This proposal isn't really about the merits of any particular study. I
only offered a link to the discussions about my most recent user study
because I felt it was a good example of push-back from Wikipedia editors.
For a better view of the *initial* troubles with the first failed study,
see Katherine's talk page
. I'm most
concerned about what happen in that study. After Katherine asked for
Wikipedia users to participate simply by taking a survey, her account
was nominated for deletion for allegedly violating an obscure policy
that did not match he actions. Katherine had no policy to cite in order
to defend herself. For simply asking people to participate in a survey,
her account was nearly banned.
I'd suggest you have a read through the proposal (it is actually quite
small) in order to more clearly understand the problem we wish to
solve. The first section is devoted to just that.
Thanks for the comments!
-Aaron
Brendan O'Connor wrote:
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 12:06 PM, Aaron Halfaker
<half0032(a)umn.edu> wrote:
Hello,
I am re-posting here because I thought people might be interested in a
proposal
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)#Wikipedia_r…
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28proposals%29#Wikipedia_research_review>)
that my lab-mates and I have been working on. The gestalt of the
proposal is that Wikipedia needs a review system to both protect itself
from questionable research activities and to allow good research to take
place within the system. Currently research involving anything other
than the database snapshots is difficult because there is no formal
policy related to research within Wikipedia.
Could you explain a little more what's the exact problem you want to solve?
I followed the links to individual studies, but I only understood the
2nd one about an interface modification.
(
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Wikipedia_i…
)
It sounds like there were two problems here: (1) you didn't explain
what your software was -- people wanted assurance that the thing was
safe and the like; and (2) people weren't persuaded that participating
in the study was worth their time.
I don't understand why having an IRB-like committee will help solve
things. In the academic setting, IRB's are good, or at least
important, because they try to stop unethical research that harms the
overall research community (or at the very least exposes the
sponsoring university to lawsuits).
It's not clear to me why Wikipedia research's relationship to
Wikipedians is analogous. The bigger problem seems to be persuading
people they should participate in the study. Having approval of a
committee might have helped a little bit for the first objection you
had -- that they have no idea what the software was -- but it wouldn't
have helped with the second -- that they didn't think it was worth
participating in.
--
Brendan O'Connor -
http://anyall.org
See failed examples of attempted research here:
* Failed mentoring study:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Administrators%27_noticeboard/Incide…
* Failed interface launch:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Wikipedia_i…
-Aaron Halfaker
GroupLens Research
University of Minnesota
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