Hi Jodi,
In terms of etiquette, it’s totally fine to post these kinds of interview requests on
WikiProject Talk pages. I’d expect though that the people who read WikiProject talk pages
are skewed towards more highly-engaged participants. Their habits for assessing scientific
and technical information may not be representative of Wikipedia contributors overall in
the topic area.
As a frequent contributor to climate change articles, I’ll also mention that if you want
to know how Wikipedia contributors assess information about climate change, I suspect
you’ll get different answers if you ask at WikiProject Climate Change than if you ask at
WikiProject Tropical Cyclones.
Cheers,
Su-Laine (Wikipedia volunteer)
On Jan 12, 2023, at 12:34 PM, Isaac Johnson
<isaac(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hey Jodi -- thanks for asking the question. Some of my thoughts about how
researchers can solicit off-wiki interviews:
- If you have not already created one, I suggest creating a project page
on Meta <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Projects> and linking
to it in any posts. This gives interested editors a single page on wiki
where they can find relevant information on the project if they're curious.
The benefit of Meta in particular is that it also provides a consistent
format, has privacy/transparency guarantees, has a place for discussion
(talk page), and is discoverable by other researchers.
- If the research is extractive in some way (i.e. not just passive data
analysis but asking for editor's time as with interviews), you want to make
sure it also provides clear benefits for those Wikimedian
individuals/communities. When soliciting interviews, it isq quite helpful
to communicate these benefits to editors so they can judge whether it's
worthwhile to participate.
- Your inclination to post on talk pages for topic-specific WikiProjects
(collaborative spaces) is spot on. This helps a lot with reducing
interview-request spam for editors and if your research leads to actionable
findings / tools, then you have a community of folks who know the project
and you can hopefully work with to disseminate.
- Start small (maybe posting to one group to begin with). This wll help
you gather feedback -- e.g., address questions/concerns from editors --
before posting in more places.
- Also consider looking for local events to attend -- e.g., an
edit-a-thon or Wikimedian conference
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Events>. This is a great way to find
editors for interviews in more relaxed spaces and potentially get to
observe and ask questions about their editing processes first-hand. For
instance, I saw you're at UIUC: maybe the Wikimedians of Chicago User
Group
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedians_of_Chicago_User_Group#Activities>
has events that could be attended? Sometimes there are nearby
Wikimedians-in-Residence
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedian_in_residence#Full_list_of_past_and_present_WiRs>
who could potentially help you connect with local communities as well.
Hope that helps and curious to hear thoughts from others.
Best,
Isaac
On Wed, Jan 11, 2023 at 5:42 PM Jodi Schneider <jschneider(a)pobox.com> wrote:
Hi wiki-research-l folks,
Can the list point me in the right direction about how researchers should
solicit off-wiki interviews? I'm seeking to interview editors of English
Wikipedia who have provided information about scientific and technical
topics. I'm struggling to find up-to-date documentation about expectations
for researchers...
Currently the focus is COVID-19; in future years the focus will shift to
climate change; and AI and labor. Overall the project seeks to understand
how knowledge brokers (including Wikipedia editors) assess the quality of
technical and scientific information. This is part of my 3-year, US-based,
IRB-approved research study:
https://infoqualitylab.org/projects/knowledgebrokers/participate-y1
My inclination (in the absence of specific best practice directions) would
be to post a message the Talk pages of the most obvious WikiProjects, with
information about the project and how to reach me:
WikiProject COVID-19
WikiProject Medicine / Pulmonology
WikiProject Viruses
WikiProject Disaster management
Is that appropriate? I'd welcome a pointer to specific requirements or best
practices. Offline advice also welcome!
-Jodi
User:Jodi.a.schneider
jschneider(a)pobox.com
https://jodischneider.com/jodi.html
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Isaac Johnson (he/him/his) -- Senior Research Scientist -- Wikimedia
Foundation
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