[Karl]

Originally Posted by Claire

Karl, I think you are leaping to quite a lot of conclusions here which aren't really justified. This guy isn't asking for your home address and he's not asking you not to post, just to say what country you're in. Anyone can look at what you choose to put in your profile, it's public, so it's not snooping. Public perceptions and views on CSR are an interesting and legitimate research topic IMO. And anyway, in what way can it possibly be a bad thing for companies to want to engage with CSR?

I was not suggesting in any way that CSR is bad in principle, however...

The primary and fundamental issue here is posting threads in the public area of the discussion forums, and attempting to set restrictions on who can reply. He explicitly and categorically made that statement. If one was to carefully read, thoughtfully contemplate and thoroughly understand the content and intent of his messages - the justification for the conclusions (and more) is quite evident.

While obviously, he cannot actually prevent anybody from replying - it is clearly inappropriate and unacceptable for him to even make such a suggestion. I mean, encouraging that sort of precedent would an extremely "slippery slope".

Whether or not he is conducting research on a topic that is "interesting and legitimate", there is no basis for making an exception in this case; what would happen to the forum if everybody tried to start topics, but said they do not want the participation of anybody from (for example) South Pacific or African or Slavic Countries, and so forth...

If making such an exception (i.e., a thread with restricted participation) was in some way beneficial to the forum, the position would be different. But there is no basis for exception and reply restrictions in this case, since his "proposition - after - the - fact" does NOT benefit the forum; it is disruptive to the cohesive functionality of this website community, while putatively benefiting the research aims of a single individual and the organisation which he represents.

If that particular institution has contributed in a meaningful way to TES, once again the position would be modified; but unless and until there is some tangible evidence of such being reality, websites of this nature cannot realistically be run for the benefit of the research aims of an individual/institution, at the expense of the majority of the active members (bearing in mind at all times that the reputation, feasibility, sustainable viability and continued existence of websites like this depends entirely upon user-generated content).

Do not disregard the fact that even with all the funding in the world, and the highest search engine page-rank possible, a forum would serve no purpose and accomplish nothing, if there are no site visitors or no active members generating content (voluntarily and at their own expense). The members can continue to exist without this website, but the sad reality is that this website cannot continue to exist without members.

In that context, what is wrong is wrong regardless of the circumstances, and wherever and in whatever form it arises WILL be stopped.

I am not being unreasonable. I agree that he should continue with his "research" in CSR, but he will simply need to find some other means of doing so.