If RCOM needs more volunteer Wikimedians, the alive and well IEG Committee
includes a Research Working Group that reviews grant proposals for WMF
funding through the IEG program, so RCOM could reach out to IEGCom. I'm on
IEGCom and the RWG but I can't speak for RCOM. (:
Pine
On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 3:10 PM, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
I guess I was not so much thinking of an general
invitation to the R&D
Showcase but a specific “expectation” (albeit couched as an invitation) on
those given permission to recruit via WMF channels to give a few short (or
long as appropriate to the stage of their research) talks on their project.
Ditto research projects supported through IEG or similar.
I agree that OpenSym is available as a research conference but it is not
run by our community and therefore doesn’t help to create a sense of
community with the researchers in question. Wikimania is run by our
community but isn’t a research conference (would not count as a publication
for academic purposes). But I don’t know if it’s realistic to try to
establish another conference in terms of the volunteer effort to run it.
Kerry
------------------------------
*From:* wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Aaron Halfaker
*Sent:* Friday, 18 July 2014 1:45 AM
*To:* Research into Wikimedia content and communities
*Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
Kerry said:
Because of the criticism of “not giving back”, could we perhaps do things
to try to make the researcher feel part of the community to make “giving
back” more likely? For example, could we give them a slot every now and
again to talk about their project in the R&D Showcase? Encourage them to be
on this mailing list. Are we at a point where it might make sense to
organise a Wikipedia research conference to help build a research
community? Just thinking aloud here …
This is a bit different than the main topic, so I wanted to break it out
into another reply.
We just had Nate Matias[0] from the MIT media lab present on his work at
the last showcase[1]. We also just sent out a survey about the showcase
that includes a call for recommended speakers at future showcases[2]. As
for a Wikipedia research conference, see OpenSym[3] (formerly WikiSym) and
Wikimania[4] (not as researchy, but a great venue to maximize wiki research
impact).
0.
http://natematias.com/
1.
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Research_and_Data/Showcase#July_20…
2.
http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/wiki-research-l/2014-July/003574.html
3.
http://www.opensym.org/os2014/
4.
https://wikimania2014.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 8:30 AM, Aaron Halfaker <aaron.halfaker(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Aaron, when I read that it is active because I
had heard from others in
your team about a year or two ago that this wasn't
going to be the vehicle
for obtaining permission going forward and that a new, more lightweight
process was being designed.
1) If anyone told you that we are no longer active, they were wrong.
2) The "lightweight" process you refer to is what I linked to in enwiki in
my previous response. See again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment
Generally, there seems to be a misconception that RCom == paid WMF
activities. While RCom involves a relationship with the Wikimedia
Foundation, our activities as part of RCom are 100% volunteer and open to
participation from other Wikipedians (seriously, let me know if you want to
help out!), and as such, our backlog tends to suffer when our available
volunteer time does. FWIW, I became involved in this work as a volunteer
(before I started working with the WMF). With that in mind, it seems like
we are not discussing RCom itself which is mostly inactive -- so much as we
are discussing the subject recruitment review process which is still
active. Let me state this clearly: *If you send an email to me or Dario
about a research project that you would like reviewed, we will help you
coordinate a review. *Our job as review coordinators is to make sure
that the study is adequately documented and that Wikipedians and other
researchers are pulled in to discuss the material. We don't just welcome
broad involvement -- we need it! We all suffer from the lack of it.
Please show up help us!
To give you some context on the current stats and situation, I should
probably give a bit of history. I've been working to improve subject
recruitment review -- with the goal of improving interactions between
researchers and Wikipedians -- for years. Let me first say that *I'm
game to make this better.* In my experience, the biggest issue to
documenting the a review/endorsement/whatever process that I have come
across is this: there seems to be a lot of people who feel that minimizing *process
description* provides power and adaptability to intended processes[1].
It's these people that I've regularly battled in my frequent efforts to
increase the formalization around the subject recruitment proposal vetting
process (e.g. SRAG had a structured appeals process and stated timelines).
The result of these battles is the severely under-documented process
"described" in meta:R:FAQ
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:FAQ>.
Here's some links to my previous work on subject recruitment process that
will show these old discussions about process creep
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_instruction_creep>.
·
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Subject_Recruitment_Approvals_Group
o
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Subject_Recruitment_Approvals_…
·
https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Research&oldid=354…
o
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Research/Archive_1
o
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Research/Archive_2 -- Note
that this was actually an *enwiki policy* for about 5 hours before the
RfC was overturned due to too few editors being involved in the straw poll.
For new work, see my current (but stalled for about 1.5 years) push for a
structured process on English Wikipedia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment See also
the checklist I have been working on with Lane.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment/Wikipedian_che…
When you review these docs and the corresponding conversations, please
keep in mind that I was a new Wikipedian for the development of WP:SRAG and
WP:Research, so I made some really critical mistakes -- like taking
hyperbolic criticism of the proposals personally. :\
So what now? Well, in the meantime, if you let me know about some subject
recruitment you want to do, I'll help you find someone to coordinate a
review that fits within the process described in the RCom docs. In the
short term, are any of you folks interested in going through some
iterations of the new WP:Research_recruitment policy doc?
-Aaron
On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 2:38 AM, Heather Ford <hfordsa(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Agree with Kerry that we really need to have a more flexible process that
speaks to the main problem that (I think) RCOM was started to solve i.e.
that Wikipedians were getting tired of being continually contacted by
researchers to fill out *surveys*. I'm not sure where feelings are about
that right now (I certainly haven't seen a huge amount of surveys myself)
but I guess the big question right now is whether RCOM is actually active
or not. I must say that I was surprised, Aaron, when I read that it is
active because I had heard from others in your team about a year or two ago
that this wasn't going to be the vehicle for obtaining permission going
forward and that a new, more lightweight process was being designed. As
Nathan discusses on the Wikimedia-l list, there aren't many indications
that RCOM is still active. Perhaps there has been a recent decision to
resuscitate it? If that's the case, let us know about it :) And then we can
discuss what needs to happen to build a good process.
One immediate requirement that I've been talking to others about is
finding ways of making the case to the WMF as a group of researchers for
the anonymization of country level data, for example. I've spoken to a few
researchers (and I myself made a request about a year ago that hasn't been
responded to) and it seems like some work is required by the foundation to
do this anonymisation but that there are a few of us who would be really
keen to use this data to produce research very valuable to Wikipedia -
especially from smaller language versions/developing countries. Having an
official process that assesses how worthwhile this investment of time would
be to the Foundation would be a great idea, I think, but right now there
seems to be a general focus on the research that the Foundation does itself
rather than enabling researchers outside. I know how busy Aaron and Dario
(and others in the team) are so perhaps this requires a new position to
coordinate between researchers and Foundation resources?
Anyway, I think the big question right now is whether there are any plans
for RCOM that have been made by the research team and the only people who
can answer that are folks in the research team :)
Best,
Heather.
Heather Ford
Oxford Internet Institute <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk> Doctoral Programme
EthnographyMatters <http://ethnographymatters.net> | Oxford Digital
Ethnography Group <http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/research/projects/?id=115>
http://hblog.org | @hfordsa <http://www.twitter.com/hfordsa>
On 17 July 2014 08:49, Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Yes, I meant the community/communities of WMF. But the authority of the
community derives from WMF, which chooses to delegate such matters. I think
that “advise” is a good word to use.
Kerry
------------------------------
*From:* Amir E. Aharoni [mailto:amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il]
*Sent:* Thursday, 17 July 2014 5:37 PM
*To:* kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com; Research into Wikimedia content and
communities
*Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
WMF does not "own" me as a contributor;
it does not decide who can and
cannot recruit me for whatever purposes.
I don't think that it really should be about WMF. The WMF shouldn't
enforce anything. The community can formulate good practices for
researchers and _advise_ community members not to cooperate with
researchers who don't follow these practices. Not much more is needed.
--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore
2014-07-17 8:24 GMT+03:00 Kerry Raymond <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>om>:
Just saying here what I already put on the Talk page:
I am a little bothered by the opening sentence "This page documents the
process that researchers must follow before asking Wikipedia contributors
to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and
experiments."
WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can and
cannot recruit me for whatever purposes. What WMF does own is its
communication channels to me as a contributor and WMF has a right to
control what occurs on those channels. Also I think WMF probably should be
concerned about both its readers and its contributors being recruited
through its channels (as either might be being recruited). I think this
distinction should be made, e.g.
"This page documents the process that researchers must follow if they wish
to use Wikipedia's (WMF's?) communication channels to recruit people to
participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and
experiments. Communication channels include its mailing lists, its Project
pages, Talk pages, and User Talk pages [and whatever else I've forgotten]."
If researchers want to recruit WPians via non-WMF means, I don’t think
it’s any business of WMF’s. An example might be a researcher who wanted to
contact WPians via chapters or thorgs; I would leave it for the
chapter/thorg to decide if they wanted to assist the researcher via their
communication channels.
Of course, the practical reality of it is that some researchers (oblivious
of WMF’s concerns in relation to recruitment of WPians to research
projects) will simply use WMF’s channels without asking nicely first.
Obviously we can remove such requests on-wiki and follow up any email
requests with the commentary that this was not an approved request. In my
category of [whatever else I’ve forgotten], I guess there are things like
Facebook groups and any other social media presence.
Also to be practical, if WMF is to have a process to vet research surveys,
I think it has to be sufficiently fast and not be overly demanding to avoid
the possibility of the researcher giving up (“too hard to deal with these
people”) and simply spamming email, project pages, social media in the hope
of recruiting some participants regardless. That is, if we make it too
slow/hard to do the right thing, we effectively encourage doing the wrong
thing. Also, what value-add can we give them to reward those who do the
right thing? It’s nice to have a carrot as well as a stick when it comes to
onerous processes J
Because of the criticism of “not giving back”, could we perhaps do things
to try to make the researcher feel part of the community to make “giving
back” more likely? For example, could we give them a slot every now and
again to talk about their project in the R&D Showcase? Encourage them to be
on this mailing list. Are we at a point where it might make sense to
organise a Wikipedia research conference to help build a research
community? Just thinking aloud here …
Kerry
------------------------------
*From:* wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Aaron Halfaker
*Sent:* Thursday, 17 July 2014 6:59 AM
*To:* Research into Wikimedia content and communities
*Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] discussion about wikipedia surveys
RCOM review is still alive and looking for new reviewers (really,
coordinators). Researchers can be directed to me or Dario (
dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org) to be assigned a reviewer. There is also a
proposed policy on enwiki that could use some eyeballs:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment
On Wed, Jul 16, 2014 at 11:16 AM, Federico Leva (Nemo) <nemowiki(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
phoebe ayers, 16/07/2014 19:21:
(Personally, I think the answer should be to
resuscitate RCOM, but
that's easy to say and harder to do!)
IMHO in the meanwhile the most useful thing folks can do is subscribing
to the feed of new research pages:
<
https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:NewPages&feed=atom…
It's easier to build a functioning
RCOM out of an active community of
"reviewers", than the other way round.
Nemo
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