Heather, I am not sure who contribute that. Probably not Nemo. If this issue of newsletter is correctly attributed, the contributors include: Taha Yasseri, Maximilian Klein, Piotr Konieczny, Kim Osman, and Tilman Bayer. My suggestion is only a personal one, and I am not sure if it is against policies to make a few edits once the newsletter is out. 

Thanks again to the contributors of the newsletter, my life is a bit easier and more interesting because of your work.

2014-07-02 15:35 GMT+07:00 Heather Ford <hfordsa@gmail.com>:

+1 Thanks for your really thoughtful comments, Joe, Han-Teng. 

Nemo, would you be willing to add a note to the review and/or contacting the researcher?

Best,

Heather.

Heather Ford
Oxford Internet Institute Doctoral Programme
EthnographyMatters | Oxford Digital Ethnography Group 
http://hblog.org | @hfordsa

On 2 July 2014 05:17, h <hanteng@gmail.com> wrote:

The tone of the sentence in question 

    'it is disappointing that the main purpose appears to be completing a thesis, with little thought to actually improving Wikipedia'

could have been written as 

  

    'It would be more useful for the Wikipedia community of practice if the author discussed or even spelled out the implications of the research for improving Wikipedia".

    This suggestion is based on my own impression that [Wiki-research-l] has mainly two groups of readers: community of practice and community of knowledge. It is okay to have some group tensions for creative/critical inputs. Still, a neutral tone is better for assessment, and an encouraging tone might work a bit better to encourage others to fill the *gaps* (both practice and knowledge ones). 

    Also, the factors such as originally intended audience and word limits may determine how much a writer can do for *due weight* (similar to [[WP:due]]). If the original (academic) author failed to address the implications for practices satisfactory, a research newsletter contributor can point out what s/he thinks the potential/actual implications are. (My thanks to the research newsletter's voluntary contributors for their unpaid work!)

    While I understand that the monthly research newsletter has its own perspective and interests different from academic newsletters, it does not sacrifice the integrity of the newsletter to be gentle and specific. I would recommend a minor edit to the sentence as the the newsletter could be read by any one in the world, not just the Wikipedians. It is public/published for all readers, and thus please do not assume the readers know the context of Wikipedia research. 

     

Best,

han-teng liao

2014-07-01 19:37 GMT+07:00 Heather Ford <hfordsa@gmail.com>:

Thanks so much for the newsletter [1]! Always a great read...

But have to just say that comments like this: 'it is disappointing that the main purpose appears to be completing a thesis, with little thought to actually improving Wikipedia' [2] are really harsh and a little unfair. The student is studying Wikipedia - they can hardly only be interested in completing their thesis. We need to remember that researchers are at very different stages of their careers, they have very different motivations, and different levels of engagement with the Wikipedia community, but that *all* research on Wikipedia contributes to our understanding (even if as a catalyst for improvements). We want to encourage more research on Wikipedia, not attack the motivations of people we know little about - particularly when they're just students and particularly when this newsletter is on housed on Wikimedia Foundation's domain.  

Best,

Heather.

[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2014/June 

[2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2014/June#.22Recommending_reference_materials_in_context_to_facilitate_editing_Wikipedia.22

Heather Ford 
Oxford Internet Institute Doctoral Programme 
EthnographyMatters | Oxford Digital Ethnography Group 
http://hblog.org | @hfordsa

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