Hello,
I am a researcher in the GroupLens lab (http://grouplens.org) at the University of Minnesota. You might recognize previous work in Wikipedia like "Creating, Destroying, and Restoring Value in Wikipedia" (http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~reid/papers/group282-priedhorsky.pdf).
As part of our continuing work within Wikipedia, my colleagues and I are conducting an academic (non-commercial) study in which we have developed a modification that is designed to help users work together more effectively by changing the interface for reverting other editors.
If you choose to participate in the study, you will be automatically assigned a Wikipedia gadget that will consist of a subset of the modifications we have developed. As part of the study, we will be logging your usage of the tool (ie. when you are reverting other editors). We will also be available for tech support and bug fixes. Most likely there will be a survey at the completion and the complete tool will be made available.
Consent form/installer: http://wikipedia.grouplens.org/NICE/consent/
-Aaron Halfaker GroupLens Research University of Minnesota
On Sat, Jun 6, 2009 at 1:36 AM, Aaron L Halfakerhalfak@cs.umn.edu wrote:
As part of our continuing work within Wikipedia, my colleagues and I are conducting an academic (non-commercial) study in which we have developed a modification that is designed to help users work together more effectively by changing the interface for reverting other editors.
Interesting. Well, I've installed it. Some thoughts: 1) It's ugly. :) 2) There's a bit of assumed background which you're not spelling out, such as the 3RR policy, the difference between revert/undo/rollback, WP:BITE etc... 3) I knew how to install it, but would most people? 4) To be honest, most of the time that I undo, I probably don't want to alert the person to the fact. Vandalism, or various mistakes for example. 5) If you intend this to be a permanent tool, consider wording like "Undo and send a message" rather than "Be very nice". Being "nice" is not necessarily a consideration - telling a vandal to sod off and not do it again is not "nicer" than just reverting them.
But I guess you know what you're doing...
Steve
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org