Updates to the Abuse Policy

[danahboyd]

The Advisory Board met last month, resulting in decisions about some open issues in the Abuse Policy. The conclusions are posted here. I am happy with the decisions and I hope you will be too

Comments

[pyrop]

If it was easy, it wouldn't be research.

This is anecdotal, but you might appreciate it anyways. In Japan (the country with one of the highest suicide rates in the world) there has been a rash of suicides by means of chemical gas; people have used household chemicals to generate poison gas, or will use available insect poisons or whatnot. The problem with this is that the chemicals can harm others. One man who mixed cleaning chemicals in his bathroom to generate chlorine gas killed himself and his father when he entered the bathroom to find out that was wrong. Another consumed the fumigant chloropicrin (which was used as a chemical weapon in WWI), and when he vomited in the hospital, 50 people were injured by the fumes of the chemical. (I forget where i read the first, but the second is linked here.)

I know this isn't what you meant by "increased fatalities", but it does demonstrate that this is a pretty woolly subject. What is the right way to quantify self-harm? (That's rhetorical; i don't expect even danahboyd will have an answer when she's done with her study.)

[danahboyd]

I should note that while I will examine quantitative studies, I am very much a qualitative scholar. This means that I try to map out topologies of practices and aim for understanding patterns with ecological validity. This also means that I will choose to cover some things and leave other things for future research. Still, the literature review that I will provide will account for both positive and negative studies, examining and interrogating them. I'm fully aware of biases in both researchers and publishers. My goal is to help ground that. As an ethnographer, I try to see things from the POV of the different relevant actors. I also try to keep a reality check on my own biases and make them known and visible. I'm not perfect, but my hope is to get beyond the buzz and hype and really dive deep into the dynamics at play.