Thanks for the prod Dario.  There are two parts of this conversation that I'd like to draw attention to: 
  1. How should RCom move forward as a group? (meta)
  2. What's the status and needs of current, live initiatives and what new initiatives should we (RCom) take on?
I think that we'd best deal with (1) in this thread and start discussions of (2) in separate threads. 

How should RCom move forward as a group?
My first question is, how do we benefit from a fixed list of members?  One of the issues I feel that we've suffered from is a lack of activity beyond a core group of members.  This isn't surprising since we all participate in this committee as volunteers -- even those of us at the WMF to a large extent.  If we (RCom) are going to have a powerlaw of participation[1], we might consider "opening our doors" and boosting membership to let whoever has the time and interest pick up work as necessary.  I suspect that there was some reasoning behind starting with a limited group size and official membership status, so I encourage someone else to make that point. 

Next I'm wondering how we can organize better.  I agree that decentralization has worked for us to some extent, but I suspect that we'd benefit from better coordination.  Should we plan to spend more time in the IRC channel?  Use this mailing list more?  Find some place on-wiki to discuss our work?  I'm not sure what's going to work for us, but I wanted to point out that we can coordinate while still maintaining decentralized decision making.  

I'll be on #wikimedia-rcom & #wikimedia-research today if anyone wants to do some synchronous chat.  

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_law

-Aaron


On Wed, Dec 25, 2013 at 11:16 PM, Daniel Mietchen <daniel.mietchen@googlemail.com> wrote:
Dear all,

I agree that "the existence of a fixed-membership group with a
recognized authority on any possible matter related to Wikimedia
research and associated policies" is not a priority, and think it
probably never was, since initiatives as those outlined by Dario seem
to have been anticipated.

Anyway, what I think we do need is a Wikimedia equivalent of an
ethical review panel, and RCom would be a good channel for that,
ideally with the help of some others, as appropriate to the topic
(here, we should perhaps think about involving relevant WikiProjects,
user groups etc. more). I have just drafted a Research Newsletter
entry that highlights this need once more (search for "integrity" on
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2013-12-25/Recent_research
).

Cheers,

Daniel

--
http://www.naturkundemuseum-berlin.de/en/institution/mitarbeiter/mietchen-daniel/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Daniel_Mietchen/Publications
http://okfn.org
http://wikimedia.org


On Mon, Dec 23, 2013 at 11:29 PM, Dario Taraborelli
<dtaraborelli@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> 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
>
> [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter
> [2] https://twitter.com/WikiResearch
> [3] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Subject_recruitment
> [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Open_Access
> [5] http://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Outreach/Open_access
> [6] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Labs2/Hackathons
>
> _______________________________________________
> RCom-l mailing list
> RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l
>

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