top mental slavery.
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Indeed you do. And not just research for a thesis.
MARKET research often calls for getting permission where applicable, otherwise your data collection is crippled.
I once had a job working for Buena Vista (Disney's media distribution company, back in the '80's). They hired me to count people attending specific movie screenings, and comparing them to the tickets sold. In order to do so, I had to get the cooperation of the movie theatre... but if I wasn't able to? they told me to buy a ticket, watch the movie like any other patron, and press the counter clicker for every person I saw walk in... and they'd do without the ticket sales data cos there was no legal way of getting it.
Was I telling my friends to watch the movie? Was I bugging people who did watch it? No. That wasn't the point, to influence the people I was measuring.
ANY kind of research is rendered invalid when the researcher becomes an active participant, without a 'control group' that they leave strictly alone to do their thing. This man set out to prove something in an MMO that he could have proven on a street corner.
It's been true for ages. Act like an [censored], and get spit upon, if not worse.
The fact that it's virtual ups the ante a bit, but with no control group, no 'nice' behavior to contrast, his conclusions are moot.
I would love to see Loyola's administrative take on this, especially in light of the legal issues brought up by this so-called 'study'.
"City of Heroes. April 27, 2004 - August 31, 2012. Obliterated not with a weapon of mass destruction, not by an all-powerful supervillain... but by a cold-hearted and cowardly corporate suck-up."
Is churchmouse going for his PhD
If you have any worldly sense this topic does not require this much brain power.
Looking thru this thread, I can't help but be reminded of my home server on Star Wars Galaxies, Shadowfire..which was very PVP happy and home to many a happy griefer...(much to the dismay of those of us who rped and PVE'd)..
The PVP bounty hunters would have gleefully had Twixt for breakfast or as a warmup for the day's Jedi hunting.
Global is @Mellissandria
I don't have that much art, but I do write stories and I do collect art on
my DA account
Good God no. My bachelor's degree and the handful of Grad classes I took while finishing up the dratted foreign language requirement they shoe horned me into more then cured me of any desire to join the world of academia. Am I interested in the subject? Sure.
There is a lot of very interesting things happening as regards MMO culture and interactions. And those very interesting things will be studied by someone else. I'm very happy just playing a character running around in long underwear fighting crime.
Good points, but I think the internet rage on this one has passed. If you check out his blog, it has gone from heavy activity, to him just posting chat logs from RV and no one commenting.
Part of this is short internet attention span, and part of it is that he's just kind of a [censored].