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>
| @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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