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!).
:-)
-Chip Berlet
________________________________
From: wikien-l-bounces@Wikipedia.org on behalf of F L Sent: Wed 2/9/2005 10:01 PM To: wikien-l@Wikipedia.org Subject: [WikiEN-l] Question about researching Wikipedia
I'm a graduate student at the University of Michigan School of Information (and also an admin at Wikipedia, username Ffirehorse). I'm considering a long research paper on the dynamics of community at Wikipedia for a class on online communities that I'm taking this term.
My question is about protocol, and the reason I'm asking it is because I'm not having much success in locating on Wikimedia or Wikipedia any policy or guidelines on how to approach the community in terms of consent. Would a community-wide announcement be sufficient? As someone who is already a member of the community, while I'm doing the research, would it be advisable to post some sort of note on my user page that I'm also conducting research?
Or is the sort of activity that I'm proposing (i.e., researching Wikipedia while also contributing as a member) generally frowned upon? If so, I will drop the idea without hesitation.
The research I'm considering would be in the form of unobtrusive observation of norms, practices, routines, and other forms of community-forming activity on Wikipedia, and would not likely involve any direct interaction with Wikipedia users. I'd be happy to go into further detail about the specifics if need be.
Any guidance/feedback would be appreciated.
Thank you, Frank Lester
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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.