Research ethics in Internet-enabled research: Human subjects issues and methodological myopia
Ethics and Information Technology
On Understanding How to Introduce an Innovation to an Open Source Project
FLOSS '07 Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Emerging Trends in FLOSS Research and Development
Online diaries: Reflections on trust, privacy, and exhibitionism
Ethics and Information Technology
Fractures between an online and offline community (and the ethical responses)
International Journal of Web Based Communities
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As users of computer networks have become more active in producing their own electronic records, in the form of transcripts of onlinediscussions, ethicists have attempted to interpret this new situation interms of earlier models of personal data protection. But thistransference results in unprecedented problems for researchers. Thispaper examines some of the central dichotomies and paradoxes in thedebate on research ethics online in the context of the concrete study ofa virtual community that we carried out. We argue that alienation, notprivacy, is the actual core of the ethical problems of virtual communityresearch. While practically everybody is allowed and often welcome tojoin online communities (which undermines the claim to privacy), mostparticipants would agree that members and visitors are not authorized touse, or `harvest,' or sell the product of the group communication. To dothat, they would be expected to ask for permission preferably before thecontent has been produced, thus granting participants' right to controltheir own product. This `non-alienation principle' should be the basisof emergent social conventions in cyberspace. It would apply toresearchers as to anyone else. With certain types of research, wesuggest, cyberspace provides unique opportunities for empoweringsubjects by involving them as contributors in the research project.