Pursuant to prior discussions about the need for a research
policy on Wikipedia, WikiProject Research is drafting a
policy regarding the recruitment of Wikipedia users to
participate in studies.
At this time, we have a proposed policy, and an accompanying
group that would facilitate recruitment of subjects in much
the same way that the Bot Approvals Group approves bots.
The policy proposal can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research
The Subject Recruitment Approvals Group mentioned in the proposal
is being described at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Subject_Recruitment_Approvals_Group
Before we move forward with seeking approval from the Wikipedia
community, we would like additional input about the proposal,
and would welcome additional help improving it.
Also, please consider participating in WikiProject Research at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Research
--
Bryan Song
GroupLens Research
University of Minnesota
We’re glad to announce the release of an aggregate clickstream dataset extracted from English Wikipedia
http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1305770 <http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.1305770>
This dataset contains counts of (referer, article) pairs aggregated from the HTTP request logs of English Wikipedia. This snapshot captures 22 million (referer, article) pairs from a total of 4 billion requests collected during the month of January 2015.
This data can be used for various purposes:
• determining the most frequent links people click on for a given article
• determining the most common links people followed to an article
• determining how much of the total traffic to an article clicked on a link in that article
• generating a Markov chain over English Wikipedia
We created a page on Meta for feedback and discussion about this release: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_clickstream <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_clickstream>
Ellery and Dario
>
> RCom, as far as I know has not been active in the past year or more (last
> meeting was on Dec. 22, 2011).
*RCom is not dead. It changed into something less formal and less
hierarchical. You can still email me and Dario to get support for your
research plans. We'd still reconvene the committee if it looks like
that'll help. *
While RCom hasn't met in a long time, the process for subject recruitment
hasn't slowed. We don't have a technical requirement that all recruitment
studies must follow The Process, but I have been helping researchers
document their studies and obtain feedback and sometimes consensus for more
than five years now.
Really, RCom has morphed slowly into the Research Team at the WMF + a few
interested volunteers that we can manage to pull in to help us with review
work (shout out to Daniel Mietchen, Nemo, Yaroslav & BluRasberry). Within
the research team, we *do* have structured processed for supporting
researchers access to data and engineering support, but subject recruitment
has been mostly left in my (volunteer time) hands.
Regretfully, I wasn't involved in the planning of this project or I would
have directed it towards best practices for minimizing disruption
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment> -- e.g. an
RFC. I would have also pushed Leila to find a way to make posts on talk
pages work (since they are known to be generally preferable, police-able,
etc.), but I can understand why concerns around privacy might be worth
discussion. I regret that this discussion only happened after-the-fact as
it could have informed the study design for the better. FWIW, SuggestBot
posts recommendations on user talk pages and also does not filter for
offensive content (to my knowledge).
Finally, I think it is important to consider the source of this research
work. Leila is not some random academic or industry researcher who is
planning to take advantage of Wikipedians for a study, but not give back.
Leila is working with a team at the WMF tasked with building better
translation tools. She helped them design an experiment that would explore
the effectiveness of these tools so that when something is deployed, it's
actually better and we know it scientifically. A lot of the work I do with
external researchers is to help make sure that their work has the potential
to benefit Wikipedia/Wikipedians/Wikimedia/Open knowledge. In this case,
the Leila's team is just helping the product teams engage in best practices
around empirical software change practice. After all, every software
deployment is an experiment that is inflicted upon you without consent. In
this case, Leila's job is making sure that we know the effect before we
deploy.
So, what I really mean to say is:
1. You're right. We should do this better. We have a process and
everyone should go through it. It might have caught some of the issues
that have been raised.
2. Leila is WMF staff. She's trying to help the WMF build better
software for the purpose of benefiting Wikipedians. Her team deserves some
slack. The alternative of not running the study is less desirable.
-Aaron
On Sat, Jun 27, 2015 at 12:56 PM, Michelle Paulson <mpaulson(a)wikimedia.org>
wrote:
> Hi All,
>
> Please see in-line below.
>
> -Michelle
>
> On Saturday, June 27, 2015, Leila Zia <leila(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > + Michelle Paulson
> >
> > On Sat, Jun 27, 2015 at 7:37 AM, Pine W <wiki.pine(a)gmail.com
> > <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','wiki.pine(a)gmail.com');>> wrote:
> >
> >> This issue is also being discussed on the Research mailing list.
> >>
> >> I have three questions:
> >>
> >> 1. Was this outreach method approved by RCom?
> >>
> > No, and RCom, as far as I know has not been active in the past year or
> > more (last meeting was on Dec. 22, 2011). This is a research from the
> > Research team in the WMF.
> >
> >> 2. Email addresses are nonpublic information on-wiki unless they are
> >> proactively and publicly disclosed by users. Does the bulk collection of
> >> nonpublic email addresses in this manner and the bulk provision of those
> >> addresses to researchers for their use in this campaign violate the
> >> Wikimedia privacy policy? The policy states regarding email, "We use
> your
> >> email address to let you know about things that are happening with the
> >> Foundation, the Wikimedia Sites, or the Wikimedia movement, such as
> telling
> >> you important information about your account, letting you know if
> something
> >> is changing about the Wikimedia Sites or policies, and alerting you when
> >> there has been a change to an article that you have decided to follow."
> The
> >> bulk scraping of email addresses from account registrations for research
> >> and outreach purposes doesn't appear to be contemplated or authorized
> under
> >> the privacy policy.
> >>
> > Michelle can help with this one as this is related to Legal. Note that
> > it's weekend here and this may have to wait until Monday.
> >
>
> The research team did speak to me prior to beginning this project to ensure
> that they complied with the WMF privacy policy. It is my view that this
> type of use falls within the permissible potential uses for email addresses
> under the policy. The examples listed in the policy are meant to be
> illustrative, not exclusive -- the absence of this situation as an
> enumerated example shouldn't be taken as a prohibition.
>
> That said, it is a new use and therefore, will and should be the subject of
> discussion and debate. It is such feedback and testing that will help us
> refine email practices to be both effective and reflective of community
> values.
>
> > 3. Wouldn't talk pages be a more appropriate outreach method than bulk
> >> email?
> >>
> > The reason we chose email over talk pages (or Echo notifications) is
> > explained here
> > <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Increasing_article_coverage#.…
> >.
> >
> >
> > Hope this helps.
> >
> > Best,
> > Leila
> >
> >> Thanks,
> >>
> >> Pine
> >>
> >> _______________________________________________
> >> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> >> Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> >> <javascript:_e(%7B%7D,'cvml','Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org');>
> >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
> >>
> >>
> >
>
> --
> ==
> Michelle Paulson
> Senior Legal Counsel
> Wikimedia Foundation
> 149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
> San Francisco, CA 94105
> mpaulson(a)wikimedia.org
> 415.839.6885 ext. 6608 (Office)
> 415.882.0495 (Fax)
>
> *NOTICE: This message may be confidential or legally privileged. If you
> have received it by accident, please delete it and let us know about the
> mistake. As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation and for legal/ethical
> reasons, I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
> members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
> on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.*
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
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> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
>
This is such a delightful experience. Whoever is working on translation
interfaces and translation research this way: very nicely done indeed.
Sadly, automatic translation hinting doesn't seem to be available yet. Or
at least it's
Non disponible pour français
SJ
2015-06-25 15:59 GMT-07:00 Wikimedia Research <
recommender-feedback(a)wikimedia.org>:
> Bonjour, L’équipe Recherche de la Fondation Wikimédia (Wikimedia
> Research) travaille actuellement sur l’identification d’articles populaires
> et importants1 <#14e2cf2eca33408f_fn1> dans certaines langues du projet
> Wikipédia qui n’existent pas encore sur le Wikipédia francophone. Les cinq
> articles suivants existent dans la version anglophone de Wikipédia et sont
> considérés comme étant importants pour les autres langues du projet. Au vu
> de votre historique de contribution à Wikipédia, nous pensons que vous êtes
> un(e) excellent candidat(e) pour contribuer à ces articles. Démarrer la
> création de l'un de ces articles serait un premier pas considérable en vue
> d'élargir les connaissances disponibles en français.2
> <#14e2cf2eca33408f_fn2>
>
> Dollfus' stargazer
> <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?campaign=frwiki-re…'_stargazer>
>
> Request Tracker
> <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?campaign=frwiki-re…>
>
> American Poultry Association
> <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?campaign=frwiki-re…>
>
> Attribute–value pair
> <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?campaign=frwiki-re…>
>
> Kal Aaj Aur Kal
> <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:ContentTranslation?campaign=frwiki-re…>
>
> Nous vous remercions d'avance pour votre aide. 3 <#14e2cf2eca33408f_fn3>
> 4 <#14e2cf2eca33408f_fn4>
>
> Equipe de Recherche
> Fondation Wikimédia
> 149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
> San Francisco, CA, 94105
> 415.839.6885 (Office)
> ------------------------------
> 1. Nous identifions les articles importants et populaires grâce à un
> algorithme. Cette sélection d'articles peut être un résultat personnalisé
> ou aléatoire. Vous pouvez en apprendre davantage sur la personnalisation et
> les méthodes utilisées pour trouver les articles importants à cette
> adresse
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Increasing_article_coverage#Method…>
> .
> 2. Les liens pointent vers l’outil de traduction de Wikipédia
> (ContentTranslation Tool). Cet outil est en cours de développement par
> l’équipe Language Engineering de la fondation (pour l’instant en version
> beta dans certaines langues). En savoir plus:
> https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Content_translation.
> 3. Si vous désirez plus d’informations sur ce projet de recherche, vous
> pouvez lire cette page
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Increasing_article_coverage>
> (en anglais), et nous en parler sur sa page de discussion
> <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Increasing_article_coverage>
> (en anglais de préférence, même si nous trouverons certainement un
> traducteur si vous nous écrivez en français :).
> 4. Votre avis est important pour nous. Faites nous part de vos impressions
> par courriel à l’adresse recommender-feedback(a)wikimedia.org.
>
>
> Si vous ne souhaitez plus recevoir de courriel de Wikimedia Research,
> merci d’envoyer un courriel ayant pour sujet "unsubscribe" à l’adresse
> recommender-feedback(a)wikimedia.org>.
>
This issue is also being discussed on the Research mailing list.
I have three questions:
1. Was this outreach method approved by RCom?
2. Email addresses are nonpublic information on-wiki unless they are
proactively and publicly disclosed by users. Does the bulk collection of
nonpublic email addresses in this manner and the bulk provision of those
addresses to researchers for their use in this campaign violate the
Wikimedia privacy policy? The policy states regarding email, "We use your
email address to let you know about things that are happening with the
Foundation, the Wikimedia Sites, or the Wikimedia movement, such as telling
you important information about your account, letting you know if something
is changing about the Wikimedia Sites or policies, and alerting you when
there has been a change to an article that you have decided to follow." The
bulk scraping of email addresses from account registrations for research
and outreach purposes doesn't appear to be contemplated or authorized under
the privacy policy.
3. Wouldn't talk pages be a more appropriate outreach method than bulk
email?
Thanks,
Pine
Hi all,
I wonder if you know if somebody verified and / or further researched
Aaron Swartz's thesis on structure of Wikipedia participation. You can
find it here: http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
Best,
Krzysztof Gajewski
*** Apologies for multiple postings ***
Call for Participation
Please consider submitting a contribution to the Computational Social
Science satellite workshop, co-located with CCS'15.
What: Computational Social Science -- CCS'15 Satellite Workshop
Where: Tempe, Arizona (USA)
When: October 1 2015
Website: http://cssworkshop.oii.ox.ac.uk
Submissions due: June 24, 2015, Midnight PDT (EXTENDED!!)
Continuing an already consolidated pattern since 2013, the Conference
in Complex Systems (http://www.ccs2015.org) hosts the satellite
workshop on Computational Social Science.
The aim of this satellite is to address the question of ICT-mediated
social phenomena emerging over multiple scales, ranging from the
interactions of individuals to the emergence of self-organized global
movements. Particular attention will be devoted to the following
topics:
- Interdependent social contagion process
- Peer production and mass collaboration
- Temporally evolving networks and dynamics of social contagion
- Cognitive aspects of belief formation and revision
- Online communication and information diffusion
- Viral propagation in online social network
- Crowd-sourcing; herding behaviour vs. wisdom of crowds
- E-democracy and online government-citizen interaction
- Online socio-political mobilizations
- Public attention and popularity
- Temporal and geographical patterns of information diffusion
- User-information interplay
- Group formation, evolution and group behavior analysis.
- Modeling, tracking and forecasting dynamic groups in social media.
- Community detection and dynamic community structure analysis.
- Social simulation, cultural, opinion, and normative dynamics.
- Empirical calibration and validation of agent-based social models.
- Models of social capital, collective action, social movements.
- Coevolution of network and behavior.
Please address any questions to css2015(a)indiana.edu
Thank you.
Giovanni Luca Ciampaglia on behalf of the CSS Workshop
Organizing Committee
✎ 919 E 10th ∙ Bloomington 47408 IN ∙ USA
☞ http://www.glciampaglia.com/
✆ +1 812 855-7261
✉ gciampag(a)indiana.edu
Hi everybody,
We’re preparing for the June 2015 research newsletter and looking for contributors. Please take a look at: https://etherpad.wikimedia.org/p/WRN201506 and add your name next to any paper you are interested in covering. As usual, short notes and one-paragraph reviews are most welcome. Drafts should be in before the target publication date which is Wednesday, June 24th.
Highlights from this month:
An Examination of Health, Medicaland Nutritional Information on the Internet:A Comparative Study of Wikipedia, WebMDand the Mayo Clinic Websites
Multilingual Wikipedia Enrichment using Infobox andWikidata Alignment
Collaboration of Pre-Service Early Childhood Teachers in Dyads for Wikipedia Article Authoring
Medical student preferences for self-directed study resources in gross anatomy
Computational Fact Checking from Knowledge Networks
Challenges of Mathematical Information Retrieval in the NTCIR-11 Math Wikipedia Task
WikiMirs: A Mathematical Information Retrieval System for Wikipedia
Extracting Domain Knowledge by Complex Networks Analysis of Wikipedia Entries
Building Governance Capability in Online Social Production: Insights from Wikipedia
Content Translation: Computer-assisted translation tool for Wikipedia articles
WikiKreator: Improving Wikipedia Stubs Automatically
Peer-production system or collaborative ontology development effort: what is Wikidata?
Social construction of knowledge in Wikipedia
If you have any question about the format or process feel free to get in touch off-list.
Masssly, Tilman Bayer and Dario Taraborelli
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter
So... as referenced to yesterday, I was doing some research. I published
the results on meta at
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Men_of_Quora_use_Wikipedia_to_get_…
. The gist of it appears to be that women on Quora are less likely to link
to Wikipedia than their male counterparts. I am not completely sure what
the reasons for this are, but some of the research done by others appears
to hint around the edges at possible causes... though I am not sure how
much they explain this. (Is this a Wikipedia issue or a Quora issue?)
If you're interested in some research looking at the gender gap on another
site, http://statisticsforfun.quora.com/ is where a fair bit of my Quora
research can be found. It is interesting, especially given that Quora does
some of the things people say Wikipedia should do to fix its problems.
Sincerely,
Laura Hale