For the first week, our group observed the Church of Scientology (CoS) forum on the Topix site. We chose this group partially because the group is primarily based on trust. The CoS forum was significantly active with comments posted every hour on 4 or 5 topics. We were not sure of the posters, how many of them were members of CoS.

Aside from observing the forum, Lisa took an online 200-question personality test under the pseudonym of Priscilla Clarke, and was contacted back via email by a member of the CoS.

We decided to actively participate in the group with a couple of specific goals.

• How many of the posters were members of CoS?
• Would a new member be welcome to this forum?
  
• Would they trust this new member to join another group?
  
  

We created a group "Scientologists for Obama" on the Barack Obama web site, and then "Priscilla Clarke" signed up as a Topix member under the name NanuNanu, and introduced "Scientologists for Obama" into the forum, using this photograph (Obama shaking hands with the most popular Scientologist, Tom Cruise, at Oprah Winfrey's Legends Ball) as an avatar.

For the first hour, nobody posted to the forum, and no there were no new members for "Scientologists for Obama." After creating the first six comments, finally a couple of familiar members (Yogi Bear and Rachel) finally posts. The critical posts dealing with trust was when they asked Priscilla Clarke if she was a Scientologist, and when she replies "yes." Another member describes which participators are members of CoS and which are skeptics. Still no other CoS members from this forum joined the "Scientologists for Obama" group.

Our group's usernames:
NanuNanu
cookieface
ThePsientologist
xPATRIOTx
tomtomThomas
monkey_fish
NicAuthentick
jolene
Nyetnyet
GoDolphinz
imOKyoureOK
jesusLovesYou
anon

Usernames typically on CoS forum:
Yogi Bear
Rachel
giraffula
Barb
L-Ron-Hubbard*
Polly

Of the users of this forum, here is the breakdown of members of CoS according to L-Ron-Hubbard:

A couple of posts after, we found it strange that Dermot and Barb both recently posted good-bye messages to the forums.

Imagined changes to the media or the way they use media:

• webcams [people would be a lot nicer]
  
• in order to comment, posters must register as a member of Topix [less noise]
  
• allow a certain number of posts/comments per day [less noise and less discussions on the forum]

Links:

Email to Priscilla Clarke
Scientology Forum on Topix
"Scientologists for Obama"
Introducing Scientologists for Obama to the forum
Forum discussing Obama and Tom Cruise [Priscilla Clarke tried joining in this group, but didn't receive confirmation of membership] -Operation Clambake is a site devoted to the opposition of CoS