[los ojos mas hermosos]

21 minutes ago, Annika Velde said:

I had to laugh because Chrome just translated the title in English to "Frying Pan".

Edit::

Here is the poem:

The most beautiful eyes 
can be green, blue or black 
especially can be dark or light

Whoever knows how to use 
always know love 
who knows how to look, counsel knows 
who knows understand, you know clarify

A world without eyes 
is an empty world 
in which the truth is not found

The true eyes, are in the soul 
those who little use 
those who are ignored 
will always see the truth, life

 

The real hero here.

[Participation in our research]

16 minutes ago, Scylla Rhiadra said:

Hi Nickylion,

First of all, welcome to the forums! The response that you are getting is, I'm afraid, a fairly standard one for researchers and students who come here to do their research. I might note that you'll get something of the same response from a great many people inworld, too, when they discover that you are doing research. I'm sure that you can understand why people might feel this way, but the very fact that they do will tell you something, I think, about the difference(s) between most users of Second Life, and those involved in MMORPGs. For a great many people here, this is not a "game": it truly is an alternate world, and a place to experiment with and play with identity. Many people "live" here, in a very real, if virtual sense, and identity -- including gender, biological sex, sexual identity, and even species -- is a very meaningful thing.

A couple of quick points that might help: Treasure's point about IRBs is well-taken, but if you don't have those in Utrecht, a possible alternative is to be as forthcoming as you possibly can about your research, your program, and even about your selves. In general, as you probably know, RL identity is often jealously guarded here (which is, btw, one reason why you might find that many potential interviewees will steer clear of you if you insist upon using Skype), but I've seen researchers here who have been quite open about their real life academic identities, as a method of building trust and establishing bona fides. The more verifiable or detailed information you can provide, the more likely people are to have faith in you. And a really well-explained and interesting research design does get a good response here often.

I'm a little puzzled that you can't offer compensation for interviewees: that's actually a pretty standard thing for qualitative and quantitative data collection here in North America. It will improve your odds of attracting participants, although spreading your net wider does, as you intimate, probably increase the chances of your data being contaminated.

The suggestion that this is not exactly a new topic of research is, I'm afraid, true. There actually has been a fair amount, both scholarly and more generalist, published on this subject, as even a quick literature or even Google search should reveal. You might also check out the Journal of Virtual Worlds Research. If you have a slightly different angle on this issue that makes it fresh, then you should tell us, as it will likely increase the number of people interested in participating.

In response to what "Avery" says above, I think I might somewhat agree that there are not more benefits for women here, but I'd say that there are perhaps some different ones. It is physically "safer" here, obviously, for women, but not necessarily emotionally so, and there is no shortage of harassment, abusive language, misogyny, and so forth. A great difference, of course, is that these are easier to ignore or escape from. One real benefit for some women, particularly those who have felt disempowered by emotional or physical abuse in real life, is that here they have much greater control over such situations in a virtual environment, a fact that means that -- again, for some -- the experience of virtual abuse and misogyny can actually in an odd way be a bit "empowering" and therapeutic.

Overall, though, I'd agree that women are not special beneficiaries here. And you might consider, in this context, the rather naive nature of your question: when you say "women," do you mean "real life" biological females? What about those who represent as women here, but may be biologically (and culturally) males? Their experience of Second Life as women is, I would imagine, different from that of RL "women," but only insofar as they come equipped with different experiences from RL. And then there are trans women (in both RL and SL contexts), of which there is actually a sizable and very active community here: again, the "things" that happen to them here may be the same as those experienced by anyone who represents as female here, but these will take on a very different meaning, I think.

And because gender identity can be assumed, and cast off, with the click of a mouse button, it is much more obviously a "performance" here (think Judith Butler!) than even in RL. How one experiences SL as a woman also depends a great deal on how one chooses to "perform" that role. For instance, there are many who represent as women here who very consciously assume the identity of hyperfeminized or hypersexualized women, because they can with far fewer consequences. So there is an element of the "feminine" in SL that is sometimes a bit cartoon-like. (The same is true, but maybe to a lesser extent, of representing masculinity here.)

What I guess I'm getting at is that you need to elaborate or complicate (or "unpack," as academics are wont to say in English) your notion of "gender," because, as complicated as this idea of socially determined identity is in RL, it is even more so here.

Ok. Guess I've said enough? 

Good luck with your research!

Honestly, anything you needed is right there spelt out for you, Nickylion. You should be the researcher here Scylla. 

[Who were the winners of the Leap into Love contest?]

Been looking everywhere, never saw a post concerning it. What happened?