Hi everybody,
I received a few days ago a request to merge and redirect the almost inactive #wikimedia-rcom IRC channel to #wikimedia-research (a public channel open to anyone but primarily operated by the WMF Research and Data team). I agreed with this proposal but I’d be happy to put it on hold if others think that a dedicated RCom channel still serves a purpose.
A little bit of retrospective. The Research Committee as a group with a fixed membership and a regular meeting schedule has been inactive for a very long time. However, a number of RCom initiatives have continued to grow organically over the years thanks to the effort of individual members. These include:
(1) the monthly Research Newsletter [1] has been continuously published since July 2011 and is now close to completing its 3rd volume, thanks to Tilman Bayer’s commitment and unwavering dedication and a number of occasional or recurring contributors;
(2) the @WikiResearch handle [2], originally designed as a companion to the newsletter, today is followed by almost 1.5K users and brings together a large community of editors, researchers, journalists and members of the public interested in research on Wikimedia projects;
(3) Subject Recruitment requests [3] have kept trickling in. If they received timely support and an adequate response, it’s primarily thanks to Aaron Halfaker’s effort. Aaron joined WMF a few months ago as a full-time member of the Research and Data team but he is still investing some of his time in supporting these requests, despite the lack of formal legal or community policies backing the RCom approval process.
(4) Open Access initiatives led by Daniel Mietchen have spawned, among other things, a dedicated Wikiproject [4] and OA is now becoming an opportunity of active collaboration between Wikimedians and open knowledge/open science advocates, thanks to the work of Daniel, Andrea Zanni, Lane Rasberry, to name just a few. OA was big last summer at Wikimania ’13 and it will be even bigger this coming year in London. [5]
Other outreach initiatives similar in spirit to the RCom’s – such as Labs2 and WikiResearch hackathons [6] – have taken off thanks to the self-organized effort of like-minded individuals.
I am very proud of these achievements, which wouldn’t have been possible without many of you donating time and energy to push them forward (and I am sure I’m omitting other ideas born under the RCom brand that I am less familiar with). I am also glad that decentralization produced the desired effect of freeing individual projects from coordination costs and allowed them to grow at their own pace.
I take these success stories as evidence that the existence of a fixed-membership group with a recognized authority on any possible matter related to Wikimedia research and associated policies has ceased to be a priority. I believe this is the right operating model, given the diversity of projects that fell under the original scope of the RCom, but I’d like to hear if others on this list have a different opinion.
Meanwhile, best wishes of happy holidays to you and your families.
Dario