These forums have been archived and are now read-only.

The new forums are live and can be found at https://forums.eveonline.com/

Out of Pod Experience

 
  • Topic is locked indefinitely.
123Next page
 

EVE ethics and metagaming - my dissertation - survey responses needed!

First post
Author
Previous Topic Next Topic
21217197
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#1 - 2015-03-13 14:58:14 UTC  |  Edited by: 21217197
Hello, capsuleeres!

My name is Jamie Bull, I'm a third year Criminological Psychology (BSc) student at Buckinghamshire New University in High Wycombe, England.

I've been playing EVE for about five years now, so it felt only natural that I should study EVE for my final year empirical dissertation.

I'm hoping to examine the thoughts of the EVE playerbase on ethical and unethical behaviour both in and out of the game. My questionnaire shouldn't take long at all, and in responding you'll be contributing to what I hope will be a fascinating piece of research.

All answers are, of course, anonymous.

I would kindly ask that you not comment on or quote any of the survey questions in the comments below, in case it affects the answers of your fellow players.

Please feel free to link it to all your corp mates and friends. The more responses, the better!

Link to the questionnaire: https://www.psychdata.com/s.asp?SID=164645

I look forward to your responses!

The soft deadline for the end of data collection is March 17th, though this may change. All data is protected under the UK Data Protection Act 1998

(this is the same questionnaire/researcher that some of you may have already seen posting on /r/EVE for the same purpose)

The results will be posted both here and on Reddit this summer, once the research project is completed. Thank you for your time.

EDIT: CCP is also encouraged to take part, should they so choose! If not, an official thumbs up or down from the Emperor would be appreciated!

EDIT 2: I've got nearly two thousand data entries so far, keep them coming! Data collection ends today! /edited 04:31 GMT 17/03/2015
Agondray
Avenger Mercenaries
VOID Intergalactic Forces
#2 - 2015-03-13 15:04:48 UTC
oh thank god its not one of the ingame scams of "im a college student conducting a study on trust, if you send me x amount of isk ill double it" A survey I can do.

"Sarcasm is the Recourse of a weak mind." -Dr. Smith
Demolishar
United Aggression
#3 - 2015-03-13 15:09:10 UTC  |  Edited by: Demolishar
Wow 87 questions.

TL;DComplete

You should have a warning about that on the front page.
21217197
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#4 - 2015-03-13 15:09:23 UTC
Agondray wrote:
oh thank god its not one of the ingame scams of "im a college student conducting a study on trust, if you send me x amount of isk ill double it" A survey I can do.


Thanks! I'd love it if you'd share it with your friends and corp mates - the more widely the EVE playerbase is represented, the better!
Agondray
Avenger Mercenaries
VOID Intergalactic Forces
#5 - 2015-03-13 15:31:43 UTC
sent you a mail discussing some of the survey before my train of thought derailed. Survey also complete, I have no corp mates or friends in RL that play but I do know a few people in game I can distribute this to tonight

"Sarcasm is the Recourse of a weak mind." -Dr. Smith
Serene Repose
#6 - 2015-03-13 15:34:23 UTC  |  Edited by: Serene Repose
ZOMG! A link! Don't you know unscrupulous people use those to do unscrupulous things to the unwitting??? Cool
That must be the definition of unscrupulositynessness!

There's two schools of thought with regard to the psychology one finds in the EVE playerbase. No. Three. THREE schools of thought with regard to the EVE psyche...if you discount two as general MMO psyche traits, and one as one that permeates "normal" society (IRL). Whew. If this gets TL;DR it's not my fault!

1.) It doesn't matter what kind of behavior we exhibit in-game, that doesn't necessarily reflect our real life behavior.

2.) It's impossible to divorce your real life behavior from that you exhibit in-game. So, if you're one way in-game,
you must be that way IRL.

(I've argued both of these positions quite effectively in a single threadnaught on this very forum!)

3.) Who cares? Are you emo or something? If it's that bad, quit and give me all your stuff. <--- most common
position taken.

Ethics is non-existent in EVE. Morality is optional, as are ethics. Law is a matter of what you can get away with. Though, it's a logical fallacy to try to equate this environment with real life, people insist upon doing that, and there's no one to stop them, except maybe a spousal unit insisting the dog be walked and the trash be taken out.

The key feature to this is, whatever you do, ultimately you get away with it for IRL you will not be jailed, executed, shunned, become permanently unemployed or suffer any other set backs or losses due to anything you do in EVE (except for violations of the EULA and TOS.)

So, I find it difficult to understand why supposedly serious people pursuing supposedly serious degrees in a supposedly serious discipline that ultimately will affect many people's lives keep coming here asking this question over and over...

...and over and over... Cool (I suspect this will not be the last. And, no. I don't know you. I won't click your link.)

I assume we all understand there are things people can do in internet venues that are strictly forbidden by law, both international, state and national...all THREE, then.... For the sake of this dissertation it can be safely assumed illegal activity is not included in the assertions of this dissertation, etc. et al, modus operandi, pro nobis probiscum.

We must accommodate the idiocracy.
21217197
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#7 - 2015-03-13 15:49:58 UTC  |  Edited by: 21217197
Serene Repose wrote:


Ethics is non-existent in EVE. Morality is optional, as are ethics. Law is a matter of what you can get away with. Though, it's a logical fallacy to try to equate this environment with real life, people insist upon doing that, and there's no one to stop them, except maybe a spousal unit insisting the dog be walked and the trash be taken out.

The key feature to this is, whatever you do, ultimately you get away with it for IRL you will not be jailed, executed, shunned, become permanently unemployed or suffer any other set backs or losses due to anything you do in EVE (except for violations of the EULA and TOS.)

So, I find it difficult to understand why supposedly serious people pursuing supposedly serious degrees in a supposedly serious discipline that ultimately will affect many people's lives keep coming here asking this question over and over...

...and over and over... Cool (I suspect this will not be the last. And, no. I don't know you. I won't click your link.)



Well, I'm a criminological psychology (BSc) student, so whether it exists or not, what matters to me is what people think about it. Strictly speaking ethics and morality don't exist, they're simply abstract concepts that we concern ourselves with - the fact that we concern ourselves with them at all is what's of interest to me. Whether it's important or not is up to the individual, in my opinion.

Laws are also, strictly speaking, abritrary abstract concepts, we simply have societal constructs in place that reinforce things that we have decided should be so. Whether you believe a law is just or not will not stop you from being held accountable to it, likewise whether you feel something should be illegal (but isn't) doesn't mean you will be held to that law. The key element here is the individual, and how they apply meaning. I'm sure it would be over reaching to claim that everyone behaves identically online to the way they behave offline, just as it would be so to claim everybody is drastically different when gaming vs not gaming. I won't make a claim either way until I see what the data says. The goal is not to see whether EVE = real life, but to review honest answers regarding behaviour in EVE and out of EVE.

As for trusting my link, you're welcome to search for my post on the EVE subreddit, where many hundreds of people have already taken the questionnaire. I won't provide you with a link to that subreddit, as something tells me that might not bear fruit :P
Leannor
State War Academy
Caldari State
#8 - 2015-03-13 17:28:01 UTC
21217197 wrote:
Serene Repose wrote:


Ethics is non-existent in EVE. Morality is optional, as are ethics. Law is a matter of what you can get away with. Though, it's a logical fallacy to try to equate this environment with real life, people insist upon doing that, and there's no one to stop them, except maybe a spousal unit insisting the dog be walked and the trash be taken out.

The key feature to this is, whatever you do, ultimately you get away with it for IRL you will not be jailed, executed, shunned, become permanently unemployed or suffer any other set backs or losses due to anything you do in EVE (except for violations of the EULA and TOS.)

So, I find it difficult to understand why supposedly serious people pursuing supposedly serious degrees in a supposedly serious discipline that ultimately will affect many people's lives keep coming here asking this question over and over...

...and over and over... Cool (I suspect this will not be the last. And, no. I don't know you. I won't click your link.)



Well, I'm a criminological psychology (BSc) student, so whether it exists or not, what matters to me is what people think about it. Strictly speaking ethics and morality don't exist, they're simply abstract concepts that we concern ourselves with - the fact that we concern ourselves with them at all is what's of interest to me. Whether it's important or not is up to the individual, in my opinion.

Laws are also, strictly speaking, abritrary abstract concepts, we simply have societal constructs in place that reinforce things that we have decided should be so. Whether you believe a law is just or not will not stop you from being held accountable to it, likewise whether you feel something should be illegal (but isn't) doesn't mean you will be held to that law. The key element here is the individual, and how they apply meaning. I'm sure it would be over reaching to claim that everyone behaves identically online to the way they behave offline, just as it would be so to claim everybody is drastically different when gaming vs not gaming. I won't make a claim either way until I see what the data says. The goal is not to see whether EVE = real life, but to review honest answers regarding behaviour in EVE and out of EVE.

As for trusting my link, you're welcome to search for my post on the EVE subreddit, where many hundreds of people have already taken the questionnaire. I won't provide you with a link to that subreddit, as something tells me that might not bear fruit :P



Oh ... damn ... I would love a coffe followed by copious bottles of wine of an evening discussing this at lenght with you ... that would be awesome! A very interesting topic and I have so often bored by corpies with it . lol.

"Lykouleon wrote:

STOP TOUCHING ICONIC SHIP PARTS"
Agondray
Avenger Mercenaries
VOID Intergalactic Forces
#9 - 2015-03-13 17:38:23 UTC
Leannor wrote:
21217197 wrote:
Serene Repose wrote:


Ethics is non-existent in EVE. Morality is optional, as are ethics. Law is a matter of what you can get away with. Though, it's a logical fallacy to try to equate this environment with real life, people insist upon doing that, and there's no one to stop them, except maybe a spousal unit insisting the dog be walked and the trash be taken out.

The key feature to this is, whatever you do, ultimately you get away with it for IRL you will not be jailed, executed, shunned, become permanently unemployed or suffer any other set backs or losses due to anything you do in EVE (except for violations of the EULA and TOS.)

So, I find it difficult to understand why supposedly serious people pursuing supposedly serious degrees in a supposedly serious discipline that ultimately will affect many people's lives keep coming here asking this question over and over...

...and over and over... Cool (I suspect this will not be the last. And, no. I don't know you. I won't click your link.)



Well, I'm a criminological psychology (BSc) student, so whether it exists or not, what matters to me is what people think about it. Strictly speaking ethics and morality don't exist, they're simply abstract concepts that we concern ourselves with - the fact that we concern ourselves with them at all is what's of interest to me. Whether it's important or not is up to the individual, in my opinion.

Laws are also, strictly speaking, abritrary abstract concepts, we simply have societal constructs in place that reinforce things that we have decided should be so. Whether you believe a law is just or not will not stop you from being held accountable to it, likewise whether you feel something should be illegal (but isn't) doesn't mean you will be held to that law. The key element here is the individual, and how they apply meaning. I'm sure it would be over reaching to claim that everyone behaves identically online to the way they behave offline, just as it would be so to claim everybody is drastically different when gaming vs not gaming. I won't make a claim either way until I see what the data says. The goal is not to see whether EVE = real life, but to review honest answers regarding behaviour in EVE and out of EVE.

As for trusting my link, you're welcome to search for my post on the EVE subreddit, where many hundreds of people have already taken the questionnaire. I won't provide you with a link to that subreddit, as something tells me that might not bear fruit :P



Oh ... damn ... I would love a coffe followed by copious bottles of wine of an evening discussing this at lenght with you ... that would be awesome! A very interesting topic and I have so often bored by corpies with it . lol.


makes me wish you were a single decent looking woman on the other side of the computer.

"Sarcasm is the Recourse of a weak mind." -Dr. Smith
Kamahl Daikun
State War Academy
Caldari State
#10 - 2015-03-13 17:54:14 UTC
Pretty neat questionnaire.
I feel like some of the questions should have a neutral option, however.
Kuga
Viziam
Amarr Empire
#11 - 2015-03-13 17:56:42 UTC
Yeah, looks genuine and conforming to ethical standards for research (gotta love that, eh?).

I'll spare you a few mins.
Serene Repose
#12 - 2015-03-13 17:59:26 UTC  |  Edited by: Serene Repose
21217197 wrote:
Serene Repose wrote:


Ethics is non-existent in EVE. Morality is optional, as are ethics. Law is a matter of what you can get away with. Though, it's a logical fallacy to try to equate this environment with real life, people insist upon doing that, and there's no one to stop them, except maybe a spousal unit insisting the dog be walked and the trash be taken out.

The key feature to this is, whatever you do, ultimately you get away with it for IRL you will not be jailed, executed, shunned, become permanently unemployed or suffer any other set backs or losses due to anything you do in EVE (except for violations of the EULA and TOS.)

So, I find it difficult to understand why supposedly serious people pursuing supposedly serious degrees in a supposedly serious discipline that ultimately will affect many people's lives keep coming here asking this question over and over...

...and over and over... Cool (I suspect this will not be the last. And, no. I don't know you. I won't click your link.)



Well, I'm a criminological psychology (BSc) student, so whether it exists or not, what matters to me is what people think about it. Strictly speaking ethics and morality don't exist, they're simply abstract concepts that we concern ourselves with - the fact that we concern ourselves with them at all is what's of interest to me. Whether it's important or not is up to the individual, in my opinion.

Laws are also, strictly speaking, abritrary abstract concepts, we simply have societal constructs in place that reinforce things that we have decided should be so. Whether you believe a law is just or not will not stop you from being held accountable to it, likewise whether you feel something should be illegal (but isn't) doesn't mean you will be held to that law. The key element here is the individual, and how they apply meaning. I'm sure it would be over reaching to claim that everyone behaves identically online to the way they behave offline, just as it would be so to claim everybody is drastically different when gaming vs not gaming. I won't make a claim either way until I see what the data says. The goal is not to see whether EVE = real life, but to review honest answers regarding behaviour in EVE and out of EVE.

As for trusting my link, you're welcome to search for my post on the EVE subreddit, where many hundreds of people have already taken the questionnaire. I won't provide you with a link to that subreddit, as something tells me that might not bear fruit :P
Huh? Wha? Clothes don't exist either, then...UNLESS....clothes are (strictly speaking) abstract concepts. But, I do appreciate the rather infantile Law 101 explanation you condescended to offer. In a world where Trust No One is the #1 rule, you're asking for honesty and then saying trust me, I wouldn't give you a bad link..."review honest answers regarding behaviour in EVE and out of EVE" Uh...I'd suggest you narrow down your subject (as behavior "out of EVE" is pretty BROAD), but judging by your tone, I surmise it would be futile. Would that I were your prof. I'd be honing a red pen
right now.

Oh! Criminal Psychology! Nevermind.

We must accommodate the idiocracy.
21217197
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#13 - 2015-03-13 18:00:33 UTC
Kuga wrote:
Yeah, looks genuine and conforming to ethical standards for research (gotta love that, eh?).

I'll spare you a few mins.


Think I'd probably be laughed out of my university if I failed to follow proper ethical proedures in creating a survey about ethics xD Thanks for taking the time to check it out!
Marsha Mallow
#14 - 2015-03-13 18:06:08 UTC
Done P
Don't forget to come back and post the results. I'd like to see lots of pretty graphs and charts if you can.

I'm surprised you didn't delve deeper into scamming and theft or the behaviour of corps towards their members (some are blatantly ripping their minions off via taxes and make questionable demands on their activities/conduct). Some of the most elaborate scams have been conducted on the Market Discussion subforum and were cons from the start. There were no questions on forum behaviour either but the more I play EvE the more I see the forums as a tool for smack/griefing. No mention of propaganda or disinformation either which was a shame.

Paraphrasing a couple of your questions that made me laugh/stop to consider
- Is shooting a pod outside of nullsec acceptable?
I've never understood why people object to being podded anywhere but some do indeed go mental if you pod them outside of nullsec. I can understand it in highsec to a point, but in lowsec and wormholes it's a really wierd attitude.
- Is attacking sov when the defender is likely to have fewer numbers online due to TZs an ethical practice?
This is an intriguing point and it's quite relevant given the current sovchange proposal. I've never really thought of it as a morally questionable tactic before.

Ripard Teg > For the morons in the room:

Sweets > U can dd my face any day
21217197
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#15 - 2015-03-13 18:15:55 UTC  |  Edited by: ISD Ezwal
Serene Repose wrote:


Would that I were your prof. I'd be honing a red pen right now.

Oh! Criminal Psychology! Nevermind.



If you wish to discuss my project further constructively, then I am available, but sniping when you apparently can't bring yourself to click the link seems silly. I wish you good day.



Fixed quoting. ISD Ezwal.
Vaju Enki
Secular Wisdom
#16 - 2015-03-13 18:24:58 UTC
Done. Good luck with the study :)

The Tears Must Flow
Unsuccessful At Everything
The Troll Bridge
#17 - 2015-03-13 18:56:21 UTC
Im pretty sure you could have gotten the information you seek about me by looking at my posting history, but seeing as that I recently discovered I have made over 9000 posts.. ill just save you the time and do your survey.


UaE is the Spider-man of the Eve Forums. Everybody gets one (nice/helpful thing..when I feel so inclined).... and ill never be part of The Avengers. My abilities are also slightly hampered by areas without tall buildings or overhead structures.. but we don't really need to talk about that.

Since the cessation of their usefulness is imminent, may I appropriate your belongings?
Dirk Decibel
Pator Tech School
Minmatar Republic
#18 - 2015-03-13 19:02:30 UTC
Done. Big smile
AMARR CITIZEN 15150315
Doomheim
#19 - 2015-03-13 19:37:15 UTC
87 questions???? is this a troll poll?
21217197
Royal Amarr Institute
Amarr Empire
#20 - 2015-03-13 19:40:16 UTC
AMARR CITIZEN 15150315 wrote:
87 questions???? is this a troll poll?



Nope! It's genuine. If you have any doubts feel free to email me (my email address and place of study are provided on the questionnaire front page) or my dissertation supervisor
123Next page