[Drbio]

Greetings friends. It’s actually been a while since I have been on the site and that is not because of the recent banning for a month. I was pretty regularly absent long before that. This is going to be a long explanation for those interested in reading it but hopefully it will be worth the time and clear some things up.

I was recently at a conference and when I came back I was looking forward to coming to the site and participate in a GDT. One problem. My account had been banned. Over the past month I have been reading through numerous posts and more recently I have reviewed the private messages sent and received from/to my account. I also had to change my password post-ban. Perhaps the following will clear some things up.

About three years ago, I was involved in a planning discussion for a graduate student thesis as an outside reader. Most universities require an outside reader for the purpose of maintaining graduate school rules and representation, fair handling of the established protocols for graduation etc. It eliminates the appearance and possibility of a major advisor “pushing through” a graduate who was not deserving of a degree just to get them the heck out of their environment. Trust me….it has happened at darned near every school at some point. Anyways, the thesis planning group was convened and I was the reader.

A student had put together a proposal for a masters thesis of study in social theory and specifically wanted to study community theory. The original proposal was interesting but quite frankly not very well developed….especially to those in the know in that field (not my area of expertise at all so I had to take their word for it). The committee sent the kid back out with some very direct questions and requirements and asked that student to develop an original idea couched within the known and accepted theoretical standards of their chosen topic, i.e. Community Theory.

Soonafter, the student requested that we meet again. To be honest, I did not expect much. However, the kid came through. They had obviously studied up very diligently on the theoretical concepts and had to the surprise of the committee applied it to a new and original area of study. The student chose to study applied community theory in the online environment. There was a lot of committee discussion. A whole lot. I’d like to think that my participation assuaged at least one objector as I described my involvement of online community at D-M.com and two other sites, one which I had been a member since 1999 and another since 2000. More discussion ensued. A lot of it. Then some more. The kid had well thought out answers for almost every committee inquiry. I learned a lot about social and community theory during the process. Certainly more than I ever thought or ever wanted but it was interesting.

I had intended on sharing the students questions of study and many of the results but I spoke to another committee member and they were reluctant to release much information which might identify the primary student. Why would I speak to another committee member about this? Easy. And the answer may give you some insight into the oddities of my account over the past couple years. Stay with me…I’ll eventually get there.

The committee approved a path of study for this student and they established several accounts in potential online communities. Several undergraduates and a couple of graduate students were used to post about topics relating to the research questions in online communities focused on politics, religion (a lot of this type of site), medical issues, cars, shopping, higher education, and of course sports. I probably have forgotten some but you get the idea. I volunteered my D-M.com account and two others way back at the start of this study because I identified them as established online communities and I believed in what this student was trying to accomplish.

Interactions between posters were noted, behavioral and interactive responses were noted, reactions to political questions, crime, topics of the day, etc were all noted. Trends in theory and question were examined. The one idea that I will share is that the researchers were looking for similarities between real communities and how they react and online communities. Pretty interesting topic to the kids and committee.

So, now you are aware that other people posted on my account over the past couple of years (one graduate student and a few undergraduate data collectors, one of which parlayed their time into another masters thesis separate from this one but that is another story). I divulged this to one mod and a couple of you over the past year and a half or so when questions arose over odd posts, inconsistent behavior etc. I was reluctant to share this and appreciate those of you who knew this keeping it quiet to preserve the integrity of the research project. It was recently that I began to talk to the data collectors about their role in this project and their temperament on the sites of study. The committee is aware of these discussions and quite frankly at least one kid was fired from this research grant as a result of the recent garbage that was posted which was clearly beyond the scope of the approved study.

You may be thinking something along the lines of “was any of my stuff used”? I don't know. Probably? Maybe? This may piss some people off. If so I apologize as that was never an intended consequence. However, I thought the pursuit of intellectual discovery was certainly worth it and to be fair, everything posted in a forum is in the public domain and free for consumption and use….and yes, the IRB and GC seemed to agree on that way back when this kicked off. You can rest assured that gameday threads and the like were not a large part of this study for several reasons (i.e. typically no questions were relevant and most of us were rabid Mavs homers). Some GDT stuff was used to note how sports communities banded together etc versus other team fans but most was minor. You can also rest assured that NONE of the private messages that you may have sent were used, although unfortunately I have discovered that several PM’s were sent out that I was not aware of and that was unacceptable. Prior to initiating this study, a set of fairly well thought out ground rules were put in place. Several of those ground rules have been broken, especially in the past year. The one point recently about a bazillion pm's being sent from my account however is not substantiated. Quite frankly I find no evidence of it (only 4 sent pm's to the poster in question and those were in response to sick dialogue for which both people should be ashamed).

The good news in all of this is that a student earned a masters degree and has been accepted into a doctoral program to expand on their work. Equally positive is the fact that another student is working in theoretical community theory towards their own masters degree. Not to be overlooked is the value of exposing other undergrads to research methodologies.

The bad stuff is unfortunately being dealt with. As the owner of this account, I do apologize to those who were subjected to one of our undergrad data collectors and ultimately take responsibility for the use of the Drbio account. This individual was removed from the project and taken through internal processes. They were lucky to remain in school. Damned lucky. Real damn lucky. I and another recommended against it and they are lucky an impartial person reviewed their actions. This site was not even the most egregious of behavioral problems, probably due to my continued participation in the occasional GDT. The actions of two posters on multiple sites nearly derailed a very interesting and academically valuable line of research and that is totally unacceptable, as is the way that some have been treated on multiple sites.

I have tried to read up on the posts made here and at other sites but I will restrict my further talk on this subject to only that stuff posted here. I have literally poured over page after page after page after page of post documentation and analysis, theoretical interpretations, etc for posts made here. Another committee member and I continue to inspect use logs, site data etc to provide insight into some recent problems. However...we are at the end as neither os f have the time nor the inclination to continue.

One such incident is the recent chumdawg stuff. Chum and I always got along fine and the mutual awarding of this sites reputation supports that. I have looked at the pm’s and I do not know what happened because there are literally no outgoing pm’s on my account to chum outside of three individual pm’s which involve a bit of a pissing match on both sides. So chum….I don’t know what to say about the bazillion pm’s as I find no evidence of it. I do apologize for allowing my account to be used in such a manner if it was. I have changed the account password and hope that we can interact like we have been in the past from this point on, but seriously…there is nothing for me to go on here. If you have something I would be interested in seeing it.

The stuff at the other sites quite frankly make this stuff here look like nothing. I am happy to field questions, inquiries etc from any of you and it will probably help us in determining one other fate. Perhaps pm's would be best for individual inquiry? I actually would appreciate the feedback. I’ll tell you if I personally argued with you or not (mavdog) and tell you if I need to hear more to know. It would be helpful. Anyways…rather than try to list any findings from here I am going to offer the Q&A and hope it also helps us.

I would like to keep this account open for at least this Q&A process but if it needs to be permanently banned…do it. It matters not to me. If it can stay open great. I have changed the password (about a week ago) and no further accessibility will ever be made but me and me only. Quite frankly, my time here has been sporadic at best over the past year and I can start over if need be or if time permits.

Here’s hoping this clears up at least some things.

Thanks again to those of you helped keep this project on path. Your ability to keep a secret was much appreciated.

Best regards…

Doc