Hi Amanda, 

I'm sorry that no one has responded to your question yet.  There's likely two reasons: (1) many of us are currently engaged in Wikimania'14 and (2) the timing of discussing a new subject recruitment request is tense due to an ongoing discussion about how external subject recruitment requests should be handled on-wiki.

Whatever conversation is happening about the current process, there is a common practice that I recommend following for running your research on Wikipedia.  (1) document your research proposal on meta and (2) engage in a conversations with the Wikipedians about your study to make sure that you won't inadvertently cause.  If you reach out to me and/or Dario, we will help as much as I can.  You've been through this process before, otherwise, I'd give more specific instructions.  

As for survey devices, I'd recommend that you use a service that allows you to have full control of the data.  This is the best way to ensure that you can protect your survey participants' data.  E.g. the WMF privacy policy prevents WMF staff from using external survey tools when surveying Wikipedia users because of these potential privacy implications.  I am not a lawyer, but I assume that this policy would not necessarily apply to you and your work.  If you do end up using an external service, you should explain the difference to your participants and make sure that they consent. 

-Aaron




On Thu, Aug 7, 2014 at 3:09 PM, Amanda Menking <amenking@uw.edu> wrote:
Hi,

I’ve followed the discussion re: surveys on this list recently. As a part of my Women and Wikipedia IEG [1], I’ll be deploying a survey re: gender and Wikipedia. I very much want to be respectful of the community and of my participants; I’d also like to have as many robust replies as possible.

I realize there isn’t a standardized process, but if you’ve practical guidance re: 1) recruitment (e.g., user talk pages vs. mailing lists vs. notice boards) and 2) tools to use (e.g., SurveyMonkey vs. an internal tool—which I’ve yet to discover), I’d love to hear your thoughts.

I’ve suggested that former IEG grantees mentor new applicants. As a part of my work, I’d like to document ways in which researchers can engage Wikipedians while respecting their time, eliciting the best possible information, and reporting back to the community.

Thanks!
Amanda Menking (EN Mssemantics)


[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Women_and_Wikipedia


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