[Air-L] Researchers as new eyes on public data

[Lois Ann Scheidt]

I would like to revisit a question I floated during the ethics debate, 
and ask for your insight and perspective.

A couple of background rules first, 1) by publicly accessible I mean 
websites that do not require a password or which may require 
registration but most (if not all) requests for access are granted.  I 
do not mean sites where registration must be vetted through an 
individual before access is given.

2)  No more than one level of "what if" is allowed.  Once you get to 
that second "what if" or an "and" on the first stated "what if," you 
are already in very "iffy" territory...I hope we can all agree on that 
point.

So here is my question, how is a researcher more dangerous to online 
content producers in publicly accessible websites than any other 
viewer/reader who has access to their words/multi-media 
presentations/etc?

To make that a less complex sentence, how are researchers more 
dangerous to their online subjects than any other person who might 
access their publicly available site?

Lois Ann Scheidt

Doctoral Student - School of Library and Information Science, Indiana
University, Bloomington IN USA

Adjunct Instructor - School of Informatics, IUPUI, Indianapolis IN USA and
IUPUC, Columbus IN USA

Webpage:  http://www.loisscheidt.com
Blog:  http://www.professional-lurker.com