On Tue, Jul 29, 2014 at 10:25 AM, Aaron Halfaker <aaron.halfaker@gmail.com> wrote:
RCOM is not functioning as a complete group anymore.  

I'm a little confused why this wasn't made clear right at the beginning of this thread e.g. when others suggested this might be the case and you refuted them? Also, I'm not sure what 'functioning as a complete group' actually means. Either its functioning or its not, surely?
 
However, we split into sub-committees while we were still a functioning group.  The subject recruitment sub-committee and newsletter sub-committees are performing vital functions still. 

I never stated that research recruiting needs RCOM approval. I definitely said that it "ought to" have RCOM approval.

So, does that mean that is what the policy *ought to* be now? And do you believe that this should this be the way that the policy gets decided? Because it isn't right now as far as I can see. As Kerry noted earlier on, the policy as it stands [1] says that researchers "must" obtain approval through the process described. If the wording now needs to be changed to "ought to" then surely this requires more consensus than your single message here? 

re. the comment that I (and the other researchers?) on this list shouldn't be the ones to decide what the regulation should be, I disagree on two counts. a) It seems on the one hand that you want this to be "self-regulation" i.e. you invited researchers on this list to join R-COM at the beginning of this thread, but that you don't think that the researchers here should be able to determine what to regulate. I know that you're looking for an inclusive process but you can't have it both ways: if we are going to help regulate, then we need to at least help decide how to regulate. b) Pine suggested a board decision on this earlier one to obtain clarity and I supported this but it was met with silence, which is why I followed up.
 
There are also more than two "review coordinators" (not not "reviewers") -- it's just that DarTar and I have accepted the burden of distributing work.  When people are busy, we often coordinate the reviews ourselves. 

I can understand your frustration; I really can! I know that you've done a lot of really great, prior work on this and I don't think any of us are saying that we need to throw the baby out with the bathwater. But what is clear is that clarification is required - especially on the distribution of tasks between Foundation employees, the research community and Wikimedia editors. And this is *especially* true for people outside this list.

I welcome your edits to make it clear that review is optional.  As you might imagine, I have plenty of work to do and I appreciate your good-faith collaboration on improving our research documentation. 

I'm frustrated by this response. If the policy is incorrectly described on the policy pages, then someone from RCom (or whatever it is now called) should be the one to change this - preferably with some discussion. I find it frustrating that WMF employees are often the ones who make the final policy pronouncements but then tell others to implement it. And if we don't do the work, then we're apparently not assuming good faith. 

This is a great opportunity to rejuvenate the process; hopefully it will eventually be seen that way :)

Best,
Heather.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Research_recruitment

-Aaron 
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