Re: [Wiki-research-l] this month's research newsletter

[Taha Yasseri]

Thanks Stuart, Max, and Heather,
But let's keep things simple and efficient (as it is right now).
If we want to use bylines for all the contributions, then the next question
would be whether we have to use the real names or Wikipedia user names or
even IP addresses would be enough or not (IP address is enough in some of
Stuart's examples).

Of course if someone wants to add their name to the review, it should be
allowed (as it is now), but it also doesn't mean that others can not edit
that review.

Also to address concerns about the sentiment and fairness of the reviews
(which is a valid concern in general), again, everyone is welcome to have a
look at the draft and the pre-release version to make sure that all the
reviews are at a conventional quality.
Usually Dario and Tilman send a link to the draft few days before the
release and that's the best time for action.

Best,
Taha




On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 8:50 PM, Heather Ford  wrote:

> You're right, Stuart. Having a byline (and not worrying so much about what
> is said) is probably enough because it would be clear who is speaking.
>
> I have reviewed in the past and want to start again now that I have a bit
> more time. Dario, Tilman, you usually let us know when things need to be
> reviewed on this list, right? Perhaps we can do something similar when the
> newsletter is ready for a last proof as Joe suggests. And since I've been
> so opinionated, I will chat to others to try to help out streamline it a
> bit more because I know that everyone is really pressed for time when it
> comes to the newsletter. It's so great and important that I'm sure we can
> all help out a bit more :)
>
>
> Heather Ford
> Oxford Internet Institute  Doctoral Programme
> EthnographyMatters  | Oxford Digital
> Ethnography Group 
> http://hblog.org | @hfordsa 
>
>
>
>
> On 3 July 2014 17:58, Joe Corneli  wrote:
>
>> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 2:50 PM, Taha Yasseri 
>> wrote:
>> > Your contributions are always very welcome.. (well, please do it
>> > before the release of the issue, but in few cases we have changed even
>> after
>> > the release, Tilman knows the best about this).
>>
>> I've just subscribed to the newsletter as a mailing list - via
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/research-newsletter
>>
>> ... But perhaps it would be useful to have a pre-release version of
>> the mailing list, that would send it out a day or two in advance of
>> the "official" release to persons who might be interested to help edit
>> (or at least proofread)?
>>
>> (I realize this might sound like crazy talk, but it's meant as a
>> serious suggestion.)
>>
>> ___
>> Wiki-research-l mailing list
>> Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>>
>
>
> ___
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>
>


-- 
.t
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Re: [Wiki-research-l] this month's research newsletter

[Heather Ford]

You're right, Stuart. Having a byline (and not worrying so much about what
is said) is probably enough because it would be clear who is speaking.

I have reviewed in the past and want to start again now that I have a bit
more time. Dario, Tilman, you usually let us know when things need to be
reviewed on this list, right? Perhaps we can do something similar when the
newsletter is ready for a last proof as Joe suggests. And since I've been
so opinionated, I will chat to others to try to help out streamline it a
bit more because I know that everyone is really pressed for time when it
comes to the newsletter. It's so great and important that I'm sure we can
all help out a bit more :)


Heather Ford
Oxford Internet Institute  Doctoral Programme
EthnographyMatters  | Oxford Digital
Ethnography Group 
http://hblog.org | @hfordsa 




On 3 July 2014 17:58, Joe Corneli  wrote:

> On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 2:50 PM, Taha Yasseri 
> wrote:
> > Your contributions are always very welcome.. (well, please do it
> > before the release of the issue, but in few cases we have changed even
> after
> > the release, Tilman knows the best about this).
>
> I've just subscribed to the newsletter as a mailing list - via
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/research-newsletter
>
> ... But perhaps it would be useful to have a pre-release version of
> the mailing list, that would send it out a day or two in advance of
> the "official" release to persons who might be interested to help edit
> (or at least proofread)?
>
> (I realize this might sound like crazy talk, but it's meant as a
> serious suggestion.)
>
> ___
> Wiki-research-l mailing list
> Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>
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Re: [Wiki-research-l] this month's research newsletter

[Joe Corneli]

On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 2:50 PM, Taha Yasseri  wrote:
> Your contributions are always very welcome.. (well, please do it
> before the release of the issue, but in few cases we have changed even after
> the release, Tilman knows the best about this).

I've just subscribed to the newsletter as a mailing list - via
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/research-newsletter

... But perhaps it would be useful to have a pre-release version of
the mailing list, that would send it out a day or two in advance of
the "official" release to persons who might be interested to help edit
(or at least proofread)?

(I realize this might sound like crazy talk, but it's meant as a
serious suggestion.)

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Re: [Wiki-research-l] this month's research newsletter

[R.Stuart Geiger]

As someone who is more of a free rider to the newsletter (*blushes*), I
might not have as much of a say in this, but I agree that a peer review is
different than an encyclopedia article. I'd like to think that a peer
review or editorial doesn't proceed according to the same kind of
more-or-less universal standards and processes that govern encyclopedic
work, and thus make it modular enough to support a collective author
function.

And there are many spaces in Wikipedia (and thanks for the cite, Taha :P)
where individual editors write statements themselves, where it is
incredibly useful to represent the opinion of a single individual. The
Signpost [0] has bylines. Beyond that, Articles for Creation reviews [1]
and Third Opinion [2] are probably the best analogies to research
newsletter reviews, but this also takes place in X for deletion
nominations, Arbitration Committee statements, and more.

I think in the grand scheme of things, it is actually productive to have
somebody be able to say something a bit more opinionated like "it is
disappointing that the main purpose appears to be completing a thesis, with
little thought to actually improving Wikipedia", because as we see here,
that leads to fruitful conversations. But I do think that they should be
attributed to the opinion of an individual, who can then further discuss
this opinion publicly.

There is certainly room for collaboration in reviews, and there can be
co-authored reviews. However, if someone is listed as an author, then maybe
they then have a kind of responsibility for the content. If they just
edited it for grammar, etc., then perhaps they can be listed as an editor. Just
some thoughts.

Also, I totally agree with the research awards, perhaps more thoughts on
those later.

 Best,
Stuart


[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Signpost
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creation
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:3O


On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 8:58 AM, Maximilian Klein  wrote:

> Taha, even though the newsletter sections are a Wiki written by multiple
> people, we could still add multiple names in the "by-line." Do you see a
> problem with that?
>
> We are not writing an Enclyclopedia here, but a research newsletter (it
> just happens to be hosted on an encyclopedia server). I think that for
> "intellectual honesty" it was a good idea of Heather's to add names to
> reviews. IMHO, we have an obligation to be even more rigorous in the
> newsletter than in writing Wikipedia.
>
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> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
>
>
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Re: [Wiki-research-l] this month's research newsletter

[Maximilian Klein]

Taha, even though the newsletter sections are a Wiki written by multiple
people, we could still add multiple names in the "by-line." Do you see a
problem with that?

We are not writing an Enclyclopedia here, but a research newsletter (it
just happens to be hosted on an encyclopedia server). I think that for
"intellectual honesty" it was a good idea of Heather's to add names to
reviews. IMHO, we have an obligation to be even more rigorous in the
newsletter than in writing Wikipedia.
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Re: [Wiki-research-l] this month's research newsletter

[Taha Yasseri]

The newsletter is a Wiki-based project.
Anyone with Internet access can edit it, so if someone doesn't find a word
or sentence quite ok, should go and edit it to make it better, nicer, more
accurate, fairer, etc... You even don't need to email it here, just go and
change it. Your contributions are always very welcome.. (well, please do it
before the release of the issue, but in few cases we have changed even
after the release, Tilman knows the best about this).
For the same reason, adding the names to individual reviews is not
relevant. Many reviews that I have contributed to during the last 3 years,
have not been written solely by me, again they have been written
collaboratively, just like Wikipedia [1]. We don't add our names to our
contributions to Wikipedia either (I suppose).

Cheers,
Taha
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia



On Thu, Jul 3, 2014 at 2:09 PM, Oliver Keyes  wrote:

> Both of these suggestions sound great to me! I'm not sure who the best
> person is to move them forward (I encourage anyone who wants to volunteer
> to speak up!) but whatever happens, I'm really grateful that we could turn
> this into a 'how do we fix this in the long-term?' conversation and not get
> bogged down - it's one of the most productive mailing list threads I've
> seen in a while :)
>
> On Thursday, 3 July 2014, Heather Ford  wrote:
>
>> Thanks so much for this, Kerry. And thanks, Aaron for (as always) great,
>> productive suggestions.
>>
>> I think there are two issues that need to be dealt with separately here.
>> The first is about disparaging remarks made about researchers'
>> contributions that kicked off this discussion. One idea that I had when I
>> saw a similar problem earlier this year was to at least have reviewers add
>> their names to reviews so that we are making a clear distinction between
>> the opinion of a single reviewer and the community/organisation as a whole.
>> Some reviewers have added their names to reviews (thank you!) but I think
>> that needs to be a standard for the newsletter. This probably won't solve
>> the problem completely but hopefully reviewers will be more thoughtful
>> about their critique in the future.
>>
>> The second is to encourage research about Wikipedia that engages with the
>> Wikimedia community. And yes, I, too, think that awards and
>> acknowledgements are great ideas. I'd say that, when evaluating, engagement
>> is even more important than impact because we want to encourage students
>> and researchers at various stages of their careers (many of whom would not
>> win awards for impact) to engage with the community when working on these
>> projects. Of course, this kind of work is necessarily going to have more
>> impact because Wikimedians themselves are going to be a part of it somehow.
>> For this, I definitely agree with some kind of acknowledgement of research
>> done - beyond, perhaps, just one or two star researchers winning a few
>> awards. This can be done together e.g. awards for best papers in different
>> categories but also acknowledgements for work with the community on
>> particular projects as suggested by Kerry.
>>
>> Best,
>> Heather.
>>
>> Heather Ford
>> Oxford Internet Institute  Doctoral Programme
>> EthnographyMatters  | Oxford Digital
>> Ethnography Group 
>> http://hblog.org | @hfordsa 
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 3 July 2014 02:56, Kerry Raymond  wrote:
>>
>>> Having had a work role oversighting many university researchers
>>> including PHD and other research students, I think many start out with
>>> intentions to engage fully with stakeholders and contribute back into the
>>> real world in some way, but it's fair to say that deadline pressures tend
>>> to force them to focus their energies into the "academically valued"
>>> outcomes, e.g. published papers, theses, etc. This is just as true for
>>> Wikipedia-related research as for, say, aquaculture. Of course, some never
>>> intended to contribute back, but are solely motivated by climbing the
>>> greasy pole of academia.
>>>
>>> Because data gathering can be a time-consuming or expensive stumbling
>>> block in a research plan, organisations that freely publish detailed data
>>>  (as WMF does) are natural magnets to researchers who can use that data to
>>> study various phenomena which may have broader relevance than just
>>> Wikipedia or where the Wikipedia data serves as a ground truth for other
>>> experiments or as proxy for other unavailable data. For example, you can
>>> use Wikipedia to study categorisation or named entity extraction without
>>> having real interest in Wikipedia itself.
>>>
>>> So I think it is for those who are passionate about Wikipedia itself to
>>> see how such research findings may be used to improve Wikipedia. As for
>>> releasing source code, it has to recognised that software in research
>>> projects is often very quic

[Wiki-research-l] this month's research newsletter

[Oliver Keyes]

Both of these suggestions sound great to me! I'm not sure who the best
person is to move them forward (I encourage anyone who wants to volunteer
to speak up!) but whatever happens, I'm really grateful that we could turn
this into a 'how do we fix this in the long-term?' conversation and not get
bogged down - it's one of the most productive mailing list threads I've
seen in a while :)

On Thursday, 3 July 2014, Heather Ford > wrote:

> Thanks so much for this, Kerry. And thanks, Aaron for (as always) great,
> productive suggestions.
>
> I think there are two issues that need to be dealt with separately here.
> The first is about disparaging remarks made about researchers'
> contributions that kicked off this discussion. One idea that I had when I
> saw a similar problem earlier this year was to at least have reviewers add
> their names to reviews so that we are making a clear distinction between
> the opinion of a single reviewer and the community/organisation as a whole.
> Some reviewers have added their names to reviews (thank you!) but I think
> that needs to be a standard for the newsletter. This probably won't solve
> the problem completely but hopefully reviewers will be more thoughtful
> about their critique in the future.
>
> The second is to encourage research about Wikipedia that engages with the
> Wikimedia community. And yes, I, too, think that awards and
> acknowledgements are great ideas. I'd say that, when evaluating, engagement
> is even more important than impact because we want to encourage students
> and researchers at various stages of their careers (many of whom would not
> win awards for impact) to engage with the community when working on these
> projects. Of course, this kind of work is necessarily going to have more
> impact because Wikimedians themselves are going to be a part of it somehow.
> For this, I definitely agree with some kind of acknowledgement of research
> done - beyond, perhaps, just one or two star researchers winning a few
> awards. This can be done together e.g. awards for best papers in different
> categories but also acknowledgements for work with the community on
> particular projects as suggested by Kerry.
>
> Best,
> Heather.
>
> Heather Ford
> Oxford Internet Institute  Doctoral Programme
> EthnographyMatters  | Oxford Digital
> Ethnography Group 
> http://hblog.org | @hfordsa 
>
>
>
>
> On 3 July 2014 02:56, Kerry Raymond  wrote:
>
>> Having had a work role oversighting many university researchers including
>> PHD and other research students, I think many start out with intentions to
>> engage fully with stakeholders and contribute back into the real world in
>> some way, but it's fair to say that deadline pressures tend to force them
>> to focus their energies into the "academically valued" outcomes, e.g.
>> published papers, theses, etc. This is just as true for Wikipedia-related
>> research as for, say, aquaculture. Of course, some never intended to
>> contribute back, but are solely motivated by climbing the greasy pole of
>> academia.
>>
>> Because data gathering can be a time-consuming or expensive stumbling
>> block in a research plan, organisations that freely publish detailed data
>>  (as WMF does) are natural magnets to researchers who can use that data to
>> study various phenomena which may have broader relevance than just
>> Wikipedia or where the Wikipedia data serves as a ground truth for other
>> experiments or as proxy for other unavailable data. For example, you can
>> use Wikipedia to study categorisation or named entity extraction without
>> having real interest in Wikipedia itself.
>>
>> So I think it is for those who are passionate about Wikipedia itself to
>> see how such research findings may be used to improve Wikipedia. As for
>> releasing source code, it has to recognised that software in research
>> projects is often very quick-and-dirty and probably not designed to be
>> integrated into the MediaWiki code base. Effective solutions to Wikipedia
>> issues often require a mix of technology and change to community
>> process/culture (which is often far harder to get right).
>>
>> This is not to say they we should not encourage researchers to "give
>> back", but I think we do need to understand that the reasons people don't
>> give back aren't always attributable solely to "bad faith".
>>
>> In additions to suggestions already made re awards, just having a letter
>> of commendation on WMF letterhead acknowledging the research and its
>> potential to improve Wikipedia would be a useful thing especially for
>> junior researchers seeking to establish themselves; this kind of external
>> validation is helpful to their CVs. This could be sent to any researchers
>> whose research was deemed to have merit with different wording for those
>> who made (according to some appropriately-appointed group) greate

Re: [Wiki-research-l] this month's research newsletter

[Heather Ford]

Thanks so much for this, Kerry. And thanks, Aaron for (as always) great,
productive suggestions.

I think there are two issues that need to be dealt with separately here.
The first is about disparaging remarks made about researchers'
contributions that kicked off this discussion. One idea that I had when I
saw a similar problem earlier this year was to at least have reviewers add
their names to reviews so that we are making a clear distinction between
the opinion of a single reviewer and the community/organisation as a whole.
Some reviewers have added their names to reviews (thank you!) but I think
that needs to be a standard for the newsletter. This probably won't solve
the problem completely but hopefully reviewers will be more thoughtful
about their critique in the future.

The second is to encourage research about Wikipedia that engages with the
Wikimedia community. And yes, I, too, think that awards and
acknowledgements are great ideas. I'd say that, when evaluating, engagement
is even more important than impact because we want to encourage students
and researchers at various stages of their careers (many of whom would not
win awards for impact) to engage with the community when working on these
projects. Of course, this kind of work is necessarily going to have more
impact because Wikimedians themselves are going to be a part of it somehow.
For this, I definitely agree with some kind of acknowledgement of research
done - beyond, perhaps, just one or two star researchers winning a few
awards. This can be done together e.g. awards for best papers in different
categories but also acknowledgements for work with the community on
particular projects as suggested by Kerry.

Best,
Heather.

Heather Ford
Oxford Internet Institute  Doctoral Programme
EthnographyMatters  | Oxford Digital
Ethnography Group 
http://hblog.org | @hfordsa 




On 3 July 2014 02:56, Kerry Raymond  wrote:

> Having had a work role oversighting many university researchers including
> PHD and other research students, I think many start out with intentions to
> engage fully with stakeholders and contribute back into the real world in
> some way, but it's fair to say that deadline pressures tend to force them
> to focus their energies into the "academically valued" outcomes, e.g.
> published papers, theses, etc. This is just as true for Wikipedia-related
> research as for, say, aquaculture. Of course, some never intended to
> contribute back, but are solely motivated by climbing the greasy pole of
> academia.
>
> Because data gathering can be a time-consuming or expensive stumbling
> block in a research plan, organisations that freely publish detailed data
>  (as WMF does) are natural magnets to researchers who can use that data to
> study various phenomena which may have broader relevance than just
> Wikipedia or where the Wikipedia data serves as a ground truth for other
> experiments or as proxy for other unavailable data. For example, you can
> use Wikipedia to study categorisation or named entity extraction without
> having real interest in Wikipedia itself.
>
> So I think it is for those who are passionate about Wikipedia itself to
> see how such research findings may be used to improve Wikipedia. As for
> releasing source code, it has to recognised that software in research
> projects is often very quick-and-dirty and probably not designed to be
> integrated into the MediaWiki code base. Effective solutions to Wikipedia
> issues often require a mix of technology and change to community
> process/culture (which is often far harder to get right).
>
> This is not to say they we should not encourage researchers to "give
> back", but I think we do need to understand that the reasons people don't
> give back aren't always attributable solely to "bad faith".
>
> In additions to suggestions already made re awards, just having a letter
> of commendation on WMF letterhead acknowledging the research and its
> potential to improve Wikipedia would be a useful thing especially for
> junior researchers seeking to establish themselves; this kind of external
> validation is helpful to their CVs. This could be sent to any researchers
> whose research was deemed to have merit with different wording for those
> who made (according to some appropriately-appointed group) greater or
> lesser contributions to real Wikipedia impact.
>
> Sent from my iPad
>
> On 3 Jul 2014, at 12:15 am, Aaron Halfaker 
> wrote:
>
> Given that it seems we agree with Poitr's desire for research about
> Wikipedia to lead to useful tools an insights that can be directly applied
> to making Wikipedia and other wikis better, what might be a more effective
> strategy for encouraging researchers to engage with us or at least release
> their work in forms that we can more easily work with?
>
> Here's a couple of half-baked ideas:
>
>- *Wiki r