How do you feel about forum posts being observed for student research on history in games?

I’m a student with the Open University, and I look at how ancient Rome is represented in videogames, and the types of online activities that players of these games carry out. This is especially the community and discussion aspects but also things like player-created mods & AARs.

It will be a little while before I will be starting the project, so I just wanted to let you know that I will be here, and also start this discussion thread to gauge how you feel about me being here and observing forum users’ discussions with the participants in my study. This would ONLY be interactions with the actual study participants, so not everything on the site would be observed.

Do you assume that these forums are public when you post discussions, mods, AARs or add to threads? Or would you assume that only the forum users would see what you post, i.e do you feel that these discussions are essentially private?

If you have any thoughts on this it would be great to hear them! Do feel free to PM me as well if you would prefer, where I can also give you my email address if you would like chat in more detail.


Thanks!

 

Incidentally, I'm now starting recruiting participants for the research study.

I've posted a new discussion elsewhere but if you'd like to know more about my research, or would even like to be a part of it, the link to a recruitment survey is here:

https://openuniversity.onlinesurveys...uitment-survey

Thanks for your help with this!

/Beavertronius