Hi Kerry,
I think that such a tool, if ever, should be used only if everyone who agrees with implementing it has had their own behaviour analysed publicly... btw, one reason why the "thank you" function is not used widely on Wikipedia might be that their logs are made public, even if for the entries some information is scraped. I consider screened does not usually have the effect of trust enhancement, so this would be an interesting issue to look into for the measures you suggest. my position is that with any kind of surveillance, alleged benefits never balance the losses, for individual and social freedom, for a culture of mutual trust, for sharing freely what would otherwise risk to be self-censored, not least for civil society's antimilitarist activism, etc. ...
my cautious note on gender stats (that seem to talk about facts re the enWP community) is in part motivated by similar thoughts as yours, Kerry, pinpointing behaviour and drawing conclusions; because: talking about any numbers in a short line of no more that 10 words will never allow for any transparency about the assumptions underlying the measuring and counting exercise, but it is precisely these that *create* the data in the first place, and I guess that the concept-creating exercise that I read in your mail therefore would have to be made public, too, in as easy words as you do here, and not in any discourse that is inaccessible for too many of those (like myself) who would be affected by an implementation
I guess that while goodwill is nice (to read about), research in my understanding should start from reflections about one's own perspective and not from any claims about "what is out there" -- but rather: "what do I see to be the case out there" and also: why do I perceive this to be my perception -- yes, it is no less complicated that this, and I am not the first one to argue in this vein
anyway, here again, Lorde's insight that the master's tools will never dismantle the master's house might serve as a cautious note about any claim published and quoted in/from mainstream research
best, Claudia
---------- Original Message ----------- From:"Kerry Raymond" kerry.raymond@gmail.com To:"'Research into Wikimedia content and communities'" <wiki-research- l@lists.wikimedia.org> Sent:Fri, 20 Feb 2015 11:18:15 +1000 Subject:Re: [Wiki-research-l] a cautious note on gender stats Re: Fwd: [Gendergap] Wikipedia readers
I agree if a person enjoys bullying, they are unlikely to self-correct. But an "interaction sentiment tool" makes it easier for the community to spot these people, and look more closely into what they are doing. Then try to get them to change, and <rinse and repeat> until such time as they ban them.
My comment about self-correcting behaviour is about people who don't intend to be a bully but behave abrasively without realising it. We have a lot of battle-weary editors out there who have just seen one too many vandalism, one too many blatant self-promotional article, etc and they become inclined to just shoot down "yet another" with increasing reluctance to check out the merits of the specific case, or to be terse and unhelpful in a Talk message etc. We've probably all had those moments of finding some new user's contribution that needs so much work to improve and thought "I'm just too busy, I don't have time to educate yet another one who probably won't stick around anyway, I'll just delete it and move on". I believe that most of our community does not intend to be a "bully" but may not be aware that is how they might seem to others at times. Letting people be aware that their interaction style is exhibiting higher than average "negative sentiment" *is* likely to change the behaviour of that group.
Obviously if we were to put such a tool out there, I'd suggest adding some general advice about what you might do if your score is "pretty negative", e.g.
- think about the choice of words you use, don't
use words like ..., instead use ...
- are you terse or just point to a policy without
being specific about your concerns
- could you have suggested a solution rather than
just pointing out a problem?
- is it time for a wiki-break to recharge your batteries?
The sentiment score is likely to be generated from assessment of a number of elements of the observed interactions, so, for an individual looking at their score, it might be possible to make specific suggestions based on specific component scores, e.g. pointing out specific "abrasive" words being used regularly and suggesting alternatives.
Here's a suggestion for something a lot simpler than the "international sentiment tool". Just produce some word clouds for:
a user's edit summaries
a user's edits on article Talk pages
a user's edits on other people's User
Talk pages
a user's edits on their own User Talk page
What does that show us about people?
Kerry
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