Ethnography Results – Week 8

This week only brought one interesting story, but it is a good closer for this study and ties into one of the points I’d like to bring up in the report for this study.

Commenting and Posting
Nothing to note here.

The Atheism Category
While I have written about people explaining how they became atheists on reddit, this situation is slightly different.  It is mainly different because of how young the person is who spoke out to the atheism followers.  He is only 14.

He explained that he came from a Christian family and the only other atheist he knew in his entire family was his uncle.  Unfortunately, his uncle was constantly chastised by his grandparents for this and this didn’t exactly create a welcoming environment for him when he decided to change his beliefs.  When he started doubting his beliefs and their validity, he began to read Ray Bradbury and Philip K. Dick quite a bit.  They ended up helping him to come to terms with becoming an atheist and breaking off from his upbringing.  However, he realized that he couldn’t go to his grandparents or his parents for that matter to talk about the changes he was going through.  He also said the entire area he was in was heavily Christian so he didn’t feel like any of his friends could help him in this matter either.  But that’s when he remembered about the atheism subreddit.  He wrapped up his post by saying that he found a home with the atheism community there and he no longer felt alone in dealing with his issues.  He praised reddit and its members for being so friendly and helpful in his time of need.

The last part he mentioned about reddit being a helpful community is actually on of the main points I got out of this entire study.  There are not many places I can think of where someone could seek help like this guy did and actually receive it without any smarmy comments or people just looking to rip into one another.  This is not always the case in places like other forums and such, but I think anyone would be hard pressed in finding a virtual community as community-like as a real community in a neighborhood as reddit is with its users.  This is of course just based on my experience with the atheism category users, but it just feels like an entirely different crowd on reddit.

Wrap-up
Overall, this has been a very entertaining and informative study.  To be honest, I wasn’t sure what I was going to get out of this study at first.  I knew reddit was new and foreign so it would be interesting in that regard.  But I had no idea the kind of perspective I would gain from it over the course of these 8 weeks.  I must say that I am thoroughly impressed with the community atmosphere in the atheism subreddit.  Never once did I see someone call out for help and peace of mind and not have someone answer their call.  As a side note for myself, I also saw the main issues fueling the hostility between Christians and atheists.  I had seen some of this before, but hearing some of the testimonials opened my eyes even more than they were before.  I really enjoyed everything I got out of this study and all of the knowledge I gained from it.

Ethnography Results – Week 7

There was just one interesting story again this week.  But it’s about accusations of witchcraft in the TSA.  This is good enough for just one story.

Commenting and Posting
Nothing to note here.

The Atheism Category
This woman working for the TSA was fired for being a Wiccan.  Well, not exactly.  What really happened was a fellow coworker accused her of casting a spell on her car and she was afraid she was in danger from it.  This other woman filed a complaint about it and eventually got her fired.  The woman who was fired had also complained about lax security measures in the airport, and this was listed as another reason for being fired.  She explained that after the spell-casting accusation, the other people she worked with wouldn’t help her with anything and essentially ignored.  Her upper management requested that she formally explain her beliefs.  This request was made before she got fired.  She refused on the grounds that a Christian or Jewish employee would never have to do the same thing.

This entire situation is completely ridiculous to me.  And I am not talking about the woman who practices Wicca.  So what if she does.  That is her personal preference.  This was clearly religious discrimination, and she did actually file a formal complaint about it.  She lost the first time probably because she was representing herself.  But she has filed an appeal and has a lawyer this time.  I honestly hope she wins.  I don’t care if there were other reasons for her being fired.  She was noted as being a great employee, and none of this started until some person accused her of witchcraft.  To me, this seems similar to firing or treating someone differently due to the color of their skin.  Someone’s outlandish accusation got this woman fired, and she deserves some kind of retribution.

Wrap-up and Plans for Next Week
I’ll admit I never knew much about Wicca before checking out this article.  I thought some of it had to do with witchcraft, but even if it did I never believed any of that stuff could be real.  The woman explained that for her, it is about appreciating nature and is similar to Native Americans and their religious beliefs.  This might not be the same for all Wiccans, but that still doesn’t give someone the right to discriminate.  Well, technically they can do whatever they want, but there should be consequences for such intolerant behavior.

For next week, I am hoping for more good stories like this one.  I would also like to have more than one that seems interesting.  This is still great information though.  And as for the commenting patterns of users, I think we are all planning to compile that data after the study is done.  We have not forgotten about it, but we just haven’t done as much with it as we had hoped to.

Ethnography Results – Week 6

There was only one story of interest this week.  And no commenting or posting either.

Commenting and Posting
Nothing to note here.

The Atheism Category
While there was only one story that seemed interesting enough to write about this week, it seemed like a pretty good one.  The story deals with someone who works in a store of some sort.  He said one of his customers found out he was an atheist.  She was definitely not an atheist, so she decided it was her duty to show him the error of his ways.  She came back later with some donuts and books so they could discuss why he should change his view on all of this.  He explained that he had read most of those books before and they actually helped him realize he was an atheist.

Ultimately, he continued to refute her arguments that really only used the Bible as proof.  Once she got upset and gave up, she told him, “I grieve for your wife, children and you. I'll be praying for you!”  To which he replied, “I grieve for you and all those who allow a book to control your thoughts. I hope one day you, and others like you, will think for yourselves.”  He closed his story by saying that where he lived in Northern MS, he needs to defend himself quite often like this.  Anytime someone finds out he is an atheist, he gets assaulted like he did with this woman.  He would like to move before his kids start school, but he doesn’t have the funds due to not being able to get a good enough paying job.

To me, this is yet another innocent atheist having their space invaded by another religious person.  I know the religious people in these stories mean well, but it is no different to atheists than someone coming to your door or calling you to sell something.  You never asked for it and most likely are extremely annoyed by someone doing this.  Another problem that is demonstrated here is how religious people tend to have the wrong mindset when these situations end as they did.  Instead of conceding and leaving the atheist alone, they insult them by saying the atheist way of life is wrong and that they will pray for them.  What religious people need to realize is that is they won’t change their mind and become an atheist by someone talking to them, how on earth does it make sense for the atheist to change their mind so easily?  It should be assumed that someone won’t easily change their belief system on a whim.  Again, I understand the position of the religious person in this, but invading someone’s privacy without permission is pretty far from the proper way of going about doing what they did.

Wrap-up and Plans for Next Week
I am continuing to get a better feel for the specific reasons that atheists and religious people clash.  I firmly believe this doesn’t have to be the way at all though.  But hearing some of these stories, the religious people seem to be more and more in the wrong in making relations caustic.  They aren’t always to blame.  I am sure atheists have done their fair share of discrimination.  However, the key is to not stick your nose in other people’s business.  And this goes both ways too.  Before acting and criticizing one side or the other, they should think about how it would feel to have the same thing done to them.  This is easier said than done, but it seems like a major key in better relations to me.  I look forward to more mind-opening stories for next week.

Ethnography Results – Week 5

There were about three different testimonials worth noting for this week.  I didn’t leave any comments or posts.  I’ll just get straight to what I found.

Commenting and Posting
Nothing to note here.

The Atheism Category
The first story that caught my eye was about a former Mormon who became an atheist.  His story starts by explaining his gradual falling away from what the church was teaching him.  It was that he saw it as bad.  He just didn’t see any good reason to believe what they were telling him anymore.  He eventually got into philosophy and became enthralled with everything it opened his mind up to.  It felt restrictive to him to only enjoy things considered “holy” before, and his passion for philosophy fueled his desire to learn about the world and be in awe of everything it had to offer.  He also explained the exact moment when he realized he was definitely an atheist.  One of his college classes started by having everyone put a tally on the board in front of the classroom under various columns for race, age, religion, etc.  When it was his turn, he paused at the religion portion.  It was right then that he realized he needed to put a tally under the Atheism section.

The next one is about a roughly 20-year-old who had been Catholic his entire life.  However, he had over time lost interest in going to church and all the normal things he did as part of his religion.  He claims he lost his faith because he decided to stop being ignorant.  He read a lot of material written by atheists that opened his eyes and made him realize he no longer fit as a Catholic.  The main dilemma here is that he has not told his parents about his being an atheist.  They are not super religious, but it pains him when they reference him finding a church at school and he just does his best to shrug it off with a “maybe” or some other ambiguous response.  He would like to tell them, but he was not exactly sure how to go about doing this.  He is fairly certain they would not disown him or anything, but he doesn’t want to hurt them either.

The last one is a subject I have touched on before I believe.  This person was walking around campus with his female friend who happens to be a lesbian.  As they walked by a Christian male, he blurted out that God hates homosexuals and they will all go to hell.  His friend got extremely red in the face and started to walk away very quickly.  The poster essentially responded to the Christian by explaining that it makes no sense for God to love everyone, except for homosexuals.  Obviously, the wording was much stronger than this, but that is the general gist of what he said.  I probably would have done something exactly the same as he did honestly.  It really angers me when someone who claims to be a Christian who is supposed to be kind can harbor so much insidious hate for another human being simply because of who they are.  Then they have the nerve to use God as their justification for such despicable behavior.  It’s completely contradictory and wrong and I have absolutely zero respect for anyone who acts like this.

Wrap-up and Plans for Next Week
The study seems to honestly be going quite well.  We are all finding some good information and gaining a good feel for how Reddit operates and how members interact with each other.  We are still working on comparing the posting trends of members within our respective categories.  Once we have enough information for this, this will gain extra insight into the workings of the community.

While some of the testimonial-type postings might have the same general trend of a newly formed atheist or someone needing to confess their atheism to someone they know, the postings are still helpful nonetheless.  There are usually differences between them anyway that give a slightly different perspective.  Plus, the postings like the last one where they show the ugly side of religious nuts (no offense to religious people of course, since most aren’t nuts) perhaps help me out the most.  I went into this study wanting to learn about the atheist perspective more, and hearing stories about illogical Christians and the like are the exact thing that can help with this.  It is one thing for an atheist to just post something making fun of religion, but it’s quite another to give a concrete example of how religion has the capacity to prevent people from having common sense.  I look forward to what next week brings in the atheism category.

Ethnography Results – Week 4

This week also revealed similar results, but there are always interesting testimonials and discussions that reveal quite a bit about the people in the atheism category.  Yet again, the commenting has sort of gone to the way side for now.  I will still use it as a means to interact with the members of Reddit, but I am still unsure as to when this will happen.  If it seems appropriate, I will add something to the community.

Commenting and Posting
As stated above in the introduction, comments and posting will be discussed as they are used.  Until that time, I might just remove this category or just note that there have been no updates.

The Atheism Category
So, the big discussion that I found was a husband who had told his wife he was an atheist, again, and it didn’t work out very well.  Apparently he has had this conversation with her about three months prior and it had gone just as poorly.  But he didn’t bring it up this time.  He had been using her iPad to read an atheist blog, and she ended up finding the site when she picked it up and asked what he was reading.  He explained that it was part of his enlightenment that was very important to him.  She was really upset though.  He made the post for Reddit so he could get some guidance on what to do since he was afraid he might lose his wife over this.

He actually ended up getting some great advice (and not so great advice too) that sort of helped him through his time of need.  However, she threatened divorce multiple times.  He has not explained the ultimate outcome, but hopefully he lets everyone know how it all worked out.  I imagine they are trying to work things out unless he explains otherwise.  There have been no updates from him in about 4 days.

Wrap-up and Plans for Next Week
As I said last week, I would like to use these kinds of stories to get a better understanding of the atheist’s view on religion and religious people.  While it is unfair for religious people to assume atheists are terrible individuals, it is just as unfair for atheists to assume the same for religious people.  I hope to gain a better understanding of what goes into people resulting to these stereotypes and how people might be able to act differently to curb these views.

Also, in an effort to bring the studies of all group members together into one cohesive study, we have decided to begin comparing the general activity of the most prominent posters in each of our categories.  We want to find out if members of a certain category are more prone to posting in that category, or if they post in others as well.  And if they do post in others, to what frequency do they post.

Ethnography Results – Week 3

I kind saw a lot of the same things as last time.  I want to go more in depth in tracking down user’s posting habits, but this will require a lot more time than I gave myself for this week.  I have found a few interesting people I can track though.  I did some commenting as well, but I might have to give it some time before seeing any reactions.  There is a good chance I won’t get any results from those.  I will update this post accordingly.

Commenting and Posting
As I said I left a few comments here and there.  The ratings of comments and posts add up to a user’s total karma.  This karma can then be spent in a store I think.  I will look into this.  I didn’t really feel that inspired this week, so I didn’t leave many comments.  I don’t want to force anything.  My novelty account only posts in quotes from movies and stuff.  I tend to do this on facebook from time to time, so this is not too difficult of a task for me.  I have doubts it will get any reactions though.  These can be blatantly off-topic and users don’t always care for this kind of stuff.  It really depends.

I am essentially still trying to find a good way to incorporate commenting into the research.  Posting my own topics is something I only plan on doing if it seems worth it.  It would seem like kind of a waste if it wasn’t significantly entertaining.  If I think of a great idea, then I plan on making a post.

The Atheism Category
The user who was discussing their struggle with becoming an atheist does definitely post in many other categories.  Like I said in the introduction, I plan on sorting through their other comments and posts to see what their activity was before posting about this.  I would also like to see what their behavior has been since posting that.

How one user felt after his departure from Christianity.

Going through the atheism category can become tiresome at times.  I still find it interesting to monitor the behavior here, but the vast majority of posts are the same thing over and over.  They are either funny pictures designed to cut the knees off of religion, or quick anecdotes just saying how stupid religion is.  I just get irritated with the notion that all these people want to do is take shots at religion.  They almost seem desperate to undermine any and all competing points of view as reassurance that their philosophy is in fact sound.  I don’t mean to sound like I am ranting.  This is one thing I was afraid would happen.  I’m kind of being judgmental too.  Oh well.  I’ll try to tone down on this in the following weeks.  Moving on.

But amongst all the dreg, I always find at least a few interesting posts of people’s testimonials.  This time I found two.

The first was about a priest who lost his faith 10 years ago, but is still preaching at his church.  He likes the comfort of the environment and his friends there, and he is afraid to come out to everyone and break it off.  This was a post where people were prompted to ask him anything.  Obviously the biggest question is what caused him to lose his faith.  So far, there have been no responses from him.  Unfortunately, the longer he waits to reveal himself, the more painful it will be for everyone.  The church is comprised of 1500 worshippers, so that’s a lot of people who will feel completely betrayed.  I completely understand his not wanting to come clean though.  I am interested to see if he comes back to say anything else.  If he does, this will be part of next week’s results.

The other post was about someone who had a good friendship with a coworker, but religion ended up destroying it.  The person posting is an atheist, and the coworker is a Christian.  She noticed the poster turning down a lady’s offer to hear the word of Christ who was handing out flyers.  When she questioned him, she found out he was an atheist.  This led to the standard discussion of each person’s view, and she immediately became cold to him and very unfriendly.

Now this last case is the kind of thing I would like to see more of in the atheism category.  I would love to see more posts that are this thought provoking and full of depth.  In this case, the coworker is way out of line.  While I might be a Christian, I am not a robot.  As the poster later said, she is being a complete slave to her religious views.  She is being cold to him in an effort to defend her image of what an atheist is instead of seeing him as another person.  That’s terrible.  There is no reason why they still can’t be good friends, and that is the main point of the poster.

Wrap-up and Plans for Next Week
I ended up writing quite a bit, but there were some great topics to discuss.  I still feel like I am trying to find a clear direction for my portion of the reddit study, but I think these discussions I had might have helped.  While some of the posts are just taking short jabs at religion, others clearly have something to say about how religion and other views tie into society itself.  These are fantastic.

I don’t believe I knowingly surround myself with atheists, especially being at Texas A&M.  So, I think I would like to investigate how others view religion from the outside and how competing religious views affect society.  I can refine this a bit more for next week’s update.  I will also monitor posting trends as well, but I think I can get better results by finding the more thought provoking posts like the ones I found this week.

Ethnography Results – Week 2

After the discussions during class, we decided to each choose a specific category on reddit to monitor and take notes on.  In addition to this, we also agreed to each make two accounts on reddit.  One is for normal posting and commenting, and the other is a novelty account that is primarily for seeing what reactions posts and comments from this account get.

This week was still in the introductory phase, so we were all still trying to get a feel for how to tackle this idea and get good enough results from it.  There is definitely some good potential in exploring the culture of each category though, and we will progressively get better as we get more used to our roles in observation and get more used to the general feel of reddit.

Commenting and Posting
I got really engrossed in exploring the various categories so I could find a good fit for me.  Since I felt I was still getting used to reddit as a whole as well, I did not do any posting or commenting yet.  But now that I have chosen a clear choice for my category to monitor, I can give my exploration more of a direction and not wander as much looking for options.

The Atheism Category
I am a Christian myself, so the atheism category seemed like a very interesting category to monitor and learn about.  Right off the bat, I noticed that many of the posts seemed to be about debunking religion in general.  A lot were about how someone had a debate or discussion with a non-atheist and stumped them, and they celebrated this as a major victory.  I suppose this all makes sense seeing as this is a haven for atheists.  I will keep an eye out for any standout postings or discussions differing from this general trend.

There was one topic that was extremely interesting.  Someone explained that they were new to atheism and had just started 3 months ago.  Their explanation was that it was extremely difficult to deal with and they were seeking guidance on how to make the transition easier.  Everyone was very helpful and many noted that this is normal in the early phases of the switch.  I have never actually heard someone tell of how they switched to atheism from being religious.  I plan to pay attention to this post and to follow this individual to see how they behave over time.

Wrap-up and Plans for Next Week
Overall, this was a successful week in getting more of an understanding for how to go about the reddit ethnography research.  In addition to the commenting and posting where applicable, monitoring of subscription numbers in categories and subcategories, as well as posting trends of users in the atheism category will be noted.  Only paying attention to how users post in the atheism category will not get the full picture of the user.  Also, I am still figuring out the best way to format the ethnography results updates, so this format will hopefully change and become more organized.

Ethnography Proposal - Updated

Project Group Members
Aaron Kirkes
Adam Friedli
Patrick Frith

The Group
An idea we came up with is to study reddit.com.  This site is a general posting site where the postings gain a ranking with a thumbs up or thumbs down given by each user, and this affects how close to the top of the lists of postings the post is.  The posts can range from notable news topics to humorous items from the internet to people being bored and posting that they are staying awake for 72 hours and are asking for people to tell them things to do.  These are a few examples we saw perusing for about 10 minutes.  We have not had any other prior experience with this website.

The Learning
We hope to find out if there is any specific etiquette or behavior people are expected to abide by on the site.  Does breaking news make it to reddit before it makes it to other mediums?  Are there people who post regularly on reddit, and if so, what exactly makes them popular?  How are these people consistently appealing to the general populace?  What is the general behavior in specific categories on the site?  How do people tend to react to comments from a normal account versus a novelty account?

The Studying
Since this is an online website, it should be very easy to observe at least two hours per week.  Each of us plan on making a normal account and a novelty account.  We will also each choose a specific, smaller category to monitor as well.  We can pool our results as well, and try to find trends of midday postings versus late night postings.

Quantitative and Qualitative Data
Quantitative data can be the number of postings of a certain kind, such as newsworthy postings versus humorous postings versus general nonsense postings.  We can also keep track of the rankings of our comments and postings from both the normal and novelty accounts.  Qualitative can fall into the types of postings and what the more successful postings possess that the others do not.  We will keep track of how people react to our comments and postings and how they react in each of our categories of interest.

Interaction
We can comment in the more general areas and in the specific categories of interest we choose.  We could even create posts asking some questions that the readings bring up, such as what people think of Milgram’s shock experiment, or any other ideas that might come to mind.  If these posts are successful, they might even be able to become part of the data for the study.  We will initially stick to commenting on already created posts, but we can certainly make our own posts when it makes sense to do so.

Ethnography Results – Week 1

Some of the available categories.

The general layout of the homepage.

Reddit seems like a very interesting system.  It can be a valuable source for breaking news, but just as easily be a source for wasting hours upon hours of time and never get anything useful done.  However, both uses are equally as relevant.  The main page displays all the different kinds of posts, but the site is also divided up into many categories for more refined interests.  Some of these include funny, politics, science, world news, programming, and many more.  So, reddit can appeal to just about internet user imaginable.

Only perusing the first page of posts on the homepage, I spent easily an hour looking through comments and going on other offshoots from links within the posts and their comments.  Most of the picture posts display a thumbnail next to the post’s title, so it’s very easy to gravitate towards those.  While the posts themselves have a vote ranking, the comments within each post do as well.  The highest ranking comments sift to the top, and are usually the most entertaining to read.  People definitely use some jargon here, and certain reactions to posts appear expected.  Why users are accustomed to certain reactions is part of the subculture I would like to investigate.

Most of the posts were picture-related, while many others were questions to viewers or stories, followed up by current events or news.  I’ll give some examples with links to close out this post.

*** NOTE: In case profanity bothers you, be aware comments might contain some.  It's no different than what you might find perusing Facebook though.

One of the picture posts as a reference
to pop culture.

Pictures:
Swedish subway system (reddit post)
My license plate has never been so fitting (reddit post)
This is what happens when I leave my husband home alone for the weekend... (reddit post)
Wolverine…or two Batmen? (reddit post)

Questions/Stories:
Worst Facebook post or comment that got you in trouble?
How can the Syfy Channel continue to fund crappy movies?
Story about getting burned by helping someone (pay attention to the top-rated comment)

Why don’t able unemployed people get bumped to the top of the jury duty list?
Have you ever taken a class where the professor literally wrote the book for it?

Current Events:
Patriot Act renewal (reddit post)
Super nova causes a star to hurtle through space at 54,000 mph (reddit post)

Ethnography Proposal

Project Group Members
Aaron Kirkes
Adam Friedli
Patrick Frith

The Group
An idea we came up with is to study reddit.com.  This site is a general posting site where the postings gain a ranking with a thumbs up or thumbs down given by each user, and this affects how close to the top of the lists of postings the post is.  The posts can range from notable news topics to humorous items from the internet to people being bored and posting that they are staying awake for 72 hours and are asking for people to tell them things to do.  These are a few examples we saw perusing for about 10 minutes.  We have not had any other prior experience with this website.

The Learning
We hope to find out if there is any specific etiquette or behavior people are expected to abide by on the site.  Are there things people can do to be viewed of as a noob or inexperienced user?  What are the general posting trends?  Does breaking news make it to reddit before it makes it to other mediums?  Are there people who post regularly on reddit, and if so, what exactly makes them popular?  How are these people consistently appealing to the general populace?  We can come up with other ideas as we observe over time.

The Studying
Since this is an online website, it should be very easy to observe at least two hours per week.  We would say even a couple hours each day should be quite easy to accomplish, depending on the workload given for other classes.  We can pool our results as well, and try to find trends of midday postings versus late night posting.

Quantitative and Qualitative Data
Quantitative data can be the number of postings of a certain kind, such as newsworthy postings versus humorous postings versus general nonsense postings.  Qualitative can fall into the types of postings and what the more successful postings possess that the others do not.

Interaction
Once we gain a general understanding of how posts are laid out, we could make a post about this very project for class asking how people view reddit.com.  We could even ask some questions that the readings bring up, such as what people think of Milgram’s shock experiment, or any other ideas that might come to mind.  If these posts are successful, they might even be able to become part of the data for the study.

Ethnography Ideas

1.       Who tends to use the self-checkout at grocery stores, or how many people notice the shorter lines at non self-checkout and flock to them versus remaining where they are?

2.       How do people behave when lounging around campus (outside studying, throwing the Frisbee, etc)?  It’s on the cooler side outside now, so this might not work as well right now.

3.       What are the various methods in how people solicit their causes outside and inside The Commons?  And also, how do people react when either spoken to or given random handouts that they will most likely throw away within the next 20 seconds?

4.       What kind of conversations are people having around mealtimes in The Commons?  This falls more into eavesdropping I guess.  But seriously, The Commons is a VERY entertaining place to eat a meal and just listen to other people or people watch.