Woman spends a year on Frum Womens Forums for her thesis!!!

gryp

Tue, Jun 30 2009, 9:24 am

ss321 wrote:

merelyme wrote:

Zus wrote:

I have no problem with this.
As long as this person is a frum married woman, she can be on this forum.

And publicize what's said in private threads?

if you do a simple google search for imamother, you might run across a site (I did) that posts an entire (very shocking and terrifying to me) conversation that took place within a "private" subforum here. Without posting anything that will get me banned, in brief, the debate is about what is more "important" from a chinuch perspective, teaching your children about your rabbi/rov/rebba/gadol, who is tangible to them since a picture of him can hang on the wall, or teaching them about Hashem. one poster said we need to make a stronger effort to emphasize hashem so our children dont think we do things to make [our gedolim] proud. Someone else posted that her dd thinks that she is davening to [a certain gadol] because that is more tangible to this child than hashem. another poster supposedly posed "Is that why kids who are older have so many questions? They never got a G-d in the first place???" Whatever. It went back and forth and was really shocking to me. could be the entire thing is made up or a figment of her imagination. perhaps it is from Hashkafah.com or some other newfangled site. Who knows? IDK if she is even a member of that subforum, maybe someone PM'd it all to her- how would we know? Did she break a law? Maybe she is no longer a member of imamother either. who knows.

either way, there is nothing unethical or immoral about using the information you find on the internet for your own purposes. OTOH, a PM, I believe, should be treated like an email. Would I post the contents of an email someone sent ME (and did not CC to anyone else) in confidence all over the web? Certainly not; THAT IMO is unethical, and just mean. So too, I would never breach someones "trust" by sharing the contents of a PM with anyone without prior permission. But just what you find on the web???

Im sorry to break it to you all, but if a thread was locked or deleted yesterday, and you remember a phrase that someone used (lets say the words "never fear the rain again."-that is some ad that keeps popping up on this site, I just took those random words), and you google "imamother" and "never fear the rain again," chances are you will come across the thread. If you click on the link, you will probably encounter something like http://www.imamother.com/forum.....4af8b ("The topic or post you requested does not exist"). But OTOH, if you click on "cached," you will be sent to googles latest 'copy' of the site, before it was removed. So even if something is "private," just know, that on the net, it never really is private.

Whoa, can we clarify a few things here?

A) Any material which is reprinted for the sake of another author's study/blog/whatever, is bound to be warped in some way.

B) I'm not surprised by Imamother being used for a study. Much like I'm not surprised by the "research" books that comes out about any specific community, like the one I'm thinking of about Crown Heights.

C) Nobody likes to be a guinea pig. People deserve basic respect in being asked if they volunteer to be a guinea pig. Not asking means you don't give other human beings this basic respect anyone and everyone deserves.

D) Writing a thesis is not the same as reprinting Imamother on the web. How many people read other people's theses? How many people look up a blog page? Compare and contrast.

E) If you need to know, there were a lot of people who were extremely upset over this issue- that posts in a private forum were copied over onto a different website for analysis and gossip. It is unethical to cross the boundaries of the sense of privacy an online community tries to retain. It is unethical to use people's trusting nature for your own purpose.

I'm not surprised but yes, she should have asked. When Chabad.org wanted to set up a women's section on their website, they came here and ASKED if we would mind them taking our tips and other useful ideas for their website. Most people said NO. And they didn't. That's ethical.

People deserve to choose to partake in a study/analysis about themselves. I'm not surprised when someone doesn't ask though, just as I'm not surprised when an amother tries guessing which poster it is. Rolling Eyes

ss321

Tue, Jun 30 2009, 10:23 am

GR wrote:

Whoa, can we clarify a few things here?

A) Any material which is reprinted for the sake of another author's study/blog/whatever, is bound to be warped in some way.

IDK, I perused thru her thesis, didnt seem warped to me at all! which part was offensive??

GR wrote:

B) I'm not surprised by Imamother being used for a study. Much like I'm not surprised by the "research" books that comes out about any specific community, like the one I'm thinking of about Crown Heights.

right. me neither. Ive seen urbanbaby discussed in NY Magazine before, I dont see how this is any different. Its the web. not a private AA meeting.

GR wrote:

C) Nobody likes to be a guinea pig. People deserve basic respect in being asked if they volunteer to be a guinea pig. Not asking means you don't give other human beings this basic respect anyone and everyone deserves.

a) this woman never quoted any single poster. she referred to threads from lots of different websites. no one is/was a guinea pig. no different than posting the titles and analyzing the contents of the various news stories that appear on the jerusalem post's website vs cnn's.
b) say you are on the subway, and someone chooses to write a thesis about the different modes of dress of various riders of the 6 and 9 trains (which run on the east and west side of the city, respectively), comparing and contrasting what s/he sees. NO permission needs to be granted. OTOH, I would agree with you if said thesis-writer started snapping pictures and using those in his/her dissertation.

GR wrote:

D) Writing a thesis is not the same as reprinting Imamother on the web. How many people read other people's theses? How many people look up a blog page? Compare and contrast.

I really have no idea.
unless the blog is something like [idk I dont follow blogs but some famous persons "blog," such as like a senator keeping one], not many. same for a thesis. Professor who supervised the doctoral candidate's work for 3-5 years, in addition to a committee who will decide whether or not to grant the candidate a PhD. maybe his/her spouse to be nice. otherwise, it just gets relegated to the annals of the library at the new doctor's school, to gather dust. This is pretty much how it happens, with few exceptions. So Im not sure what your point is. One is ok the other isnt? which is ok, and which is not?

GR wrote:

E) If you need to know, there were a lot of people who were extremely upset over this issue- that posts in a private forum were copied over onto a different website for analysis and gossip. It is unethical to cross the boundaries of the sense of privacy an online community tries to retain. It is unethical to use people's trusting nature for your own purpose.

I may think it is not "nice," But I dont think it is unethical. maybe we have different sets of ethics, IDK.

GR wrote:

I'm not surprised but yes, she should have asked. When Chabad.org wanted to set up a women's section on their website, they came here and ASKED if we would mind them taking our tips and other useful ideas for their website. Most people said NO. And they didn't. That's ethical.

that has nothing to do with ethics. That has to do with preventing backlash later on. When cnbc.com set up a website, I highly doubt they went to cnn.com and asked them for tips. Same for haaretz.com / jerusalempost.com or wcbs880.com vs 1010wins.com. I dont think that is unethical.

GR wrote:

People deserve to choose to partake in a study/analysis about themselves. I'm not surprised when someone doesn't ask though, just as I'm not surprised when an amother tries guessing which poster it is. Rolling Eyes

I am a pretty frequent poster on here, but I dont view someone using general topics she found on here as an "analysis of ME." that is like saying: I shop at the food emporium. Therefore, I take issue with the NY post talking about what your average shopper carries out in her bags at the food emporium, because I shop there, and that is an unethical analysis/study of "me" as a shopper.
Im not surprised that someone is trying to guess who it is, I think its funny that they dont have the guts to post with their real username!

gryp

Tue, Jun 30 2009, 10:48 am

ss321 wrote:

GR wrote:

Whoa, can we clarify a few things here?

A) Any material which is reprinted for the sake of another author's study/blog/whatever, is bound to be warped in some way.

IDK, I perused thru her thesis, didnt seem warped to me at all! which part was offensive??

GR wrote:

right. me neither. Ive seen urbanbaby discussed in NY Magazine before, I dont see how this is any different. Its the web. not a private AA meeting.

GR wrote:

D) Writing a thesis is not the same as reprinting Imamother on the web. How many people read other people's theses? How many people look up a blog page? Compare and contrast.

GR wrote:

I may think it is not "nice," But I dont think it is unethical. maybe we have different sets of ethics, IDK.

GR wrote:

We can argue from today over tomorrow over this, but I don't really have that time. One thing is clear, that it bothers people, and usually we refrain from bothering people, right? We don't say: that's their own problem when someone is bothered by something we do.
Would YOU do it, knowing people would be upset over it?

Mirabelle

Tue, Jun 30 2009, 11:15 am

Mama Bear wrote:

I dont feel invaded or offended in the least. it was fascinating reading. She didnt quote specific posts or usernames. she didnt mention which threads came from which site. This wasnt published for the whole wide world, I just happen to come across it.

a few years ago I was befriended by a Conservative convert studying for her Orthodox conversion. She asked me a gajillion questions about chasidishkeit, williamsburg etc. It was hard for me to give balanced but true answers. after weeks of thsi she confessed she was using my IMs for her thesis!!!!!!! I was taken aback beyond words. She bought me a gift because she felt so bad about what she had done. I forgave her quickly as we had become really good friends. but talk about being 'used' for research Smile

. (In the end she did not convert Orthodox...)

I am glad she felt bad, that was a nasty thing to do to a nice person!

Parts of my MA thesis required ethnography and interviews and my advisor told me that I always need to tell people what I am doing and why I am asking questions, etc. Most of the time people were happy to help and if they did not want their name used, they told me!

louche

Tue, Jun 30 2009, 1:58 pm

Atali wrote:

I don't know how to explain it exactly, but it feels like an invasion of privacy for some reason Scratching Head

, not that there is any real privacy on the internet anyway..

Edited to fix an obvious typo

I know what you mean. I was about to post that I feel used and betrayed by this person who joined under false pretenses and was merely spying on us. This is not a logical reaction at all, because we don't know that she was necessarily observing this forum; most of us don't use our real names; we know in the back of our minds that there is no true privacy here and we could be outed at any time; and yet--and yet...the term "g'neivat daat" comes to mind.

Had this woman presented herself and said "I'm doing a thesis on these kinds of forums, promise not to reveal any identifying info, go ahead and do what you do, don't mind me" that would have been appropriate. After all, that's what people do who write books about the societies they observe, like the woman who wrote "mystics, mavericks and merrymakers." true, honesty might have skewed the observations somewhat--we might have been on our best behavior rather than letting it all hang out as some of us do--but I suspect that in the long run ppl would have reverted to type and ignored the fact that we were being observed.

As it is, I feel slimed.