[Foundation-l] Regarding Berkman/Sciences Po study

Sat Dec 10 09:10:56 UTC 2011

Dario Taraborelli, 10/12/2011 04:51:
> • Is the Foundation running ads?
> No, this banner is a recruitment campaign for a research project that has been thoroughly reviewed by the Research Committee. We have a long tradition of supporting recruitment for research about our communities via various sitenotices. The methodology of this project is sound and the recruitment method less invasive than thousands of individual messages posted on user talk pages. We believe this research will help advance our understanding of the dynamics of participation in our projects. Receiving support by the Research Committee implies that all published output and anonymized data produced by this study will be made available under open licenses. [12] The banner also received full Wikimedia Foundation approval before its launch.

I think that this should be made more explicit: we shouldn't advertise 
any external initiative; when it comes to research projects, we should 
allow them to use our wikis and in particular the site notices only if 
they're joint projects (as much ours as theirs). This is the case here, 
because it's a research project of common interest where both parties 
have some gains and some duties, set with the Research committee and a 
signed agreement (IIRC). It's good that they will be explained better now.

Nemo