Nemia Nuyasaka

Well! I have to say. I apologise if I've offended anyone here. I came here with respect but I have to say the 'professor' did test my nerve. If I wanted advice on how to conduct fieldwork, I'm certainly not going to be coming here or any online forum for that matter. That just doesn't make any sense. I guess my original post may have lacked some detail, I was trying to keep it simple and just start a friendly discussion with anyone willing to take part. Just to clear a few things up... With regards to the immersive aspect of anthropology. Yes, it's the cornerstone of anthropological method, participant-observation. It involves both participating in and observing in a place/culture/issue. It takes years to complete, months to plan, months to gain the trust and access you need from informants. The product of this us usually a book called an ethnography. These are somewhat dying out now in favor of the journal article sadly. Now I was working on a piece of coursework, there were set questions, I picked one which was (ironically!) about anthropological methods and how to apply them to virtual worlds (such as SL). Now due to the nature of researching and writing a piece of coursework, it would be impossible to even attempt some kind of participant observation. There simply isn't time. Instead there are hundreds of other things anthropologists do as well as PO such as... Interviews, surveys, photography, use of video, online research such as forums, blogs etc. Which is exactly what I was doing here. Anyway, I hope that's cleared a few things up. And again, thank you for the feedback and input, I really do appreciate it, it has certainly been interesting! Nemia (girl!)

Penny... yes I said SL was frustrating. Like the 90% that try it and never come back for that exact reason. I was only trying to give some personal information about myself, I was trying to be nice, I was trying to be friendly. I was giving you my expereice, I tried to be polite rather than just coming here and asking questions.

Professor. I'm really not sure you could be more patronising if you tried! You are presuming an awful lot of things here about myself, my academic background and my knowledge of my discipline. In fact you are a prime example of people who enjoy sitting on message boards and spend their time effectively bullying people and attempting to make people feel small. Absolute classic case! All this from a 'professor' too, I certainly cannot imagine any of my professors doing that, in fact, I can't quite believe I have been sucked into this myself. You must be insane if you think that this post was my only research, I have read books, articles, blogs, forum posts etc on the subject already and my essay is almost complete. I was merely coming here, politely hoping to engage in some kind of debate that in all honestly probably would not have made any appearance in my essay. I was interested (so shoot me!). I asked first. I explained myself. But as usual whenever some kind of 'outsider' enters these types of community people just can't help themselves but do just as you have done and use it as some muscle-flexing exercise. Oh and with your 'asking questions' problem. I'm sure you are aware that ALL forms of academia and research in general are based on asking questions, it would be quite frankly ridiculous for me to suggest that merely 'asking questions' was unique to my institution. I was merely referring to the fact the we are allowed to include informal research such as this in our papers. Something that at previous institutions would not have been valid (books, journals, publish works only being legitimate sources for 'information').

Governance.. I.E. the fact that you are all inhabiting a world created by Linden Lab. They create the rules for the space you live in. Those rules have effect on what you can and can't do in that space, and in turn has an effect on culture produced.

Ok people. I'm just saying if people who want to contribute, they can. I'm interested in your opinions and yes, like most anthropology studtents I haven't been to the hundreds of places we write about, I haven't experienced the issues first-hand. Sadly there is just not the time, money or resources to do this. Most students will have the luxury of picking just one topic to do proper some fieldwork on, which I will during the summer. This will entail some limited partipant-observation (seeing that we have 3 months and this requires a least a year). Thanks for your comments professor. I am fully aware of everything you have stated, I am writing a simple piece of coursework not a fully blown piece of published research. We ae encourgaed (unlike a lot of institutions) to go out, ask, questions and investige. We are of course all aware that this cannot and does not in anyway constitute participant-observation and I never claimed it does. Maybe I should research message board communities instead? Now that would be interesting... Anyway, thank you all for your contributions. I really do appreciate it but I'll leave this for now. I can see where this is going. Thanks.

Well maybe we should all blame Tom Boelstorff for the long line of researchers, his book has been mentioned on three of my courses this year and so I am guessing lots of people are becoming interested in SL! Hence, why I asked permission. Anyway... my own experiences, I think like many it was technological frustration that drove me away in 2010. Again, I logged on last night for the first time since and although it was much easier this time it was still incredibly frustrating and I think I lasted just under and hour. I will persevere though as I am sure once I invest some time into it it will become much easier (like everything). Ok, having looked through the perevious research questions (so as not to ask the same things again, please correct me if I am wrong). I am interested governance and online communities so I would ask these questions if I may... 1)What is your personal relationship with Linden Lab? How do you 'see' them? 2)What are your understandings of the relationship between the SL community and Linden Lab as a whole? 3)What are the dominant attitudes towards Linden Lab? Please ask me anything! Nemia. Edit: Spelling and rewording of question 3.

Hi All, I am an anthropology student from London. I have recently been reading Tom Boelstorff's book 'Coming of Age In Second Life' that some of you may be familiar with. I am very much interested Second Life and was just wondering if people on the forum are open to researchers like me coming here and asking questions and enegaing in discussion? I'm not talking about a spamming the board with lots of posts, but maybe just using this one to ask a few questions about your experiences. Please let me know if this would be OK. Many Thanks, Nemia