Hi Jonathan,
You have correctly deduced from the description that there will not be any interaction with editors and all the data for the research will be drawn from the publicly available edit histories. The most confusing part that gives impression of intervening is perhaps the "experiment", which conceptually differs in the social sciences from its more common meaning in a laboratory environment. That said, this research is not going to consume editor's time for surveys nor it is going to convert Wikipedia to a laboratory or ask people to change their behaviour.
I came here with the announcement after creating the proposal on Meta and following the guidelines regarding research projects with the goal of getting some useful input from other researchers subscribed to the mailing list and learning how to administratively proceed with the proposal on Meta (What should be done next on Meta? Will there be an appointed WMF researcher to contact regarding this research?).
My request for help from research community regarding this research will be mostly technical (e.g. smart random sampling of editors, existing tools for research purposes, etc.)
Best, Kiril
On Tue 25. Feb 2020 at 17:06, Jonathan Morgan jmorgan@wikimedia.org wrote:
Taking a quick step back from all the very enthusiastic questioning of the researcher's motives...
Kiril,
Regarding your methods, Your proposal states < https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Modelling_Behaviour_in_a_Peer_Produ...
that for this study "The editors will be sampled from the pool of contributors to all language editions over Wikipedia's entire history and will be classified into groups based on their longevity on the project." But it says little more than that.
When I read this description, it does not sound to me like you will necessarily be contacting editors for this study, or intervening in any way into Wikipedia. Stuart and Pine's questions seem to assume that you will be in some way recruiting editors as participants, asking them to change their behavior, asking them questions, etc.
*Will you be performing any of the above activities?* If not, the questions asked so far may be beside the point. Anyone is free to perform analysis on publicly available and free-licensed data.
If you do plan to intervene in Wikipedia in some way, or work with editors as research participants or co-researchers, and you would like the members of this mailing list to provide you with feedback or other support, please describe the support or feedback you would like to receive in more detail.
If your study is non-interventionist but you still want feedback, we can provide that too. Perhaps you can be more clear about the kind of feedback you want; that will keep the conversation going in an interesting and productive direction that everyone on the list can benefit from.
Finally, we the members of this list (whether volunteers or WMF staff) are not peer reviewers, do not speak for the Wikipedia community, and are not empowered to approve or deny research requests.
Best, Jonathan
On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 11:23 PM Kiril Simeonovski < kiril.simeonovski@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Stuart,
Thank you for your thoughts so far. I really like how the discussion is progressing.
The methodology will, of course, yield other results about editor
dynamics
and growth paths. Paid editing and sock puppetry as systemic risk factors could be included in the model exogenously but it might be possible to endogenise them in any future research. At this stage, the most important thing is to lay the grounds for developing a sensible model that can be later upgraded with new assumptions.
As for the editing experience, I've been around since 2008 (this is my
edit
log <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/Kiril_Simeonovski
).
Best, Kiril
On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 12:37 AM Stuart A. Yeates syeates@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Kiril
Let's just say that history has taught us to be risk-averse to drive-by researchers.
Can you point us to other research output using this methodology? Do you (or any of your team) have significant editing experience? Are you familiar with the firestorm that is paid editing and sock puppetry??
cheers stuart
-- ...let us be heard from red core to black sky
On Tue, 25 Feb 2020 at 10:43, Kiril Simeonovski kiril.simeonovski@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Pine,
The findings from the research will be articulated to draw clear conclusions about what causes utility and disutility from
participation,
and how this is perceived by different editors. For instance, it is
natural
to assume that editors come to contribute by adding content that will remain visible, while blocks and reverted edits are risk factors that
drive
them away, although different editors have different levels of risk aversion. Similarly to any other research, the benefit for the
community
and individual editors is going to be indirect but yet not
insignificant
to
be accepted in the future process of decision-making (if the research demonstrates the existence of high level of risk aversion towards something, then it automatically signals that doing that thing is
harmful
for the environment).
I know that it's impossible to predict the extent to which this
research
would make impact because the body of literature is very poor on volunteer-driven environments in a dynamic setting but it's
definitely
worth to start off something that might attract the attention of researchers in this direction. At the end, the research is not meant
to
carve rules in stone that any single editor should respect but rather
to
suggest something that individuals and communities might find useful
(the
means of doing this will definitely not turn Wikipedia into a
laboratory
or
put someone's privacy in danger).
Best, Kiril
On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 9:43 PM Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Kiril,
Thank you for sharing your proposal.
I am concerned about the possibility of Wikipedia being used as a laboratory for experiments that consume volunteers' time and/or personal data, and don't benefit Wikipedia or its participants.
Does
your research benefit the community, and if so, how? It sounds like your research intends to develop a model of decision trees for individual Wikipedians, and at first read I don't understand how
the
individual research subjects or the community would benefit.
Sorry if this sounds defensive, but I hope that you understand why
I'm
asking.
Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 6:00 PM Kiril Simeonovski kiril.simeonovski@gmail.com wrote:
Hi all,
I am currently working on a research concerned with modelling
user
behaviour on Wikipedia. The idea is to design a field experiment
over a
random sample of Wikipedians in order to examine their risk
preferences
and
define (dis)utilities that will be used in a utility-maximisation
model.
I have already submitted an abstract that got accepted for the biennial Foundations of Utility and Risk Conference 2020 <
https://www.furconference.org/%3E
and my
future plans include presentation of the concept at other
research
conferences (including Wikimania 2020).
You can visit the project page <
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Modelling_Behaviour_in_a_Peer_Produ...
of this research on Meta. Your questions and comments are welcome
at
any
time. Thank you!
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