Please see the forwarded email. This is an extremely problematic situation
from my point of view, as even though this unapproved survey is only going
out to ~200 people, its text gives the notion that I as a staff person
approved it, not to mention the fact that it is being sent by a banned
editor. I did not receive any prior contact from Salsman about this before
he began to send emails out.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steven Walling <swalling(a)wikimedia.org>
Date: Sat, Feb 11, 2012 at 9:41 PM
Subject: Re: Actual Inactive Wikipedia administrator survey (
swalling(a)wikimedia.org)
To: "James Salsman (Google Docs)" <jsalsman(a)gmail.com>
Cc: Dario Taraborelli <dtaraborelli(a)wikimedia.org>
Dear James,
Please do not continue to send out this survey as is. This is extremely
problematic for a variety of reasons:
First and foremost, as you are well aware, you did not ask me whether I
would like to sign my name as the point of contact for a survey. This
is disingenuous, as it implies that I had prior knowledge of the survey and
its questions. I did not, and I have already received emails directed at me
personally inquiring about the survey.
Second, and just as important, all surveys of Wikipedians that use special
methods such as mass emailing or talk page messaging not only should be
approved *in advance *by the Research
Committee<http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Committee>,
a group of both Wikimedia Foundation staff, independent researchers, and
Wikimedians. This is to ensure that the vast number of researchers
interested in contacting editors do not abuse the trust of our community
(including ex-editors). I strongly urge you to seek RCOM approval before
going further, and have CC'd Dario Taraborelli, the Foundation point of
contact for RCOM.
Last, and definitely not least, running a successful survey is dependent on
the goodwill and cooperation of Wikipedians. As a user banned from English
Wikipedia, I do not think that the community would feel very comfortable
with you email hundreds of people through Wikipedia.
Once again, please halt surveying people until the consensus process
required by the community and the Research Committee has been followed and
the survey has been approved.
On Fri, Feb 10, 2012 at 4:59 PM, James Salsman (Google Docs) <
jsalsman(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> I've shared Actual Inactive Wikipedia administrator survey<https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ar3LgocyHQnfdG…>
> Message from jsalsman(a)gmail.com:
>
> Steven,
>
> Thanks for being the point of contact for this survey. The real "live" survey URL is http://j.mp/inactiveadminsurvey
>
> The responses are starting to come in (the first on Line 2 is my "test-ignore).
> Please let me know if you have any trouble reading the spreadsheet. I will summarize it with R in a week or two.
>
> I sent out probably exactly 99 emails (plus a test to me) from the first 112 of the 286 listed on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Former_administrators#Desysopped_for… but then I got email-throttled, so it looks like it will take the whole weekend to cover all on that list, which is the most I can hope for. The rest didn't have emails or set preferences to refuse email.
>
> This is easy enough I'm not going to ask for sysadmin help to BCC them all at once (but I'm not adverse to that if you want to ask around. The email text is below, and the next on the list is # 113, User:Jersyko.)
>
> Best regards,
> James Salsman
>
>
> --- email text ---
>
> Subject: Wikipedia e-mail: inactive administrator survey
>
>
> Dear Wikipedia Administrator:
>
> Please respond to this survey: http://j.mp/inactiveadminsurvey
>
> A few years ago, the Wikimedia Strategic Planning Task Force on Community Health noted the troubling decline in administrator participation in the English Wikipedia and resolved to survey inactive administrators to identify the reasons that admins leave the project, in hopes that would help improve the associated issues. By mid-2010 a survey was drafted but resourcing and other issues prevented action until recently when a statistical analysis revealed a 96% chance that administrator inactivity is causing the decline in active English Wikipedia editors as a whole. Therefore, this survey is being distributed to you so that the reasons for administrator attrition can be better understood and acted on. Individual responses will be kept anonymous, but aggregate summaries will be published as soon as they are available. The goal of this research is to get broad, qualitative information about why administrators have stopped contributing, in hopes that we can use it to revitalize both the administrator and editor community.
>
> If you have questions, please reply by email to surveyrole(a)gmail.com or the Wikimedia Foundation Community editor retention point of contact for this survey, Steven Walling: swalling(a)wikimedia.org. The direct administration of this survey is being performed by a Community Health Task Force volunteer who wishes to remain anonymous at this time.
>
> Thank you very much for your service to the community and your help with this survey response.
>
>
> Click to open:
>
> - Actual Inactive Wikipedia administrator survey<https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0Ar3LgocyHQnfdG…>
>
>
> Google Docs makes it easy to create, store and share online documents,
> spreadsheets and presentations.
> [image: Logo for Google Docs] <https://docs.google.com>
>
Thank you,
--
Steven Walling
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
--
Steven Walling
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
All,
I tweaked the HTML titles in the support template on Meta to make it more explicit what it means to label a proposal as, say, "SR" or "SR pending".
http://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Template%3AWMF-support&action=h…
A full explanation of each code is displayed, as usual, upon hovering over the icon.
tldr:
• I replaced "approved" with "reviewed" as we agreed that this is the most appropriate description of the role of RCom (i.e. we cannot give any kind of ultimate approval to a project: permissions to run a project can in principle be revoked at any time depending on several factors – community opposition, abuse, decision by WMF etc.)
• I specified that "pending" means that a proposal has not been reviewed by the RCom (that's the default used by all projects when their page is created: the icon is marked as yellow)
• I specified that removing the "pending" flag indicates that the project has been reviewed by RCom or WMF, the latter being for cases in which a project requires technical resources or access to private data held by the Foundation, which requires internal WMF approval. Removing the "pending" flag from this template marks the icon as green and a project as reviewed, so please be aware of this when you edit a project page.
Please let me know if you have any concern with the above changes.
Thanks
Dario
Hey folks,
Michael Tsikerdekis has updated his project with notes on his pilot study.
He is now ready to send out the rest of the 200 invitations to participate.
See his notes here:
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Anonymity_and_conformity_over_…
Please comment before Saturday morning. If no complaints are raised by
then, I'll give him the go-ahead.
-Aaron
Dear all,
just wanted to bring this event to your attention. If any of you would
like to be involved with the organization, please get in touch.
Otherwise, you are warmly invited to submit a paper.
Thanks and cheers,
Daniel
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Angelika Adam <angelika.adam(a)wikimedia.de>
Date: Tue, Jan 17, 2012 at 12:29 PM
Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Call for Papers - Wikipedia Academy 2012:
Research and Free Knowledge
To: wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
(Apologies for cross-postings)
CALL FOR PAPERS - Wikipedia Academy 2012: Research and Free Knowledge.
June 29 - July 1, 2012 | Berlin, Germany
Conference Website: http://wikipedia-academy.de/2012/wiki/Main_Page
Submit your papers here: https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wpac2012
The “Wikipedia Academy 2012: Research and Free Knowledge” provides a
platform for the research community and the Wikipedia community to
connect, present, discuss and advance research on Wikipedia in
particular and on free knowledge in general.
The Wikipedia Academy 2012 is organized by Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
in collaboration with the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for
Internet and Society and Freie Universität Berlin. The conference will
take place in Berlin, June 29 to July 1, 2012. The event will be open
to all interested parties and features a variety of session formats,
ranging from panel discussions and tracks with traditional paper
presentations to break-out sessions, lightning talks, poster
presentations and a science fair. We particularly invite young
doctoral and postdoctoral researcher to participate and to submit
extended abstracts.
For research paper and poster sessions, we encourage the submission of
extended abstracts addressing issues in the overall nexus of Wikipedia
and free knowledge.
== Dates ==
* Submission of extended abstracts: March 31, 2012
* Notification of acceptance: May 01, 2012
* Submission of full papers: June 1, 2012
* Event: June 29 - July 1, 2012
== Topics of interest ==
Submissions are invited for the following categories, further details
will be available soon on the conference website:
http://wikipedia-academy.de/2012/wiki/Submission_process
=== Wikipedia Analytics ===
* Wikis and Wikipedia as a research tool
* Analyzing Wikipedia as a source of "Big Data"
* Assessing and measuring the quality of Wikipedia articles
=== Wikipedia Global ===
* Relations and Differences between national Wikipedias
* Differences between and critique of free/open knowledge ideologies
* Regional studies of Wikipedia and free knowledge with global lessons
=== Sharing Cultures and Practices ===
* Sharing culture(s) in Wikipedia and other projects of commons-based
peer production
* Incentives, innovation and community dynamics in open collaborative
peer production
* Wiki theory and wiki practices
=== Research on Users of and Contributors to Wikipedia ===
* Diversity among users of and contributors to Wikipedia
* Influencing participation by adapting user interfaces in open
collaborative settings
* Using information visualization as information instrument to users
and contributors
=== Economic and Regulatory Aspects of Free Knowledge ===
* Economic, regulatory and societal implications of (increased) access
to free knowledge
* Different Modes of Governance: Emergence of Order and Coordination
in Wikipedia
* The role of licensing decisions for Wikipedia and other
collaborative forms of knowledge production
== Submission Guidelines ==
Extended Abstracts must be submitted by the given deadline for peer
review. Conference language is English, exceptions can be made on a
case-by-case basis. Submission entails a commitment that at least one
author will attend the event in the case of acceptance and deliver a
full paper version prior to the event. Also, authors grant the
organizers the right to publish accepted papers in the form of online
proceedings or a similar format, to be determined at a later stage. In
addition, accepted submissions will be automatically licensed under a
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported license, unless the authors
explicitly state in their submission that they wish to opt out of this
licensing agreement. We encourage authors to use said license in order
to promote open access to scholarly work, although decisions to opt
out will be respected and will not influence the review process in any
way. In any case, authors of accepted submissions cannot opt out from
the basic condition that they grant the organizers the right to
publish at least the extended abstract online.
Please submit your extended abstract (about 2-3 pages) in PDF, Open
Document Format (ODF) or plain text format at:
https://www.easychair.org/conferences/?conf=wpac2012
Note: You will need an easychair account to submit. You can create one
on the spot if you don't already have one.
--
Angelika Adam
Projektmanagerin
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Eisenacher Straße 2
10777 Berlin
Tel.: +49 30 219158260
http://wikimedia.de
Helfen Sie mit, dass WIKIPEDIA von der UNESCO als erstes digitales
Weltkulturerbe anerkannt wird.
Unterzeichnen Sie die Online-Petition!
****Unterstützen Sie Freies Wissen mit einer SMS. Senden Sie einfach
WIKI an 81190. Mit 5 Euro sichern Sie so die Verfügbarkeit und
Weiterentwicklung von Wikipedia.****
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
Hey folks,
Michael Tsikerdekis posted about his study on the Village Pump (Misc) (
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)#FYI:_I.…),
but there have been no responses thus far. I'm worried that the posting
won't be considered sufficient notification by Wikipedians who get upset
later due to the lack of any discussion on enwiki.
Thoughts?
-Aaron
All,
two short updates.
1) Daniel, myself and others at WMF reviewed the response to the White House RFI on open access that Daniel drafted and circulated earlier on the list [1]. We submitted the response an hour ago as the deadline was today, DC time. If you wish to be more involved in the OA area of interest please let Daniel know and we will try and give a longer notice on these and similar initiatives. On a related note, for those of you interested in US public policy on open access, an article was recently created on enwiki to document the Research Works Act [2]. You're welcome to contribute if the topic is of interest.
2) I have been reporting updates on RCom activities on a regular basis in the monthly report of the Foundation (e.g. [3]). I usually put together a paragraph or two before the report is due at the end of each month but to simplify the process I started an etherpad where we can dump notes of items that need to be included in each report [4] Feel free to add any activity you do in the context of RCom if you want me to report it. Eventually we will link (if not transclude) the RCom section in the monthly reports from the RCom page on Meta.
Dario
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Committee/Areas_of_interest/Open-ac…
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Research_Works_Act
[3] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Foundation_Report,_December_2011#R…
[4] http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/RComMonthlyReports2012
Hi Everyone!
This caught my attention on Monday, and I think that there are many in
the group who would be interested in helping to submit a response to
OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy).
http://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2011/11/04/2011-28623/request-for-i…
Take a look at the call, I also believe that the WMF might also be
putting together a response? I am not 100% sure, but maybe we all could
coordinate something. I am also not familiar with how responses are
submitted hopefully someone in the group knows! The response is due Jan
2, 2012.
Best,
Cheryl (user:MichChemGSI)
Michael,
Please accept my apologies on behalf of the Research Committee for the
amount of time you have waited for a decision. Given the lack of concerns
raised since the start of the second poll, I advise that you move forward
with your pilot and report the response rate you receive on the project
page.
-Aaron
On Tue, Jan 3, 2012 at 7:56 AM, Michael Tsikerdekis
<tsikerdekis(a)gmail.com>wrote:
> Hey Aaron,
>
> first of all, happy new year and all the best!
>
> I wanted to write sooner but i preferred not to disturb during the
> holidays. Do you have any news about the voting process? I sent today an
> email to DarTar so hopefully(fingers crossed) he is going to answer and be
> supportive of the project.
>
> -Michael
>
>
> 2011/12/11 Aaron Halfaker <aaron.halfaker(a)gmail.com>
>
>> Michael,
>>
>> Congratulations for getting your work accepted.
>>
>> I'm not sure that posting about it will help us reach consensus faster,
>> but it couldn't hurt. I'd be surprised if you wouldn't be able to post
>> public about your work being accepted, but I'm only familiar with Computer
>> Science journals. At the very least, you should now be able to cite the
>> work with a future publication date.
>>
>> -Aaron
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Dec 10, 2011 at 6:56 AM, Michael Tsikerdekis <
>> tsikerdekis(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> Hey Aaron,
>>>
>>> just wanted to let you know that i keep an eye on the discussion about
>>> the topic. Btw i just received yesterday a letter of acceptance for my work
>>> that has been under blind peer-review (http://www.eminds.uniovi.es). I
>>> still have to make some revisions but will be published in the open journal
>>> at the 30th of March. Do you think i should post it in the discussion? I
>>> have no idea if i am allowed to disclose such information in public before
>>> the publication is released to the public but i could write that it has
>>> been accepted and anybody interested can request the specifics from me
>>> personally.
>>>
>>> Let me know what you think :-)
>>>
>>> Mike
>>>
>>
>>
>
Hey Chato
nice to hear from you, your suggestion is very timely and I hope you don't mind if I forward it to RCom-l.
(everybody: Chato is a researcher based in Barcelona who recently completed a study of gender differences in Wikipedia, with Mayo as a coauthor)
Chato: we discussed extensively a similar proposal during the last RCom meeting [1] (which finished just minutes ago). The majority of RCom seemed to support the idea of a platform on which individual editors could decide to participate in research in general, in what study or type of research in particular, and with what frequency and to revoke their permission to be contacted for these types of research at any point. This solution would allow us to avoid the problem of gauging community consensus on every single subject recruitment request that we get as well as the problem of finding an appropriate recruitment method to suit everyone. We also discussed what role RCom could have in reviewing and flagging recruitment requests before they get posted to this platform. The notes of the meeting are here [2]
Melanie, Aaron and myself volunteered to start a proposal on Meta, I'd be great if we could get your input once we have a first draft.
In the meantime, enjoy your holidays!
Best,
Dario
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_Committee/Meetings/Meeting_2011-12-…
[2] http://etherpad.wikimedia.org/RComDec2011
On Dec 22, 2011, at 1:16 PM, ChaTo (Carlos Alberto Alejandro CASTILLO Ocaranza) wrote:
> Hi Dario,
>
> Sorry if this is way too late, I was traveling these last days, now I am in Chile ;-) But anyways, this is what I promise to try to write up after our meeting last week:
>
> ============================
> Proposal: Wikipedia editor panel
>
> Several research topics require some sort of survey/interview to be applied to a sample of Wikipedia editors. Currently, this is done in most cases by directly contacting editors via their user talk pages, which is considered a bad practice by the Wikipedia Research Committee WRC.
>
> It is proposed that the WRC maintains a large editor panel that can be partially assigned to different research groups.
>
> Editors would be invited to be part of this panel by a number of channels to be defined, including the semi-annual survey. Editors would indicate the maximum number of different surveys they would like to participate in per year (e.g. 1-4, 5-10, 11-50, 50+), and fill-in a demographic form including age, gender, etc.
>
> Researchers would apply to conduct surveys to subsets of this panel via the WRC, indicating: the target number of editors requested, and some constraints (based on a schema of the properties available for editors, provided by WRC).
>
> The WRC would review the request, and on approval, and forward a URL provided by the researchers to a sub-set of the panel matching the constraints requested by editors. (This matching should balance load, there are a number of algorithms for this including http://research.yahoo.com/pub/3312). After this, the survey would be handled directly by the researchers, who would send a post-survey report to the WRC indicating e.g. response rate received.
>
> Why the alternatives are bad?
>
> - Handling each research request on a case-by-case basis, aside from requiring more effort by the WRC, would generate a number of different messages to editors, which can create confusion among them.
>
> - Allowing researchers to add questions to the semi-annual survey has a number of problems: it may blow-up the time required to answer the survey, it may affect the responses received given that users already have answered a long questionnaire, etc.
>
> ============================
>
> Thank you,
>
> --
> ChaTo (Carlos Castillo) Let's connect! · LinkedIn · Facebook · Twitter @ChaToX
All,
this is to confirm the schedule of the forthcoming RCom meeting on Thursday at 1.30pm PST.
I will host a skype conf call (dario.taraborelli) and we'll default to the rcom channel on IRC in case of issues, I'll send a link with an etherpad for notetaking shortly.
http://doodle.com/vb5w8ntrftmyp4w3
Attendees confirmed so far:
Dario
Yaroslav (only first 30')
Aaron
Mayo
WSC
Melanie
Diederik
I look forward to talking to you
Dario