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Essays Low‑impact ![]() | |||||||||
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Hi everyone, I read the draft and I want to open a discussion on two points for now. Would the RFC method of inviting people to review the project work faster and more efficient than for example, RCOM? -- Michael Tsikerdekis ( talk) 08:39, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Many of the recommendations are part of the broader ethics guidelines set forth by ASA and similar associations. I believe there should be somewhere as a requirement that a researcher officially makes a statement that he or she will follow the ethics code. Most wikipedians probably won't know about the ethics guidelines and so it is a good idea to have some elements clearly written as they are in the current draft. But, in research there should be always an official statement. I don't believe however that there should an ethics board approval because a) individuals coming from academic institutions will already have to obtain it anyway, b) some institutions like mine, have an ethics review board that deals with complains but does not pre-approve research (although expects that people would adhere to the ethics code) and c) individuals with no affiliation will have no way of obtaining one. In any case, the community will evaluate the proposal but an official statement also legally secures Wikipedia just in case. -- Michael Tsikerdekis ( talk) 08:39, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I reviewed the process once more and it is really straight forward. The next thing that comes to my mind is: What is the next step for moving forward with the policy? Could there be a way to test the process and see how it works (e.g., perhaps with one of the research projects that are pending evaluation)? Michael Tsikerdekis ( talk) 15:47, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
The policy seems to be solid, however input from Wikipedians is ideal for making sure that everything is alright. Please report your opinion on the policy, if it should be tested and if there are any possible points for improvements. Michael Tsikerdekis ( talk) 18:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
This page has used the term "editors" to describe the "Wikimedia community". It has been my experience that many people outside this community do not know what the term "editors" means, and often think it is like an editor of a magazine who has control over the writing staff. The aspect of "editor" to emphasize is that it is a typical community member with no special rank, and so I changed the term "editors" in some places to "Wikipedia community". Perhaps that should be "Wikimedia". Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:14, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
I am a little bothered by the opening sentence "This page documents the process that researchers must follow before asking Wikipedia contributors to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and experiments."
WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can and cannot recruit me for whatever purposes. What WMF does own is its communication channels to me as a contributor and WMF has a right to control what occurs on those channels. Also I think WMF probably should be concerned about both its readers and its contributors being recruited through its channels (as either might be being recruited). I think this distinction should be made, e.g.
"This page documents the process that researchers must follow if they wish to use Wikipedia's (WMF's?) communication channels to recruit people to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and experiments. Communication channels include its mailing lists, its Project pages, Talk pages, and User Talk pages [and whatever else I've forgotten]." Kerry ( talk) 00:14, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
[rant - tl;dr]
Ugh, another new instruction creep with an anti-research bent to boot.
That was first third of the problem with RCOM in the first place: next to nobody knew (or knows) about it. When we still get many studies about Wikipedia who clearly display the fact that the researchers fail at basic lit review not citing any prior studies, to expect that most would try to (and be able to) find such pages is nothing but an exercise in bureaucratizing the project. The second third of the problem is that all such policies, if implemented, would make research much more difficult; anytime you add some reviewers to the mix, you add the risk of having good project rejected because of reviewers IDONTLIKEIT, and with the new proposal idea of letting complete amateurs be the reviewers... Fortunately, this doesn't fix the third compound problem of RCOM, which is that a) it had no real power to enforce anything it required and b) next to nobody wanted to invest time into doing the work, because it's a waste of time: non-productive work (not contributing to building an encyclopedia) that very, very few people in our community care about., and that adds an unimportant line to one's professional CV. RCOM is dying of inactivity and of being not needed, we should officially retire it instead of trying to clone it on Wikipedia.
[/rant]
Don't get me wrong, at first RCOM was a nice and noble idea. A guideline page for researchers is helpful, I do like the idea of trying to list and categorize ongoing research ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Projects), it provides some useful links to data, FAQ and such. However, as in many other places on Wikipedia, this turned into an unnecessary instruction creep, which I very strongly oppose .
A while ago I've contributed to /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Ethically_researching_Wikipedia It's a simple page, the gist of which is that any professional scholar who is researching Wikipedia should already be familiar with their professional codes of ethics, which in turn are perfectly sufficient to protect Wikipedia and its volunteers and users from any abuses. It also doesn't require any policing from the community outside normal scope. Any (extremely rare - can anyone even cite one?) disruptive experiments which breach the professional codes of ethics in the first place should result in bans and WMF official complains. Outside that, Wikipedians can deal with survey/interview requests like everyone else - ignore them if they don't like them. No special body to police researchers is needed. No approval body is needed for anything outside WMF grants, which WMF and/or the existing grant structure can handle.
What we need is for someone to review all research-related pages on Wikipedia and meta, merge any similar ones, and that's it. In other words, we need to condolence and organize the sprawl mess that research pages have become, not to add to them.
Regarding this page, I see this has been an open proposal for two years. I don't believe there's a consensus to implement it, nor much interest in discussing it from the general community. I therefore propose we mark this as failed and archive this. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:55, 29 July 2014 (UTC)
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Essays Low‑impact ![]() | |||||||||
|
Hi everyone, I read the draft and I want to open a discussion on two points for now. Would the RFC method of inviting people to review the project work faster and more efficient than for example, RCOM? -- Michael Tsikerdekis ( talk) 08:39, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
Many of the recommendations are part of the broader ethics guidelines set forth by ASA and similar associations. I believe there should be somewhere as a requirement that a researcher officially makes a statement that he or she will follow the ethics code. Most wikipedians probably won't know about the ethics guidelines and so it is a good idea to have some elements clearly written as they are in the current draft. But, in research there should be always an official statement. I don't believe however that there should an ethics board approval because a) individuals coming from academic institutions will already have to obtain it anyway, b) some institutions like mine, have an ethics review board that deals with complains but does not pre-approve research (although expects that people would adhere to the ethics code) and c) individuals with no affiliation will have no way of obtaining one. In any case, the community will evaluate the proposal but an official statement also legally secures Wikipedia just in case. -- Michael Tsikerdekis ( talk) 08:39, 14 July 2012 (UTC)
I reviewed the process once more and it is really straight forward. The next thing that comes to my mind is: What is the next step for moving forward with the policy? Could there be a way to test the process and see how it works (e.g., perhaps with one of the research projects that are pending evaluation)? Michael Tsikerdekis ( talk) 15:47, 8 October 2012 (UTC)
The policy seems to be solid, however input from Wikipedians is ideal for making sure that everything is alright. Please report your opinion on the policy, if it should be tested and if there are any possible points for improvements. Michael Tsikerdekis ( talk) 18:34, 23 October 2012 (UTC)
This page has used the term "editors" to describe the "Wikimedia community". It has been my experience that many people outside this community do not know what the term "editors" means, and often think it is like an editor of a magazine who has control over the writing staff. The aspect of "editor" to emphasize is that it is a typical community member with no special rank, and so I changed the term "editors" in some places to "Wikipedia community". Perhaps that should be "Wikimedia". Blue Rasberry (talk) 11:14, 10 June 2014 (UTC)
I am a little bothered by the opening sentence "This page documents the process that researchers must follow before asking Wikipedia contributors to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and experiments."
WMF does not "own" me as a contributor; it does not decide who can and cannot recruit me for whatever purposes. What WMF does own is its communication channels to me as a contributor and WMF has a right to control what occurs on those channels. Also I think WMF probably should be concerned about both its readers and its contributors being recruited through its channels (as either might be being recruited). I think this distinction should be made, e.g.
"This page documents the process that researchers must follow if they wish to use Wikipedia's (WMF's?) communication channels to recruit people to participate in research studies such as surveys, interviews and experiments. Communication channels include its mailing lists, its Project pages, Talk pages, and User Talk pages [and whatever else I've forgotten]." Kerry ( talk) 00:14, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
[rant - tl;dr]
Ugh, another new instruction creep with an anti-research bent to boot.
That was first third of the problem with RCOM in the first place: next to nobody knew (or knows) about it. When we still get many studies about Wikipedia who clearly display the fact that the researchers fail at basic lit review not citing any prior studies, to expect that most would try to (and be able to) find such pages is nothing but an exercise in bureaucratizing the project. The second third of the problem is that all such policies, if implemented, would make research much more difficult; anytime you add some reviewers to the mix, you add the risk of having good project rejected because of reviewers IDONTLIKEIT, and with the new proposal idea of letting complete amateurs be the reviewers... Fortunately, this doesn't fix the third compound problem of RCOM, which is that a) it had no real power to enforce anything it required and b) next to nobody wanted to invest time into doing the work, because it's a waste of time: non-productive work (not contributing to building an encyclopedia) that very, very few people in our community care about., and that adds an unimportant line to one's professional CV. RCOM is dying of inactivity and of being not needed, we should officially retire it instead of trying to clone it on Wikipedia.
[/rant]
Don't get me wrong, at first RCOM was a nice and noble idea. A guideline page for researchers is helpful, I do like the idea of trying to list and categorize ongoing research ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Projects), it provides some useful links to data, FAQ and such. However, as in many other places on Wikipedia, this turned into an unnecessary instruction creep, which I very strongly oppose .
A while ago I've contributed to /info/en/?search=Wikipedia:Ethically_researching_Wikipedia It's a simple page, the gist of which is that any professional scholar who is researching Wikipedia should already be familiar with their professional codes of ethics, which in turn are perfectly sufficient to protect Wikipedia and its volunteers and users from any abuses. It also doesn't require any policing from the community outside normal scope. Any (extremely rare - can anyone even cite one?) disruptive experiments which breach the professional codes of ethics in the first place should result in bans and WMF official complains. Outside that, Wikipedians can deal with survey/interview requests like everyone else - ignore them if they don't like them. No special body to police researchers is needed. No approval body is needed for anything outside WMF grants, which WMF and/or the existing grant structure can handle.
What we need is for someone to review all research-related pages on Wikipedia and meta, merge any similar ones, and that's it. In other words, we need to condolence and organize the sprawl mess that research pages have become, not to add to them.
Regarding this page, I see this has been an open proposal for two years. I don't believe there's a consensus to implement it, nor much interest in discussing it from the general community. I therefore propose we mark this as failed and archive this. -- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| reply here 03:55, 29 July 2014 (UTC)