Hi,

Jimmy Wales asked me to act as a moderator for this mailing list. Since its purpose and scope has never been fully defined, I have tried to supply such a definition and added it to the mailing list page. It currently reads:

--<snip>-- The purpose of this mailing list is to discuss scientific research into the content and the communities of the Wikimedia projects: Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikinews, Wikispecies, Wikimedia Commons, and Meta-Wiki.

Research into the technology of Wikimedia, MediaWiki, should primarily be discussed on wikitech-l instead. For content or community research projects with a strong technological component, cross-posting to both lists may be advisable.

Please note that only people who are actively involved in research on Wikimedia projects should post to this list. Typical on-topic posts include:

* announcement of a new research project * discussions of methodology * questions and answers about related projects

Mailing list traffic should be kept at a reasonably low level. The list is softly moderated, and individuals posting off-topic material repeatedly may be removed.

This list is not directly associated with the Wikimedia Research Network, though members of the Network are welcome to post here if they are involved in research projects relating to content or community. Internal Wikimedia matters, discussions of new projects and similar threads should be kept off the list. --<snip>--

I would appreciate comments on this definition.

I have avoided the word "academic" because I see no reason to exclude non-academic researchers as long as we consider their input valuable. However, I would like to *strongly* emphasize the distinction between research into content and communities, and technological research. The latter really needs to go to wikitech-l, where the developers can follow the discussions and provide input. The subscription page for that list is at

http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l

As Jimbo said, this mailing list is intended to be low volume. But low volume is not "no volume". So please do feel free to introduce yourself and describe your current research projects insofar they fall under the above definition.

I would also like to systematically invite researchers to join this mailing list. I will inform the members of the Wikimedia Research Network about it, which currently includes some people involved with academic research as described above, and will also try to go through the list of individuals on http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research So please add any missing names to the list under the heading "Who is currently doing research ..".

As for the Wikimedia Research Network itself, it is at http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network and open for anyone to join. It will likely be split into three main teams, "Technology", "Sociology", and "Content Analysis". The latter two are relevant to this list where their efforts are not purely internal.

I apologize that these structures may be a bit confusing at the present time, but we're only just now adding an organizational level to Wikimedia research, and we will need some time to find the best models of work and collaboration.

Please don't hestitate to contact me by private e-mail if you have any questions or suggestions.

Sincerely,

Erik Möller Chief Research Officer, Wikimedia Foundation