[WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 19, Issue 29

Thu Feb 10 03:37:33 UTC 2005

F L wrote:

>I'm a graduate student at the University of Michigan
>School of Information (and also an admin at Wikipedia,
>username Ffirehorse). I'm considering a long research
>paper on the dynamics of community at Wikipedia for a
>class on online communities that I'm taking this term.
>
>
>My question is about protocol, and the reason I'm
>asking it is because I'm not having much success in
>locating on Wikimedia or Wikipedia any policy or
>guidelines on how to approach the community in terms
>of consent. Would a community-wide announcement be
>sufficient? As someone who is already a member of the
>community, while I'm doing the research, would it be
>advisable to post some sort of note on my user page
>that I'm also conducting research? 
>
>Or is the sort of activity that I'm proposing (i.e.,
>researching Wikipedia while also contributing as a
>member) generally frowned upon? If so, I will drop the
>idea without hesitation.
>
>The research I'm considering would be in the form of
>unobtrusive observation of norms, practices, routines,
>and other forms of community-forming activity on
>Wikipedia, and would not likely involve any direct
>interaction with Wikipedia users. I'd be happy to go
>into further detail about the specifics if need be.
>
>Any guidance/feedback would be appreciated.
>  
>
I'm not sure what kind of consent you're concerned about, but I would 
think that for research purposes, Wikipedia is pretty clearly a public 
arena that can be researched freely. Research about Wikipedia is 
certainly permitted, I would even say encouraged. There's even a 
fledgling WikiProject devoted to the idea:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Wikidemia

Researching while being a Wikipedia editor is not a concern, as long as 
your edits are legitimately focused on Wikipedia goals, and not designed 
to conduct a test or prove a point. A typical problem is people 
vandalizing articles to see how quickly the vandalism gets removed. 
Research by observation should be fine.

If you want to disclose on your user page that you're conducting 
research, you can invite anyone who has questions to contact you on your 
talk page. Also, if you let us know the results of your research, I'm 
sure that would be greatly appreciated.

--Michael Snow