Hi Mayo,
I rather suspect that there isn't consensus on this committee to restrict
researchers in their requesting community members to complete research
questionnaires. However I do think there is significant support in the
community to enforce existing spam policies on people indiscriminately
approaching wikimedians to complete research surveys. Sarah Stierch's
survey was targetted at the small minority of editors who have self
identified as female, and the recent newpage patrol survey was supposed to
be targetted at people active in the new page patrol process. I would
consider them to be archetypical targetted surveys by Wikimedians asking
relevant questions. Berkman by contrast was very broadly targeted, run by a
third party and not obviously relevant to Wikimedia.
I came to the conclusion that we would need some sort of throttle on
research surveying of wikimedians long before I drafted the Omnibus
proposal back in July, so the trigger for my writing that was not Berkman,
though obviously it was the trigger for resurrecting the idea. There have
been many discussions that I've seen on wiki and on the mailing lists about
various research surveys, and I'm fairly sure there is a consensus that
some research is OK provided we can control the quantity or people can opt
out of it. The difficult thing will be working out the acceptable level of
research surveying before the community considers it to have been exceeded.
Another difficulty will be to introduce a throttle system that in the
longterm both the community and the research community can live with. For
example there have been proposals in the past for an opt out or even an opt
in mechanism, I consider that such proposals would be workable from the
community's point of view, but I'm not sure that we'd get viable research
samples, especially if the research was becoming more and more intensely
targeted on a fast dwindling band of "consenting" wikimedians.
However if the rest of RCom considers that it isn't part of RCom's remit
to limit the amount of surveying by bonafide researchers, and if some of
you think that the community is broadly accepting of research; Then
perhaps the best option would be to file an RFC on this and see what the
community thinks.
WSC
On 14 December 2011 16:24, Fuster, Mayo <Mayo.Fuster(a)eui.eu> wrote:
Hello!
I hope you are fine.
Dario I already moved in order that Goran has access to the survey.
WSC your comments and suggestions seems to strongly assume that there is
a consensus on the need to "limiting the amount of surveying that
Wikimedians are subjected to". Which is the base for this statement?. Do we
have any strong indicator to stand that there is too much request or that
this is not the case?. At least on the base of Berkman episode, I would not
arrive to that conclusion. Certainly, it does not represent my
interpretation: I don't think in the community there is a predominance of a
rejection attitude. To me developing research is a way to contribute and
beneficial to Wikipedia - but again, beyond each impression on community
position and each own personal position on this. we don't have a strong
indicator or elaborate analysis of the approach of the community toward
research.
In something I think we need to reflect on is that in this stage of
things - and from Berkman and Sarah experience- researchers can extract the
conclusion that it is better to not get in contact with Rcom and it is
better not to consult the community on your recruitment method - you would
save much more time and effort . There is something that it is not working,
if this is the case. In this regard, I would not think in terms of how to
control and limit the amount of research developed (also because it would
be very very difficult) but instead value and incentive that it is done in
a way in concordance with how Wikipedians view about how should be done (in
terms of recruitment process, in terms of open data, in terms of assuring
the results arrive to the community, in terms of addressing questions
relevant for wikimedia goals, etc) and that is design in a way that could
be as much beneficial for the community as possible.
Cheers! Mayo
«·´`·.(*·.¸(`·.¸ ¸.·´)¸.·*).·´`·»
«·´¨*·¸¸« Mayo Fuster Morell ».¸.·*¨`·»
«·´`·.(¸.·´(¸.·* *·.¸)`·.¸).·´`·»
Research Digital Commons Governance:
http://www.onlinecreation.info
Fellow Berkman center for Internet and Society. Harvard University.
Postdoctoral Researcher. Institute of Govern and Public Policies.
Autonomous University of Barcelona.
Visiting scholar. Internet Interdisciplinary Institute. Open University
of Catalonia (UOC).
Member Research Committee. Wikimedia Foundation
Ph.D European University Institute
Visiting researcher (2008). School of information. University of
California, Berkeley.
E-mail: mayo.fuster(a)eui.eu
E-mail: mayofm(a)cyber.law.harvard.edu
Twitter/Identica: Lilaroja
Skype: mayoneti
Phone United States: 001 - 8576548231
Phone Spanish State: 0034-648877748
Berkman Center
23 Everett Street, 2nd Floor
Cambridge, MA 02138
+1 (617) 495-7547 (Phone)
+1 (617) 495-7641 (Fax)
Personal Postal Address USA:
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http://www.acetarium.com/
265 Elm Street - 4
Somerville, MA, USA
02144
________________________________________
From: rcom-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [
rcom-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of WereSpielChequers [
werespielchequers(a)gmail.com]
Sent: 14 December 2011 16:09
To: The Wikimedia Foundation Research Committee mailing list
Subject: Re: [RCom-l] The tragedy of the Commons
Hi Yaroslav,
While I didn't see the actual survey I'm aware that it was run. I suspect
that the community would have little problem differentiating between a
Wikimedian surveying a targetted group of Wikimedians on currently
contentious matters internal to the community as opposed to an outside
researcher surveying a large proportion of the community and perhaps asking
questions that don't seem very relevant. Sarah's survey could have been
done as part of an Omnibus, and I'm sure if we had an Omnibus survey it
would be an opportunity to do a followup.
Alternatively we could see it as part of my alternative option of
targeted research - unlike the Berkman survey Sarah did her targetting in
such a way that she wasn't blocked as spam.....
WSC
On 14 December 2011 14:58, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod(a)mccme.ru<mailtomailto:
putevod(a)mccme.ru>> wrote:
On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:46:48 +0000, WereSpielChequers
<werespielchequers@gmail.com<mailto:werespielchequers@gmail.com>> wrote:
The controversy over Berkman is not in my view
primarily a communication
issue and it certainly isn't about the legitimacy of that survey. I
believe
that the community trusts RCom as a regulator of
research to know
whether
research is legitimate or not.
A big part of the controversy is over advertising, and I'm not convinced
that you can design a banner ad for a third party research survey that
isn't seen by some as advertising for that third party. An Omnibus
survey
could be a Wikimedia one and therefore I would
argue an internal ad
rather
than a third party one. Perhaps that isn't
our only option, and maybe
there
are alternative ways to solve that, one way would
be to change policy to
allow advertising for bona fide research. But that would be a difficult
one
to sell to the community, particularly on the
heels of a fundraising
drive
where "Wikipedia doesn't take ads"
was a core message.
The other aspect of being a regulator of research is the issue of how we
control the amount of research requests made to the community. To my
mind
that is fundamental to what we should be doing,
and it is a major reason
for my being on this committee. But this is almost an opposite thought
process to "promoting research".
There are two proposals that I've made as to how we do this, one would
be
to contact everyone once a year with an Omnibus
survey, the other rather
more complex one is to throttle back research surveying by volume and
limit
each campaign to a small subset of the community.
The two approaches can
be
hybridised by rewarding institutions that
collaborate by allowing them
to
use our systems to approach a larger proportion
of editors. One reason
why
I was opposed to the Berkman survey was that it
was the worst of both
worlds - one single research project going to all or almost all of our
most
surveyed community.
I'm not convinced that the community currently has confidence in RCom to
regulate the amount of research requests that wikimedians and especially
English language Wikipedians are exposed to. Nor am I convinced that
everyone on this committee regards that as our responsibility. To my
mind
this gives us a couple of possibilities, one
would be to try and agree a
mechanism for limiting the amount of surveying that Wikimedians are
subjected to, and then sell that to the community via a request for
comment. One option in any such request for comment could be for the
community to agree not to put any constraints on researchers, but I'd be
surprised if that option got consensus however strongly it was promoted
by
some members of RCom. The other possibility would
be to clarify that the
remit of this committee is to promote legitimate research by vetting
proposals and otherwise communicating with the community; and to inform
the
community that if it wants to put constraints on
legitimate researchers
contacting wikimedians via the site then it needs a an additional
process
other than RCom.
WereSpielChequers
Thanks for your ideas, which I find very much reasonable. I have an
immediate objection though. Not all research goes through RCom, and we
have
no means to stop any single person or organization from sending a hundred
messages to talk pages. For instance, recently it was a survey with the
purpose of understanding the role of the female editors, or whatever the
purpose was (It is difficult for me to find a link immediately, but it can
be done, I guess it was run by Sarah Stierch and colleagues). They did not
bother to go to RCom, and I could imagine what the response were if we
demanded that for instance this survey would become part of Omnibus. Since
it looks almost inevitable that we have to go and ask the community
opinions at some stage, we probably also need to ask this question: Should
every research requiring subject recruitment be regulated (reviewed) by
RCom in advance, or may be the community (first robably of en.wp) just
does
not want any regulation of the subject recruitment.
Cheers
Yaroslav
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