Hi.
Splitting this out from the GLAMs/Chapters thread, I continue to regularly wonder whether we need stricter guidelines and guidance in the area of experimenting on Wikimedians.
Erik mentioned trying to further implement A/B testing in software development, but to me that quickly raises consent and trust issues. My view is that Wikimedians should be treated as colleagues, not customers.
Of course the stark reality is that A/B testing on users (typically readers, not editors) during the annual Wikimedia Foundation fundraiser has been a major component of the Wikimedia Foundation's growth.
Worth repeating, from https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Experiments:
--- Current practices in Web analytics reflect their commercial origins. For better or worse, the greatest motor behind the use of Web analytics has been the profit interests of online retailers and social networks, for whom the user is a commodity. These profit interests have profoundly shaped the discourse of Web analytics, setting both the tenor and the tone of debate (consider the values implicit in "funnels," a term of art).
A thoughtless application of Web analytics to Wikimedia wikis would import a moral outlook that is incompatible with (and, indeed, rightfully offensive to) its community. It also wouldn't work well, because neither Wikimedia wikis nor their editing communities are for sale. It is therefore crucial that technical efforts be accompanied by a process of reflection, the goal of which should be to articulate criteria for Web analytics that express and promote the broader ambitions of the Wikimedia movement and the moral commitments that underlie it. ---
I think this about sums it up better than I ever could.
MZMcBride