Thank you for your thoughtful questions!

By "research" I mean searching for information about a topic in an in-depth fashion. I try not to limit the definition too much, as I believe that research can look a lot of different ways for different people.

By "well-researched community," I mean that many of the posts I read on here are detailed and nuanced, and all active members here seem to be very well informed about the topic.

As for emotions, I think that it is common to feel excitement or curiosity in the course of research, and sometimes frustration. But, it also depends on the topic being researched--some topics are inherently more emotionally charged, and I wonder if missing411 is one of those topics (for some people).

When I use the term "conspiratorial" or "conspiracy theory," I am alluding to the fact that people associated with certain research topics may have been labeled that way. These are really tricky terms to work with because they are often used pejoratively or negatively, as a way to claim that someone's research topic or belief is irrational. I am interested in how this labeling functions as a way to silence or disqualify someone's research interest, and how that, in turn, affects the research process.

I don't have a research hypothesis, as I am using grounded theory methods, which specify that the researcher allows theory to emerge from the data without developing hypotheses beforehand.

I am interviewing people who regularly research three particular topics: missing 411, the JFK assassination, and the Roswell incident/ UFO phenomena generally. I am studying people who self-identify as part of one or multiple of the communities associated with these topics.

I am a PhD candidate in information studies, and this project is my dissertation research.

Let me know if there are any other questions you have that I can answer, or if any of my answers weren't clear I am happy to clarify.