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Oy, we're being studied ....

Be careful with what you say.




Cyberculture Report

Is that website something someone got a passing mark on at university level...?

It's funny to see the outsider's perspective on PW, but really, what's the purpose? There's no conclusion or science in general going on as far as I can tell.

It reads like an amateur book report or something.
A bit of an embarrassment for those of us that actually studied "hard" sciences at University.

I'm not sure I see the point either.

I was expecting to read some insightful report on the interpersonal dynamics of on-line common-interest forums using Piano World as an example. Instead, it's just a list of observations of which anyone who has spent more than 10 minutes on Piano World is readily aware.

It's pretty harmless, however, so I suppose it doesn't really matter.

The point to me is not that this 'study' has a point, it's that PW is not an insular and closed community. Anything said here may wind up before a broader audience than you may imagine at the point that you are tapping out your post.

Welcome to the Internet.

I know that, but I think many posters often lose sight of it.

That may be your point (and a good point it is), but I'm not sure it was the author's point.

It's an even greater embarrassment for the social scientists here who know that it is possible to approach the social sciences rigorously yet find our field stigmatized by the people who do it sloppily and superficially.

It's a shame, because I think there really could be some interesting data in the PW archives for projects on topics such as coalition formation, ingroup favoritism, group conflict, groupthink, stereotypes and prejudice, attitudes and persuasion, etc. etc. But this report ain't it.

I'm wondering what time of day the screen picture was taken. As I write this 365 people are viewing the Piano forum. I don't believe I've ever seen a number as low as the 97 on the screen picture.

Other than that I agree with Monica's assessment. The report is misses a great opportunity. Still with grade inflation it could get an A!

Not in my classes, it wouldn't.

A lot of stuff written by students is, well, rather marginal at best. Hopefully this was not constructed by a sociology professor.

A little web searching and I believe it was written for this class:

RHE 330 C

Advanced Studies in Digital Rhetorics
Rhetorics of Cyberculture
Dr. Diane Davis

http://www.cwrl.utexas.edu/~davis/crs/rhe330/

Indeed. And a little more sleuthing will identify the student who is studying us. She joined our ranks. We have a mole!

Before I read the other posts on this thread, I guessed that this site was part of a course in rhetoric and an assignment about what are called discourse communities. That is precisely what it seems to be. That also helps explain why it might not appear to say very much--it is hard to know how successful the student's website is without knowing what she was asked to do. It may have satisfied the assignment very well. It's hard to know without seeing the assignment. So while it may satisfy the audience for the class (as specified in the assignment), it does not do much for an audience of outsiders--especially for those who are part of the discourse community, and especially for those of this particular one where the members are very self aware. My suspicion is that she has talked with some members about their experiences on this site. If she did not, and I were the professor here, I would want to know why she did not. Whether the grade is inflated is impossible to know for us, not being part of the class. In my experience, this looks like very middle of the road kind of work--neither terrible nor excellent. But, in saying that I have to guess at what the assignment might have required her to do. Not that it matters, but I am an English professor. The kind of work that the website represents is very mainstream--part of an area of English known as rhetoric and composition.

This report could have been a relatively minor assignment that was done in five hours or less. Why some posters are so critical or expecting some in depth commentary is beyond me.

Yeah, you're probably right. And the person who wrote it is probably reading our posts and laughing out loud.

The joke's on us???

I don't think any of us are being particularly serious here. It's rather amusing to see PW as the subject of a 'study.'

The title of this thread is Cyberculture report on us. In reality, a cyberculture report, it is not. So the OP made an assumption regarding the assignment and the rest of us went with that. Something I've noticed is that this forum usually gets to a right answer. In this case that means understanding that a cyberculture report may not be what was asked of the class.

What gets me wondering is whether the reason the OP went to cyberculture report is because as a very specialized forum we'd like to be better understood by the mainstream. This is of course total speculation, but I know I felt what may have been a touch of disappointment that the report wasn't more interested in the group dynamics of this community. Frankly that's what I find interesting about this place (and I'm not a professional in the business). Yet the report didn't even mention the obvious dynamics at the interface of so many professionals, piano sellers, technicians, teachers, performers, students and players (amateur and professional).

Steve, I am the OP. The OP made no assumption. The class website calls it a Cyber-Subculture Report.

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and here is the assignment:

Cyber-subculture report