Moral Lines of Credit: Forging Race Projects, Citizenship, and Nation on Online U.S. Spousal Reunification Forum

REVISION MEMO

MORAL LINES OF CREDIT: FORGING RACE PROJECTS, CITIZENSHIP, AND NATION ON ONLINE U.S. SPOUSAL REUNIFICATION FORUMS

I thank the editor-in-charge for the thoughtful feedback and commentary on this manuscript. I have seriously considered and implemented your comments and feedback. They significantly improved the paper.

1. On page 2, I reworded the vague “these requirements” on page two with a clearer sentence that directly connects them to “valid and subsisting.”
2. On page 4, I have acknowledged the other facets of literature on family reunification. It has been included in the area where I discuss potential contributions and future research. I hope that this is satisfactory.
3. On page 4, the editor was unclear what I meant by “citizenship was fixed” on page 4. I have revised this sentence now. By fixed I meant that the definition of who could qualify for citizenship was highly limited and selective.
4. Page 6 had the mistype of ‘r currency’ when it should have read as ‘a currency’. I have remedied this typo
5. The editor requested that I make the data for this paper public. Unfortunately, I cannot. According to Virginia Commonwealth University’s Internal Review Board requirement for this research project, I am unable to publicly disclose the data due to potential privacy/confidentiality harm risks to the end users (IRB ID# HM20021701). I am willing, however, to make my contact information available to allow for inquiries on individual bases.
6. On page 11, I expanded on how forum members report their demographic information. Sometimes, they do so in their profile, through their conversations with other members or both. Similarly, at the bottom of that page, I explain that a bystander is someone who signs ups and neither posts nor completes any profile information. Bystanders are “lurking” meaning that you can see by their profile that they log in often, but do not do interact with others. They do not have a real impact on the other members, so I can simply remove this sentence if the editor prefers. I did want to fully disclose what I know of who is on the site, which is why I initially included them.
7. I have added the month and years that I was ethnographically immersed into the manuscript on page 12. Subsequently, I added how I watched these conversations unfold in real time rather than scrape them and read them later. This is important because each time a thread was replied to, it was “bumped” up to the top of the page…meaning that users would see that thread first. Some threads could linger for months and eventually meander away from the original topic. More important topics would often last a few days maximum and stay on topic. Sometimes, moderators would “lock” a topic, meaning that one could no longer post on it. This happened when someone was being verbally assaulted beyond what was deemed reasonable according to moderators. I spent various times of day and night on the forums, so I knew who was on and when. I could add this to a footnote if you would like, but wasn’t sure how much information the editor would want given the length of the paper.
8. On page 12, I reworded the paragraph that starts with “I chose Immigration Pathways” for clarity.
9. On page 12, I changed ‘consist of’ to contain. Moreover, I discuss how my ethnographic immersion helped me formulate the criteria for the purposive sample.
10. I fixed the block quotations on page 14 so that it would not break off in the middle.
11. Endnote one can be found in the opening quote after the pseudonym name and “Immigration Pathways”
12. I have corrected Dr. Fröhlich’s name on page 34.
13. I have removed endnote ii and have integrated it into the introduction.

I hope that these changes have satisfied your requests. Again, thank you for your time and careful attention to this matter. If you have further suggestions or questions about the manuscript, please do not hesitate to contact me.

REVISION MEMO

MORAL LINES OF CREDIT: FORGING RACE PROJECTS, CITIZENSHIP, AND NATION ON ONLINE U.S. SPOUSAL REUNIFICATION FORUMS

I thank the editor-in-charge for the thoughtful feedback and commentary on this manuscript. I have seriously considered and implemented your comments and feedback. They significantly improved the paper.

1. On page 2, I reworded the vague “these requirements” on page two with a clearer sentence that directly connects them to “valid and subsisting.”
2. On page 4, I have acknowledged the other facets of literature on family reunification. It has been included in the area where I discuss potential contributions and future research. I hope that this is satisfactory.
3. On page 4, the editor was unclear what I meant by “citizenship was fixed” on page 4. I have revised this sentence now. By fixed I meant that the definition of who could qualify for citizenship was highly limited and selective.
4. Page 6 had the mistype of ‘r currency’ when it should have read as ‘a currency’. I have remedied this typo
5. The editor requested that I make the data for this paper public. Unfortunately, I cannot. According to Virginia Commonwealth University’s Internal Review Board requirement for this research project, I am unable to publicly disclose the data due to potential privacy/confidentiality harm risks to the end users (IRB ID# HM20021701). I am willing, however, to make my contact information available to allow for inquiries on individual bases.
6. On page 11, I expanded on how forum members report their demographic information. Sometimes, they do so in their profile, through their conversations with other members or both. Similarly, at the bottom of that page, I explain that a bystander is someone who signs ups and neither posts nor completes any profile information. Bystanders are “lurking” meaning that you can see by their profile that they log in often, but do not do interact with others. They do not have a real impact on the other members, so I can simply remove this sentence if the editor prefers. I did want to fully disclose what I know of who is on the site, which is why I initially included them.
7. I have added the month and years that I was ethnographically immersed into the manuscript on page 12. Subsequently, I added how I watched these conversations unfold in real time rather than scrape them and read them later. This is important because each time a thread was replied to, it was “bumped” up to the top of the page…meaning that users would see that thread first. Some threads could linger for months and eventually meander away from the original topic. More important topics would often last a few days maximum and stay on topic. Sometimes, moderators would “lock” a topic, meaning that one could no longer post on it. This happened when someone was being verbally assaulted beyond what was deemed reasonable according to moderators. I spent various times of day and night on the forums, so I knew who was on and when. I could add this to a footnote if you would like, but wasn’t sure how much information the editor would want given the length of the paper.
8. On page 12, I reworded the paragraph that starts with “I chose Immigration Pathways” for clarity.
9. On page 12, I changed ‘consist of’ to contain. Moreover, I discuss how my ethnographic immersion helped me formulate the criteria for the purposive sample.
10. I fixed the block quotations on page 14 so that it would not break off in the middle.
11. Endnote one can be found in the opening quote after the pseudonym name and “Immigration Pathways”
12. I have corrected Dr. Fröhlich’s name on page 34.
13. I have removed endnote ii and have integrated it into the introduction.

I hope that these changes have satisfied your requests. Again, thank you for your time and careful attention to this matter. If you have further suggestions or questions about the manuscript, please do not hesitate to contact me.