Chip Berlet (c.berlet@publiceye.org) [050210 15:22]:
Hi,
I am assuming you are concerned with the ethics of disclosure of scholarly observation. By posting your question to this list and adding a note to your user page you have probably done most of the task, but an additional notice to some more public place on Wikipedia would probably be a good idea for any defense of procedure to a committee. For others offering advice, the key here is that the Wikipedia community as a whole needs to have a reasonable ability to learn of the observation, which gives them the option of non-participation (in theory by not posting). Just because Wikipedia is a public exercise may not meet the requirements that a university committee responsible for checking research ethics would find appropriate. There has to be a good faith effort at notice (which is just what Frank Lester is trying to establish!). :-)
Indeed. Creating an account and editing from that and noting on your user page that you're doing the study would count.
The trick being, of course, how to notify without too much [[observer effect]] ;-)
- d.