[WikiEN-l] Question about researching Wikipedia

Thu Feb 10 04:20:28 UTC 2005

Hi,

I am assuming you are concerned with the ethics of disclosure of scholarly observation.  By posting your question to this list and adding a note to your user page you have probably done most of the task, but an additional notice to some more public place on Wikipedia would probably be a good idea for any defense of procedure to a committee.  

For others offering advice, the key here is that the Wikipedia community as a whole needs to have a reasonable ability to learn of the observation, which gives them the option of non-participation (in theory by not posting).  Just because Wikipedia is a public exercise may not meet the requirements that a university committee responsible for checking research ethics would find appropriate. There has to be a good faith effort at notice (which is just what Frank Lester is trying to establish!).

:-)

-Chip Berlet

________________________________

From: wikien-l-bounces at Wikipedia.org on behalf of F L
Sent: Wed 2/9/2005 10:01 PM
To: wikien-l at Wikipedia.org
Subject: [WikiEN-l] Question about researching Wikipedia 

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.

Thank you,
Frank Lester

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