I'm here to solve the mystery for all of you, and post for the first time in a LONG time.
*drum roll*
I'm the author of the article!
A few words about the context and other issues surrounding the article:
At the time I was quite heavily into the DS homebrew scene and that's primarily what prompted my interest in the topic. As an active member of Racketboy at the time, I also thought it would be convenient to explore this forum community's attitudes toward piracy. For the most part I stopped posting around the time I collected threads to ensure that I didn't lead authors or create biases. My goal was to be an unobtrusive observer. I tell my students "research what you know," and I felt that I knew the community fairly well at the time, though of course it's entirely possibly I misinterpreted some of what was said. Such is the nature of qualitative research.
My rationale for remaining anonymous as the researcher was also to avoid the Hawthorne Effect (i.e., people changing their behavior because they know they are being observed). Hopefully I represented the community's views on piracy and the retro subculture at least fairly accurately, but I do of course welcome input. I haven't been active on the forums but I have extremely fond memories of when I was, and still read articles here regularly.
The other article that someone located is a presentation on the same subject. In both the article and presentation my goal was to move away from what has typically been a somewhat black and white representation of piracy and piracy communities, and also represent what I believe is a more mature community in Racketboy. As I see it, there are plenty of gray areas, particularly when it comes to retro gaming and communities that aren't exclusively oriented around piracy but intersect with the issue regularly.
If anyone is interested, I'm currently working on a couple of gaming related projects, one looking at content in survival games and one examining representations of prison in new media (specifically games).
I appreciate the thoughtful remarks that have already been posted and though I'm not sure how often I will check this thread (though I will certainly follow it), if anyone has specific questions, comments, threats, etc., please feel free to email me at my university account:
steven.downing@uoit.caEdit: Sorry; the other article is actually a piece I wrote about social control in communities where piracy is discussed/confronted. I framed Racketboy as a forum community that does not prohibit piracy discussion but also does not encourage it. Gamefaqs (if that could even be called a community) and some DS piracy websites were used to represent the other realms of the spectrum.