On Wed, 14 Dec 2011 13:46:48 +0000, WereSpielChequers
<
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
>