I think a better course of action might be to establish a Wikipedia
Experiments subgroup of users who opt-in to participate in
experiments, much like what Google does with its experimental
features. You're limiting the sample quite a bit, and quite possibly
only getting involved or heavily involved Wikipedia users, but if your
core survey group is editors it would likely be ideal.
Alex Foley
On Jun 3, 2009, at 3:22 PM, Andrea Forte wrote:
Interesting proposal!
It is one thing for the community to limit the kinds of correspondence
that can happen on wiki or on mailing lists if the volume becomes a
nuisance for editors, but difficult to imagine prohibiting researchers
from contacting individuals directly to ask about their involvement in
Wikipedia. I recommend not comparing such an effort to an IRB for that
reason. However laudable the intentions, I'm sure many on this list
are aware of the problems that bureaucratization of research ethics
has sometimes created in social science research, so IRBs (created for
medical research) may not be the best model to follow anyhow. :)
Although Wikipedia as a community cannot regulate human-subjects
research ethics in the same way that a government-funded agency can,
it can create a set of guidelines for on-site research-related
communication. My personal recommendation would not be to immediately
jump to policy making or review, but to encourage "good behavior"
through best practices discussions like this one.
(I have personally never gotten *any* push back in my interview
studies of Wikipedians. I also realized long ago that it's not a good
idea to leave messages on talk pages because they are public
communication and pretty much instantly break or at least weaken
confidentiality clauses in my consent forms.)
Andrea
On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Joseph Reagle <reagle(a)mit.edu> wrote:
On Wednesday 03 June 2009, Aaron Halfaker wrote:
This proposal isn't really about the merits
of any particular
study. I
only offered a link to the discussions about my most recent user
study
because I felt it was a good example of push-back from Wikipedia
editors.
I think identifying the particular scenarios (i.e., push-back)
would be a good thing within the proposal, and how the proposed
solution might provide remedy. Some quick thoughts:
1. This is a challenging problem. (My experience soliciting
participation for interviews on WP -- left on a Project page -- was
that I got no responses! :) Leaving lots of messages on people's
talk pages might have generated more attention, but obviously not
all of it good. (I actually didn't make much use of interviews, and
got the few I did through personal/f2f contacts rather than online
solicitation.)
2. I would not call it a Wikipedia IRB.
3. I think it was reasonable for Wikipedians to object to the many
dozens of messages left on User pages.
4. Katherine's messages were fairly good relative to what a IRB
notice/consent form would look like, but I don't see any indication
of IRB. The NICE notice could be much more specific. An example of
an IRB approved solicitation I used can be seen here:
http://reagle.org/joseph/2006/disp/9-consent-form.html
5. I expect that: (a) some ornery folks might always complain, even
if there was consensus on a Village Research Pump, (b) the
Foundation would not in any way want to indemnify the work being
done by someone else.
That said, anything that helps researchers develop appropriate
instruments, that furthers information within the community, and
that is in keeping with policy and community sensibilities is a
good thing.
_______________________________________________
Wiki-research-l mailing list
Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
_______________________________________________
Wiki-research-l mailing list
Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l