Much valuable research cannot be completed without Wikipedia community members who volunteer to participate in studies, but recruitment of editors via Wikipedia's communication channels (talk pages, village pumps, etc) can disrupt other editing processes or be perceived as SPAM. This section of the research policy exists to further three goals:
This policy describes how researchers can recruit members via talk page postings and creates the Subject Recruitment Approvals Group (SRAG), a public discussion group, to control who will be allowed to make those postings. SRAG receives applications from researchers to recruit editors to participate in research and manages the public consensus process which considers them. If the recruitment is approved, a bot owned by SRAG ( SubjectRecruitmentBot) contacts selected community members and invites them to participate. Each community member controls whether and how often the bot can contact him or her.
This policy pertains to the recruitment of Wikipedia users as subjects for research. Examples of these activities include surveys, interviews, and experiments.
This section gives a brief overview of who researchers are and why they are interested in studying Wikipedia and its editors.
There are a wide variety of backgrounds from which people approach studying Wikipedia.
They are here to perform scientific analysis of Wikipedia and its users and, most often, intend to publish the results of their work in academic publications.
In the past, research in Wikipedia has built an understanding of how Wikipedia works, [1] how editors interact with each other, [2] what work is discarded and why, [3] how admins are chosen, [4] [5] and how to detect vandalism. [6] [7] This research serves to increase understanding in how Wikipedia works and to improve its functioning. Researchers approach understanding Wikipedia in a few different ways.
Wikipedia is an interesting medium for scientific research. It is one of the most visited websites on the internet, serving as an information resource to millions of users every day. [8] Scientists find it remarkable that an encyclopedia in which articles can be edited by anyone anonymously, and in which damage can only be repaired after it occurs, has quality comparable to traditional encyclopedias. [9] They want to understand how the social dynamic of Wikipedia works. Further, Wikipedia is one of the few examples of millions of people working together on a single project. The Wikimedia Foundation also supports the work of researchers by maintaining a public mailing list devoted to scholarly research of Wikimedia projects and releasing periodic database snapshots for analysis.
Many types of interesting research are only possible with the ability to contact a random sample of community members to ask them to participate in a study. However, it is important to respect the wishes of Wikipedia community members on whether and how often they are contacted in this way. This section defines the Subject Recruitment Approvals Group to control recruitment message postings.
SRAG holds public discussions regarding applications to recruit community members. If a proposed research study finds consensus, SRAG will contact community members on behalf of the researchers.
As a rule of thumb, if a researcher wants to contact an individual with the intent of collecting data for use in a study, and that contact is unsolicited, he or she will need approval from WP:SRAG. Specifically, a researcher must obtain SRAG approval to use tools within Wikipedia (e.g., talk page postings) to contact Wikipedia users when all of the following apply:
Community members who have received a recruitment message have no obligation to participate in the study. Users who do not wish to receive subject recruitment messages will be able to opt out via template {{ bots}} (for more information, see User:SubjectRecruitmentBot). Also, a bot-specific template allows for customization regarding the frequency or the number of studies to which a user would like to be recruited over a period of time.
Wikipedia and SRAG favor approving recruitment for studies that are of low risk to Wikipedia's editors and that are likely to benefit the community.
All approved recruitment must meet the following set of requirements:
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Much valuable research cannot be completed without Wikipedia community members who volunteer to participate in studies, but recruitment of editors via Wikipedia's communication channels (talk pages, village pumps, etc) can disrupt other editing processes or be perceived as SPAM. This section of the research policy exists to further three goals:
This policy describes how researchers can recruit members via talk page postings and creates the Subject Recruitment Approvals Group (SRAG), a public discussion group, to control who will be allowed to make those postings. SRAG receives applications from researchers to recruit editors to participate in research and manages the public consensus process which considers them. If the recruitment is approved, a bot owned by SRAG ( SubjectRecruitmentBot) contacts selected community members and invites them to participate. Each community member controls whether and how often the bot can contact him or her.
This policy pertains to the recruitment of Wikipedia users as subjects for research. Examples of these activities include surveys, interviews, and experiments.
This section gives a brief overview of who researchers are and why they are interested in studying Wikipedia and its editors.
There are a wide variety of backgrounds from which people approach studying Wikipedia.
They are here to perform scientific analysis of Wikipedia and its users and, most often, intend to publish the results of their work in academic publications.
In the past, research in Wikipedia has built an understanding of how Wikipedia works, [1] how editors interact with each other, [2] what work is discarded and why, [3] how admins are chosen, [4] [5] and how to detect vandalism. [6] [7] This research serves to increase understanding in how Wikipedia works and to improve its functioning. Researchers approach understanding Wikipedia in a few different ways.
Wikipedia is an interesting medium for scientific research. It is one of the most visited websites on the internet, serving as an information resource to millions of users every day. [8] Scientists find it remarkable that an encyclopedia in which articles can be edited by anyone anonymously, and in which damage can only be repaired after it occurs, has quality comparable to traditional encyclopedias. [9] They want to understand how the social dynamic of Wikipedia works. Further, Wikipedia is one of the few examples of millions of people working together on a single project. The Wikimedia Foundation also supports the work of researchers by maintaining a public mailing list devoted to scholarly research of Wikimedia projects and releasing periodic database snapshots for analysis.
Many types of interesting research are only possible with the ability to contact a random sample of community members to ask them to participate in a study. However, it is important to respect the wishes of Wikipedia community members on whether and how often they are contacted in this way. This section defines the Subject Recruitment Approvals Group to control recruitment message postings.
SRAG holds public discussions regarding applications to recruit community members. If a proposed research study finds consensus, SRAG will contact community members on behalf of the researchers.
As a rule of thumb, if a researcher wants to contact an individual with the intent of collecting data for use in a study, and that contact is unsolicited, he or she will need approval from WP:SRAG. Specifically, a researcher must obtain SRAG approval to use tools within Wikipedia (e.g., talk page postings) to contact Wikipedia users when all of the following apply:
Community members who have received a recruitment message have no obligation to participate in the study. Users who do not wish to receive subject recruitment messages will be able to opt out via template {{ bots}} (for more information, see User:SubjectRecruitmentBot). Also, a bot-specific template allows for customization regarding the frequency or the number of studies to which a user would like to be recruited over a period of time.
Wikipedia and SRAG favor approving recruitment for studies that are of low risk to Wikipedia's editors and that are likely to benefit the community.
All approved recruitment must meet the following set of requirements:
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Wikipedia has emerged as a site that continues to increase in popularity, both globally and in the U.S.
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