I am a Ph.D. student at the University of Michigan's School of Information, studying online communities as part of my dissertation work. I am specifically looking into the role that knowledge repositories play in supporting these communities. I have been very impressed with this community's use of the wiki and believe that other online communities can learn a great deal from your experiences.
To this end, I will be studying the css-discuss community, which amounts to reading prior messages and wiki material, calculating various statistics on participation patterns, and interviewing willing community members. I will follow strict ethical guidelines (see http://www-personal.si.umich.edu/~shakmatt/research/ ) to ensure that all list members' privacy is protected (not only those that I will contact personally). I have spoken with the list administrators about this research work and they have cleared it. I do not want to disrupt the community in any way, so please reply to me personally at [EMAIL PROTECTED] with any comments, concerns, or questions regarding this research (as opposed to replying to the entire list). I intend on sharing my results with interested community members. I would love to hear from any of you (including lurkers) willing to share your experiences, both positive and negative, about your participation and impressions of this email list or the community wiki. I will also be contacting some of you personally to see if we can arrange an interview (which anyone can decline if they desire). Thank you for your support in this endeavor. I look forward to hearing from you and getting your insights into what makes css-discuss tick. Regards, Derek Hansen Doctoral Candidate School of Information University of Michigan ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d IE7b2 testing hub -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=IE7 List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
