RCom-l August 2010

rcom-l@lists.wikimedia.org

8 participants
6 discussions

Scope of the Research Committee
by Yaroslav M. Blanter 02 Sep '10

02 Sep '10

Dear All, this is just to start the discussion. Below I copy the ideas some of us shared at http://eiximenis.wikimedia.org/ResearchCommitteeBios , and also the original functions compiled by Erik. Functions: The committee's core function includes: * developing policy around researcher permissions for non-public data * supporting the development of subject recruitment processes * reviewing research projects when conflicts-of-interest arise * articulating and channeling requests for data and technical resources * helping to formulate the key strategic research objectives of the Wikimedia movement (see strategy.wikimedia.org) * helping to formulate small tactical experiments related to Wikimedia's strategic goals * developing an open access policy as a requirement for significant support from the Wikimedia Foundation * helping create a "starter kit" for researchers to avoid duplication of effort Opinions on the scope: What possible subcommittees/workgroups to form? * Strategy * Data * Ethical review * Subject recruitment * Code * Tests * Funding * Publishing * Interface Research [John Riedl]: My bias is that we should focus on creating workgroups in areas that are exploring research that is particularly hard to carry out in the current Wikipedia. One way to identify these areas is to look for types of Wikipedia research that seems like it would be very valuable but that is seldom done. Two examples of this type of research are: controlled experiments with hundreds of users, and experiments in new Wikipedia interfaces. [Daniel Mietchen] I wonder how many subcommittees make sense given the size of the committee. Prioritizing is necessary, though, and I think substructures will naturally flow from there. {Yaroslav Blanter] I guess we should understand 1) how meny members we are; 2) define the scope. Then we can easily decide on the number of committees and their scopes [Milos Rancic] From the Wikimedia perspective, I would add that we need at least three general tasks, which could be handled by listed committees or by new one(s): (1) How to keep community healthy? (2) How to improve existing projects? and (3) Which new projects are needed in the corpus of free knowledge? denny: Milos, you talking about Wiki(m/p)edia in general, or about research projects in particular? I also agree, we can only do so much with the size of the committee. Also, our task is obviously not to do the research ourselve, but provide the interface between Wikimedia and the wider research community. [Milos Rancic] Denny, I am talking about research goals. It looks too general, but as a Wikimedia bureaucrat, I would like to get scientific answers to as many as possible questions related to those three general questions. Moved at the level of particular researches, research which would state that "edit" button should stay at some position because it would improve participation -- would be a perfect example of research which aim to cover the part of the second question (How to improve existing projects?). [Yaroslav Blanter] Sorry, I was a bit out of business for the weekend. I in general agree with Milosh and with denny at the same time - we need to understand what we can actually do with 8 committee members. Should we first discuss what RESEARCH means? I guess there are several activities in and around WMF projects, which are covered by this term and are in some or other way in the scope of our committee, in no particular order: (1) original research performed by WMF projects (there are only two where OR is not prohibited - Wikibooks and Wikiversity), shoud there be some guidelines? (2) Scientific research on WMF projects (probably mainly Wikipedia) performed by either WMF-related or independent researchers; (3) Non-WMF-related research performed by research institutions: Here our business is only interaction between WMF projects and researchers at these institutions. Do we want to handle all three? Is there is smth else which I overlooked? P.S. We started a serious discussion and I am not sure this is the best interface. I believe Erik promised to open a mailing list, may be all this can be moved into the list. [denny] I agree with Yaroslav on maybe waiting for the list. These wiki-like interfaces are known to be not the best for discussions like these <reference needed>. ;) [WereSpielChequers] I'm with Milos on the need for research to inform decision making on existing projects, there have been a number of decisions where it would have been really helpful to have a researcher look at the stats and prepare a report to inform the discussion. Also I'm with Daniel on thinking that it is a bit early to be forming subcommittes. I'm hoping tha part of our role will be in advising researchers where there are alternatives that are acceptable to both researchers and the community and part will be explaining to other researchers why some things are not acceptable to the community. For example in the last year we have had one research project where someone was vandalising articles in order to see how effective our anti-vandalism efforts were, and another was adding fake spam links to see how many people would click through to a spam site; The first could either have been done as an audit of existing articles to see how many were vandalised, or by analysing vandalsim reversions to see how long it took to spot the vandalism. I'm not convinced that there is an alternative way to do the spam test, but as Wikipedia is unlikely to be taking advertising in the foreseeable future and as the willingness to click on a link is at least partially dependent on the trust one places in the website where you see that link, then I don't see the value in testing how well spam works in Wikipedia. Cheers Yaroslav

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IRC meetings
by Yaroslav M. Blanter 02 Sep '10

02 Sep '10

Dear all, concerning the technical issues: I am normally not using IRC, and I very much prefer skype conferences. If I am the only one I am willing to compromise on this, but we may want to discuss the preferences of the committee members. Cheers Yaroslav

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Welcome Luca
by Erik Moeller 27 Aug '10

27 Aug '10

As per my earlier mail, I just added the second "late arrival", Luca de Alfaro, who just provided me with a bio that you can find on the wiki page. Welcome, Luca. :-) Luca, please see the list archives at http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/rcom-l/2010-August/thread.html to catch up! All best, Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Preferred meeting method poll
by Erik Moeller 27 Aug '10

27 Aug '10

Hello all, as per the discussion re: IRC, please add your comments/arguments/votes to this wiki page: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee/Preferred_meeting_method I would like us to get as close to consensus as possible; e.g., if some people feel strongly that Skype is unacceptable due to it being proprietary, I would prefer not to overrule them. I have a couple of questions re: Skype, which are on the wiki page, and which more experienced Skype users may be able to answer. Thanks, Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Welcome Ziko
by Erik Moeller 27 Aug '10

27 Aug '10

Hello all, Ziko van Dijk is a late addition to the research committee; I approved his application, and he had e-mailed the bio but not added it to the pad yet, so his application fell through the cracks in the setup process: my apologies. I added him to the list of members, please see http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee for his bio. Welcome Ziko :-) There's one additional person who I've approved and haven't heard back from yet. Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Welcome to the Research Committee
by Erik Moeller 25 Aug '10

25 Aug '10

Dear all, thank you again for accepting my invitation to join the Wikimedia Foundation research committee. I have launched the page on Meta describing the committee, which also contains your bios: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee Please make any further edits to this wiki page as you see fit. Please note that this discussion list is _publicly archived_. I will set up a simple alias for off-list communications if needed. I've suggested a very simple charter to begin with: the talk page on the wiki would be a good place for us to discuss this as needed. As per the suggested charter, I'd like to occasionally add Wikimedia Foundation staff to this mailing list as non-voting members without process overhead, and I'll have a first batch of these shortly. Here are some immediate action items that everyone could help with: * If there are simple ways to make the Research Committee landing page more useful, please go ahead and improve it. :-) * I'd like to organize an IRC meeting soon. If someone wants to take the lead in setting up a subpage to plan the meeting agenda, date/time,IRC channel, etc., that would be great. * Let me know if you think additional infrastructure is immediately required. I think we may end up setting up an OTRS queue to process requests by researchers, but I don't think we're there yet. The page above is public, I will send out an announcement tomorrow to give you an opportunity to jump in to make it better. ;-) Finally, I will share with you a Google Spreadsheet that is a first simple crack at tracking WMF-sponsored research projects. I don't think Google Spreadsheet is a good tool for this going forward, but it will give you a sense of what I imagine some cornerstones of a roadmap would look like. I look forward to working with all of you. :-) All best, Erik -- Erik Möller Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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RCom-l August 2010