98% of a graduating high school class goes on to college...

If it's so easy to lie online, what's stopping people from dissembling in the real world and what happens when lies become so normal as to be accepted? What's the next step?

Now, as for the big gorilla?

Where you from anyways? Even if that is true in your corner of world I would thing a basic understanding that all the world is not like your own high school would be some kind of prerequisite core of knowledge a person would have before becoming some kind of "anthropologist" or whatever you say you are.

As they say : Pictures plz

I knew Claude Lévi-Straus personally. I know all of the people who run the anthropology department at the CNRS in Paris. If this Julie person is a serious ethnologist, she needs to send me her full name, bibliography and the university where she has a post (a phone number will earn extra credit...)

Until then, this is completely bogus.

I have to agree. Not asserting expertise nor credentials is part of the cost of operating as pseudonym. BTW TFA that stuff about Claude and CNRS seems a little over the top...unless you intend to show documentation. After all merely having your name and basic id parameters known (and only against your will) doesn't establish such claims any better than a pseudonym.

How about a handwritten thank you letter for the birthday present?

(Okay, it's only a couple of lines, but he was over a hundred when he wrote it...and he thanked me, as opposed to President Sarkozy, who only got in the door...°

Ok, lets see it then. Along with provenance, please.

give me your address and I'll mail you a photocopy. As far as "provenance", would the handwritten envelope do?

Post to Photobucket or something and post here. Lets not get privat-it- tee. The whole class should get to see. A envelope with return address/post mark would help. It would rebut at least recent fabrication if not forged itself.

Nope, a snail mail address or nothing at all. Under French law, I can send a copy via private mail, but I can't post a copy to the web without permission of the heirs. I'm not going to ask them for such a petty request as this.

I'll give you a compromise. I'll send a photocopy to Greg Kohs. (You do believe that Greg exists, don't you?)

He can say that it's the real McCoy or not. (or you can give me your real name and address and I can send the same materials to you.)

The point is: I have the letter. You know that I have the letter. What is the point of making me jump through the hoops?

(Of course, it would be much easier to simply give me your name and address, as civilized people do....)

give me your address and I'll mail you a photocopy. As far as "provenance", would the handwritten envelope do?

98% of a graduating high school class goes on to college...

You see, Julie? We're all mad here...

If this Julie person is a serious ethnologist, she needs to send me her full name, bibliography and the university where she has a post (a phone number will earn extra credit...) ... Until then, this is completely bogus.

One of the biggest problems with online communities is that there is very little money in it. Corporations tend to still look at communities as part of marketing's domain, and online communities like WP or Ravelry are still very young. How do you filter out the truth from the lies? Is there an ethical responsibility to the well-being of community members? Or is the responsibility ultimately to showing success. Facebook, MySpace, WP, and Ravelry are perceived to be successful ventures and yet I believe that we can't even begin to conceive some of the problems that these communities encourage and how they will play out in society.

To clarify a few things. My academic interest is in online gaming subcultures such as WoW. My interest with the WP community is purely personal. Whatever I come up with, which might amount to nothing at all (although I highly doubt that), is going directly to the WR community.

One of the biggest problems with online communities is that there is very little money in it. Corporations tend to still look at communities as part of marketing's domain, and online communities like WP or Ravelry are still very young. How do you filter out the truth from the lies? Is there an ethical responsibility to the well-being of community members? Or is the responsibility ultimately to showing success. Facebook, MySpace, WP, and Ravelry are perceived to be successful ventures and yet I believe that we can't even begin to conceive some of the problems that these communities encourage and how they will play out in society.

You have experience with WoW and similar online gaming subcultures and yet you suggest that there is "very little money in it"? Really?

Now now ... Friday is just big boned.

I don't believe Ms. Julie here has claimed to be a "serious ethnologist" - rather, she's claimed to be a student of cultural anthropology and psychology, meaning not a degree-holder. So that isn't really an assertion of formal credentials, is it? I'd say that as long as she doesn't start asking other people for their identifying info (bearing in mind that she hasn't claimed to be working on a treatise or dissertation about WP, not yet anyway), we should try to avoid asking for her identifying info, at least publicly.

In the past when I've dealt with undergraduate students doing similar research for class projects full names have been offered, not only of the student but also the advisor, along with email addresses for both and a link to a disclosure regarding privacy rights and informed consent to be the subject of research. If "Julie" is a "student" it's not at any legitimate, accredited institution.

Ban the troll. And move on.

In the past when I've dealt with undergraduate students doing similar research for class projects full names have been offered, not only of the student but also the advisor, along with email addresses for both and a link to a disclosure regarding privacy rights and informed consent to be the subject of research.

But she's saying WP (and by extension WR) are not subjects of any sort of formal research, and no mention has been made of a class project... I agree that if she wanted to make WP and/or WR the subject of a Master's thesis or doctoral dissertation (i.e., something that could conceivably be disseminated), she should identify herself. But until it becomes something like that, I don't see any reason to insist on it.

I wanted to take a moment to introduce myself and in an exercise of full disclosure explain my rationale for joining this community. First of all, my name is Julie and I am studying the psychology of subcultures. What does that mean exactly? I study subcultures that exist within imagined communities found on the internet.

I have no association with Wikipedia or the foundation except that I find the WP subculture to be incredibly fascinating and I think that it can be a valuable tool to helping me better understand the dynamics of imagined communities.

One of the hardest things about observing subcultures is that I have to find a way to distinguish the signal from the noise and that’s very hard to do that when most of the noise is disguised as signal. The most effective, but also most difficult way to develop an ethnography is through a combination of observations and self-reporting techniques. The Wikipedia subculture is far too cloistered and insular to be able to accurately observe them and I think that we can pretty much all agree that most self-reporting exercises will be incredibly slanted. I have been reading the forums on Wikipedia Review for about three weeks and finally decided that the only way for me to get an honest view of the Wikipedia subculture is from people who have no vested interest in maintaining a public perception. In other words, I am going to another tribe to learn more about the tribe I really want to study.

Cultural anthropologists must be unbiased, but all that means in regards to this community is that I am not here to judge the Wikipedia subculture.

I will make a few promises to this community and I hope that you will accept them, even if you have no reason to do so. I will not reveal any information that I gather to anyone except for my advisor. If I think that my observations may be of any assistance to this community, I will hand them over to you all (the community as a whole) to use as you see fit. That all being said, I am an incredibly opinionated individual and will probably find myself in a situation where I want to post and just might do so with the understanding that those opinions won’t find their way into my observations. I hope that eventually, after I have earned your trust, you might feel comfortable in sharing some of your experiences with me so that I can better flesh out my ethnography.

If anyone who is part of the Wikipedia subculture wants to contact me, they can do so through this forum and I will be more than happy to incorporate their views as well.

So with that, thank you in advance for letting me tag along with you on what might just turn out to be a ride more wild than Mr. Toad's.

Having said what I said above, why mention Ravelry? You do know that's what Durova is into, right?

Maybe she just really is into textiles. Like some people are into ... leather.

I was wondering about that. It's like if she mentioned LUGNet (as an example of an online community)... everyone would think she's me.

In her initial post she said that information given to her would only be shared with her "Advisor". That strongly suggests a class project, senior research project, or similar situation.

I mean, yeah, she could be Durova or Jonas or even Jimbo for all we know, but until we have a better reason to want to know for certain, I don't see why she shouldn't be treated in a reasonably privacy-respecting sort of way.