Experiments in Informed Consent on a Fandom Discord Server

Abstract

Informed consent is a guiding principle of qualitative internet research, even as for many projects it appears -‘manifestly impracticable’ to gain from enough subjects (cf. franzke/Bechmann/Zimmer/Ess 2020; MacKinnon 2022; Proferes/Jones/Gilbert/Fiesler/Zimmer 2021). Without informed consent, research risks violating subjects’ feelings of privacy (cf. Koebler 2025). This paper details an experiment in qualitative methodology for studying online communities that attempts to put informed consent into practice for larger groups of participants, specifically tested in a fandom Discord server, and compares it to other methodological case studies.

As Discord is increasingly where fandom sociality happens, ethically gaining access to these semi-private online spaces is important for fan studies (cf. Wagenaar 2024). I conducted research in an invite-only server dedicated to writing Supernatural fan fiction, made up of 125 members. Before beginning, I gained informed consent from the administration team, with whom I then discussed strategies for gaining informed consent from the rest of the server. We jointly ran a question-and-answer period before running a poll on whether my project should move forward. During and after the project, I gave participants opportunities to talk back to my research and conclusions, extending the informed consent period through the project and allowing them to disagree with me.

There are projects for which this methodology would be impractical or useless, such as if there is no stable population in the community or if the size is so great that tracking who has consented is impossible. However, I argue that this method is still relevant to the larger discussion of ethics in fan studies. If you are doing research on an online community, I argue that the most ethical model is one that foregrounds consent through research.