Bloodwinter Clan

http://www.trinity.edu/adelwich/mmo/papers/beth_c.pdf

Came across this the other day at work and thought it was good for a laugh.


Discuss!

Sounds like the article should be entitled Sexism on the WoW General Forums. Did she ever actually try going into the game?

Well it was a research paper <cough> and it sounded like she just got interviews and examples from people who posted on the forums. Did anyone notice that she began the paper by stating clearly that she searched for participants based on her interest to study sexism in WoW. Yet, her study design to explore how often people experience sexism in WoW claimed to use a random sample. Now here is my question, how are you supposed to get a random sample of participants when your participant search states clearly that you are looking for people who have experienced sexism?

Good idea. Poor design. No quantitative data.
I'd give the paper a C+

hehe, yeah

Using the forums to study sexism is just asking for trouble. People go out of there way to be offensive just because their bored and anonymous.

I also like the pool of 28 people she used to make these huge generalizations.

C+ .....your more generous than I would be

It's an undergraduate term paper, not a scientific paper.

She properly documented the limitations of the study, so imo, I don't see what she did wrong. It's a hell of a lot more scientific then some of the stuff I pulled out of my arse when the need arised

I stopped reading after I got to World of Warcraft.

People should fail for writing papers based on online behavior.

Especially since people act completely different online than in real life.

See reference:
http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2004/03/19