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Old 03-04-2006, 09:48 AM   #10
Tall One In Black
 
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Join Date: Oct 2005
Location: D.C.
Posts: 538
Quote:
Originally Posted by student
Sorry i'm not meaning to offend you in any way. i understand you probably get a lot of people trying ask you questions, but thats because from what i've seen and read, goth is very interlinked to the internet. There are so many sites dedicated to goth culture that it provides a simple way to access a lot of people who might be willing to help. I'm not asking you to give me a 2000 word essay on 'what is goth', i'm just looking for a little insight from the horse's mouth so to speak. If you don't want to do it then i understand and have no problem with that, but in that case just ignore the thread, there isn't any need to be funny about it.
I'm not offended. And I'll be "funny" if I want, whether you think there's a need for it or not. When you post a question on a public forum, you take what you get for answers.

You're right, there are MANY sites dedicated to goth culture. You can do a lot of your research on those sites - and I don't mean posting surveys. I mean reading the information that is readily available.

Here's the thing about online communities, gothic or otherwise: you get more cooperation if you're an accepted member of the community. An outsider who comes in for no purpose other than research is going to irritate a lot of people.

We didn't get together on this board so we'd be conveniently grouped for outsiders to conduct surveys on us. We're an online community, a group of friends, not a focus group to be used by researchers at their whim.

If you had searched the board before you posted, you would have discovered that other people have done the same thing as you... ad nauseum.

If you're writing a 10,000 word dissertation, you must have some interest in the gothic community. You will have better luck if you try to become part of the community instead of poking at us from the outside like we're some kind of freakish lab rats.

What I've written may seem to have an angry tone, but I am not angry. My tone is meant to be pedagogical. I work in online communications; one of the things my group specializes in is online community-building. In short, I know what I'm talking about.

You'll have a few people answer your questions. You'll have a lot more who are irritated - some of those will ignore you, and some will flame you.
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