Re: [Wiki-research-l] Modelling user behaviour on Wikipedia

[Jonathan Morgan]

Hi Kiril!

Thanks for all the patient and thoughtful clarifications and elaborations
:)  I left a couple of comments inline, below.

Good luck with your project! As you can tell, we are a curious and
thoughtful group here on wikiresearch-l. If you have methodological
questions in the future, please don't hesitate to ask them here.

On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 11:43 AM Kiril Simeonovski <
kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Jonathan,
>
> You have correctly deduced from the description that there will not be any
> interaction with editors and all the data for the research will be drawn
> from the publicly available edit histories. The most confusing part that
> gives impression of intervening is perhaps the "experiment", which
> conceptually differs in the social sciences from its more common meaning in
> a laboratory environment. That said, this research is not going to consume
> editor's time for surveys nor it is going to convert Wikipedia to a
> laboratory or ask people to change their behaviour.
>
> I came here with the announcement after creating the proposal on Meta and
> following the guidelines regarding research projects with the goal of
> getting some useful input from other researchers subscribed to the mailing
> list and learning how to administratively proceed with the proposal on Meta
> (What should be done next on Meta? Will there be an appointed WMF
> researcher to contact regarding this research?).
>


Putting your research proposal on Meta is best practice for all research
projects related to Wikimedia. It is not a required step, but it's useful
for increasing awareness of your project among the broader Wikimedia
communities (researchers and everyone else).

There is nothing else you need to do at this point, although we appreciate
it if you would keep your project page up to date as you perform your
research. When you're done, we always appreciate it if you link to any
preprints, demos, code repos, slide decks, etc from that page as well.

Your project won't automatically be assigned a WMF contact. The Wikimedia
Foundation itself does not officially monitor or screen new research
projects that are published on Meta, or review them for support. However,
if you believe your research furthers the goals of the Wikimedia Movement,
you might consider applying for a grant (example
).


Individual WMF teams (including my team, Research) do occasionally partner
with external researchers
 and those partnerships
can include access to non-public data (under a Non-Disclosure Agreement).
Some partnerships do involve funding, but this is not common. All
partnerships are at the discretion of the team manager. In the case of my
team, that manager is Leila Zia, Head of Research.

 Quick question: when you say "the guidelines regarding research projects"
above, what document are you referring to? There are a lot of these pages
in the Research namespace and they are not always up to date, unfortunately.


> My request for help from research community regarding this research will be
> mostly technical (e.g. smart random sampling of editors, existing tools for
> research purposes, etc.)
>

We can definitely help you with these questions! You can also post
questions related to data access and data infrastructure to the analytics
mailing list .


>
> Best,
> Kiril
>
> On Tue 25. Feb 2020 at 17:06, Jonathan Morgan 
> wrote:
>
> > Taking a quick step back from all the very enthusiastic questioning of
> the
> > researcher's motives...
> >
> > Kiril,
> >
> > Regarding your methods, Your proposal states
> > <
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Modelling_Behaviour_in_a_Peer_Production_Economy_upon_Evidence_from_Wikipedia
> > >
> > that for this study "The editors will be sampled from the pool of
> > contributors to all language editions over Wikipedia's entire history and
> > will be classified into groups based on their longevity on the project."
> > But it says little more than that.
> >
> > When I read this description, it does not sound to me like you will
> > necessarily be contacting editors for this study, or intervening in any
> way
> > into Wikipedia. Stuart and Pine's questions seem to assume that you will
> be
> > in some way recruiting editors as participants, asking them to change
> their
> > behavior, asking them questions, etc.
> >
> > *Will you be performing any of the above activities?* If not, the
> questions
> > asked so far may be beside the point. Anyone is free to perform analysis
> on
> > publicly available and free-licensed data.
> >
> > If you do plan to intervene in Wikipedia in some way, or work with
> editors
> > as research participants or co-researchers, and you would like the
> members
> > of this mailing list to 

Re: [Wiki-research-l] Modelling user behaviour on Wikipedia

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Pine,

You can see my reply to Jonathan about the nature of the research and what
does "experiment" refer to in the context of this research.

I think the answer to your question on how this research will benefit the
community is highly dependent on your expectations and the scope of the
research. While there are indicative research projects with the aim to tell
whether the community is ready for introducing a novelty or implementing a
major change, there are also projects that focus on the social aspects of
the collaborative environments and how people behave in different
situations. The latter group of projects seems not to offer direct benefit
for the community but it doesn't mean they are useless and shouldn't be
done at all.

I know it's natural that people with different backgrounds have
difficulties to comprehend the complexity of economic modelling and there
should be an interdisciplinary way to present the findings so that they
could practically reach to a wider group of people. This is something that
will be addressed with this research.

Yet, it's still possible to give you a direction of where the benefit for
the community would come from. Similar researches in the past offered
explanations to many relevant real-world questions such as how much time
should people spend at work, why companies don't produce as much as they
can what people want, why people tend to be more risk-averse towards
unknown risks or how changes in the environment affect the decision-making
by individuals.

Best,
Kiril

On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 8:42 PM Kiril Simeonovski <
kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Jonathan,
>
> You have correctly deduced from the description that there will not be any
> interaction with editors and all the data for the research will be drawn
> from the publicly available edit histories. The most confusing part that
> gives impression of intervening is perhaps the "experiment", which
> conceptually differs in the social sciences from its more common meaning in
> a laboratory environment. That said, this research is not going to consume
> editor's time for surveys nor it is going to convert Wikipedia to a
> laboratory or ask people to change their behaviour.
>
> I came here with the announcement after creating the proposal on Meta and
> following the guidelines regarding research projects with the goal of
> getting some useful input from other researchers subscribed to the mailing
> list and learning how to administratively proceed with the proposal on Meta
> (What should be done next on Meta? Will there be an appointed WMF
> researcher to contact regarding this research?).
>
> My request for help from research community regarding this research will
> be mostly technical (e.g. smart random sampling of editors, existing tools
> for research purposes, etc.)
>
> Best,
> Kiril
>
> On Tue 25. Feb 2020 at 17:06, Jonathan Morgan 
> wrote:
>
>> Taking a quick step back from all the very enthusiastic questioning of the
>> researcher's motives...
>>
>> Kiril,
>>
>> Regarding your methods, Your proposal states
>> <
>> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Modelling_Behaviour_in_a_Peer_Production_Economy_upon_Evidence_from_Wikipedia
>> >
>> that for this study "The editors will be sampled from the pool of
>> contributors to all language editions over Wikipedia's entire history and
>> will be classified into groups based on their longevity on the project."
>> But it says little more than that.
>>
>> When I read this description, it does not sound to me like you will
>> necessarily be contacting editors for this study, or intervening in any
>> way
>> into Wikipedia. Stuart and Pine's questions seem to assume that you will
>> be
>> in some way recruiting editors as participants, asking them to change
>> their
>> behavior, asking them questions, etc.
>>
>> *Will you be performing any of the above activities?* If not, the
>> questions
>> asked so far may be beside the point. Anyone is free to perform analysis
>> on
>> publicly available and free-licensed data.
>>
>> If you do plan to intervene in Wikipedia in some way, or work with editors
>> as research participants or co-researchers, and you would like the members
>> of this mailing list to provide you with feedback or other support, please
>> describe the support or feedback you would like to receive in more detail.
>>
>> If your study is non-interventionist but you still want feedback, we can
>> provide that too. Perhaps you can be more clear about the kind of feedback
>> you want; that will keep the conversation going in an interesting and
>> productive direction that everyone on the list can benefit from.
>>
>> Finally, we the members of this list (whether volunteers or WMF staff) are
>> not peer reviewers, do not speak for the Wikipedia community, and are not
>> empowered to approve or deny research requests.
>>
>> Best,
>> Jonathan
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 11:23 PM Kiril Simeonovski <
>> kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > Hi Stuart,

Re: [Wiki-research-l] Modelling user behaviour on Wikipedia

[Kiril Simeonovski]

Hi Jonathan,

You have correctly deduced from the description that there will not be any
interaction with editors and all the data for the research will be drawn
from the publicly available edit histories. The most confusing part that
gives impression of intervening is perhaps the "experiment", which
conceptually differs in the social sciences from its more common meaning in
a laboratory environment. That said, this research is not going to consume
editor's time for surveys nor it is going to convert Wikipedia to a
laboratory or ask people to change their behaviour.

I came here with the announcement after creating the proposal on Meta and
following the guidelines regarding research projects with the goal of
getting some useful input from other researchers subscribed to the mailing
list and learning how to administratively proceed with the proposal on Meta
(What should be done next on Meta? Will there be an appointed WMF
researcher to contact regarding this research?).

My request for help from research community regarding this research will be
mostly technical (e.g. smart random sampling of editors, existing tools for
research purposes, etc.)

Best,
Kiril

On Tue 25. Feb 2020 at 17:06, Jonathan Morgan  wrote:

> Taking a quick step back from all the very enthusiastic questioning of the
> researcher's motives...
>
> Kiril,
>
> Regarding your methods, Your proposal states
> <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Modelling_Behaviour_in_a_Peer_Production_Economy_upon_Evidence_from_Wikipedia
> >
> that for this study "The editors will be sampled from the pool of
> contributors to all language editions over Wikipedia's entire history and
> will be classified into groups based on their longevity on the project."
> But it says little more than that.
>
> When I read this description, it does not sound to me like you will
> necessarily be contacting editors for this study, or intervening in any way
> into Wikipedia. Stuart and Pine's questions seem to assume that you will be
> in some way recruiting editors as participants, asking them to change their
> behavior, asking them questions, etc.
>
> *Will you be performing any of the above activities?* If not, the questions
> asked so far may be beside the point. Anyone is free to perform analysis on
> publicly available and free-licensed data.
>
> If you do plan to intervene in Wikipedia in some way, or work with editors
> as research participants or co-researchers, and you would like the members
> of this mailing list to provide you with feedback or other support, please
> describe the support or feedback you would like to receive in more detail.
>
> If your study is non-interventionist but you still want feedback, we can
> provide that too. Perhaps you can be more clear about the kind of feedback
> you want; that will keep the conversation going in an interesting and
> productive direction that everyone on the list can benefit from.
>
> Finally, we the members of this list (whether volunteers or WMF staff) are
> not peer reviewers, do not speak for the Wikipedia community, and are not
> empowered to approve or deny research requests.
>
> Best,
> Jonathan
>
> On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 11:23 PM Kiril Simeonovski <
> kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Hi Stuart,
> >
> > Thank you for your thoughts so far. I really like how the discussion is
> > progressing.
> >
> > The methodology will, of course, yield other results about editor
> dynamics
> > and growth paths. Paid editing and sock puppetry as systemic risk factors
> > could be included in the model exogenously but it might be possible to
> > endogenise them in any future research. At this stage, the most important
> > thing is to lay the grounds for developing a sensible model that can be
> > later upgraded with new assumptions.
> >
> > As for the editing experience, I've been around since 2008 (this is my
> edit
> > log <
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:CentralAuth/Kiril_Simeonovski
> > >
> > ).
> >
> > Best,
> > Kiril
> >
> > On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 12:37 AM Stuart A. Yeates 
> > wrote:
> >
> > > Hi Kiril
> > >
> > > Let's just say that history has taught us to be risk-averse to
> > > drive-by researchers.
> > >
> > > Can you point us to other research output using this methodology? Do
> > > you (or any of your team) have significant editing experience? Are you
> > > familiar with the firestorm that is paid editing and sock puppetry??
> > >
> > > cheers
> > > stuart
> > >
> > > --
> > > ...let us be heard from red core to black sky
> > >
> > > On Tue, 25 Feb 2020 at 10:43, Kiril Simeonovski
> > >  wrote:
> > > >
> > > > Hi Pine,
> > > >
> > > > The findings from the research will be articulated to draw clear
> > > > conclusions about what causes utility and disutility from
> > participation,
> > > > and how this is perceived by different editors. For instance, it is
> > > natural
> > > > to assume that editors come to contribute by adding content that will
> > > > remain visible, while blocks a

Re: [Wiki-research-l] Modelling user behaviour on Wikipedia

[Pine W]

Hi Kiril,

I'd like to ask for further clarification on a couple of points.

Some people may be risk averse to performing certain actions, such as
moving pages, because they don't know what the rules are regarding
those actions, but page moves aren't necessarily harmful for the
environment. Does your research account for situations like this?

I'm still having difficulty understanding how the community may
benefit from the proposed research. Suppose that your research is
highly successful according to your definition of success. What will
the community gain from this?

Based on the use of the word "experiment", I'm assuming that you're
proposing an active intervention of some type in the community, and as
Jonathan said, it would be good to have more information regarding
what you have in mind.

Hi Jonathan,

My questions are largely based on Kiril's use of the word
"experiment", but I appreciate the request for clarification.

Regarding "Finally, we the members of this list (whether volunteers or
WMF staff) are not peer reviewers, do not speak for the Wikipedia
community, and are not empowered to approve or deny research
requests.", I partly agree and partly disagree. This list isn't a peer
review committee in the standard Western academic sense, but I think
that people who are planning to do interventions in the course of
their research in the Wikiverse would do well to consult this list for
advice. Also, the community may, by consensus, place various
restrictions on research projects, both broadly by policy and more
narrowly regarding specific experiments or specific researchers; we
probably would do that on wiki, but by seeking advice here,
researchers are likely to get useful advice regarding what to do and
what not to do. Also, some researchers may want to make requests for
WMF funding, WMF staff time, and/or access to users' private data, and
the people on this list might be good to consult before WMF grants any
of those, especially in novel or borderline situations.

Thanks,
Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )

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Re: [Wiki-research-l] Modelling user behaviour on Wikipedia

[Jonathan Morgan]

Taking a quick step back from all the very enthusiastic questioning of the
researcher's motives...

Kiril,

Regarding your methods, Your proposal states

that for this study "The editors will be sampled from the pool of
contributors to all language editions over Wikipedia's entire history and
will be classified into groups based on their longevity on the project."
But it says little more than that.

When I read this description, it does not sound to me like you will
necessarily be contacting editors for this study, or intervening in any way
into Wikipedia. Stuart and Pine's questions seem to assume that you will be
in some way recruiting editors as participants, asking them to change their
behavior, asking them questions, etc.

*Will you be performing any of the above activities?* If not, the questions
asked so far may be beside the point. Anyone is free to perform analysis on
publicly available and free-licensed data.

If you do plan to intervene in Wikipedia in some way, or work with editors
as research participants or co-researchers, and you would like the members
of this mailing list to provide you with feedback or other support, please
describe the support or feedback you would like to receive in more detail.

If your study is non-interventionist but you still want feedback, we can
provide that too. Perhaps you can be more clear about the kind of feedback
you want; that will keep the conversation going in an interesting and
productive direction that everyone on the list can benefit from.

Finally, we the members of this list (whether volunteers or WMF staff) are
not peer reviewers, do not speak for the Wikipedia community, and are not
empowered to approve or deny research requests.

Best,
Jonathan

On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 11:23 PM Kiril Simeonovski <
kiril.simeonov...@gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Stuart,
>
> Thank you for your thoughts so far. I really like how the discussion is
> progressing.
>
> The methodology will, of course, yield other results about editor dynamics
> and growth paths. Paid editing and sock puppetry as systemic risk factors
> could be included in the model exogenously but it might be possible to
> endogenise them in any future research. At this stage, the most important
> thing is to lay the grounds for developing a sensible model that can be
> later upgraded with new assumptions.
>
> As for the editing experience, I've been around since 2008 (this is my edit
> log  >
> ).
>
> Best,
> Kiril
>
> On Tue, Feb 25, 2020 at 12:37 AM Stuart A. Yeates 
> wrote:
>
> > Hi Kiril
> >
> > Let's just say that history has taught us to be risk-averse to
> > drive-by researchers.
> >
> > Can you point us to other research output using this methodology? Do
> > you (or any of your team) have significant editing experience? Are you
> > familiar with the firestorm that is paid editing and sock puppetry??
> >
> > cheers
> > stuart
> >
> > --
> > ...let us be heard from red core to black sky
> >
> > On Tue, 25 Feb 2020 at 10:43, Kiril Simeonovski
> >  wrote:
> > >
> > > Hi Pine,
> > >
> > > The findings from the research will be articulated to draw clear
> > > conclusions about what causes utility and disutility from
> participation,
> > > and how this is perceived by different editors. For instance, it is
> > natural
> > > to assume that editors come to contribute by adding content that will
> > > remain visible, while blocks and reverted edits are risk factors that
> > drive
> > > them away, although different editors have different levels of risk
> > > aversion. Similarly to any other research, the benefit for the
> community
> > > and individual editors is going to be indirect but yet not
> insignificant
> > to
> > > be accepted in the future process of decision-making (if the research
> > > demonstrates the existence of high level of risk aversion towards
> > > something, then it automatically signals that doing that thing is
> harmful
> > > for the environment).
> > >
> > > I know that it's impossible to predict the extent to which this
> research
> > > would make impact because the body of literature is very poor on
> > > volunteer-driven environments in a dynamic setting but it's definitely
> > > worth to start off something that might attract the attention of
> > > researchers in this direction. At the end, the research is not meant to
> > > carve rules in stone that any single editor should respect but rather
> to
> > > suggest something that individuals and communities might find useful
> (the
> > > means of doing this will definitely not turn Wikipedia into a
> laboratory
> > or
> > > put someone's privacy in danger).
> > >
> > > Best,
> > > Kiril
> > >
> > > On Mon, Feb 24, 2020 at 9:43 PM Pine W  wrote:
> > >
> > > > Hi Kiril,
> > > >
> > > > Thank you for sharing your proposal.
> > > >
> > > > I am conce

[Wiki-research-l] SEMANTiCS 2020, Amsterdam, Sep 7-10, Open Calls

[Sebastian Hellmann]

Apologies for cross-posting


SEMANTiCS - 16th International Conference on Semantic Systems, September 
7 - 10, 2020

Amsterdam, The Netherlands
https://2020-eu.semantics.cc/


= Important Dates (specific track dates are given below)
* Abstract Submission Deadline:    April 18, 2020 (11:59 pm, Hawaiitime)
* Paper Submission Deadline:    April 25, 2020 
(11:59pm,Hawaii time)
* Notification of Acceptance: June 08, 2020 (11:59 
pm,Hawaii time)
* Camera-Ready Paper: July 06, 2020 
(11:59pm, Hawaii time)


= Read a detailed description of all available calls online: 
https://2020-eu.semantics.cc/calls


= Submission via Easychair on 
https://easychair.org/my/conference?conf=sem20eu#


Proceedings of SEMANTiCS 2020 EU are planned to be published by Springer 
LNCS & CEUR. All proceedings will be made available open access.



SEMANTiCS 2020 EU particularly welcomes submissions on the following key 
topics:

* Web Semantics & Linked (Open) Data
* Enterprise Knowledge Graphs, Graph Data Management and Deep Semantics
* Machine Learning & Deep Learning Techniques
* Semantic Information Management & Knowledge Integration
* Terminology, Thesaurus & Ontology Management
* Data Mining and Knowledge Discovery
* Reasoning, Rules and Policies
* Natural Language Processing
* Data Quality Management and Assurance
* Explainable Artificial Intelligence
* Semantics in Data Science
* Trust, Data Privacy, and Security with Semantic Technologies
* Economics of Data, Data Services and Data Ecosystems
 ---
* Special Sub-Topic: Digital Humanities and Cultural Heritage
* Special Sub-Topic: LegalTech
* Special Sub-Topic: Blockchain and Semantics

We especially encourage contributions that illustrate the applicability 
of the topics mentioned above for industrial purposes and/or illustrate 
the business relevance of their contribution for specific industries.


We invite contributions to the following tracks:

= Read a detailed description of all available calls online: 
https://2020-eu.semantics.cc/calls


== Research and Innovation Track ==
The Research and Innovation track at SEMANTiCS welcomes papers on novel 
scientific research and/or innovations relevant to the topics of the 
conference. Submissions must be original and must not have been 
submitted for publication elsewhere. Papers must follow the guidelines 
given in the author instructions, including references and optional 
appendices. Each submission will be reviewed by several PC members who 
will judge it based on its innovativeness, appropriateness, and impact 
of results in terms of effectiveness at solving real problems.


= Important Dates:
* Abstract Submission Deadline:    April 18, 2020 (11:59 pm, Hawaii 
time)
* Paper Submission Deadline:    April 25, 2020 (11:59 pm, 
Hawaii time)
* Notification of Acceptance: June 08, 2020 (11:59 pm, 
Hawaii time)
* Camera-Ready Paper: July 06, 2020 (11:59 
pm, Hawaii time)


Author instructions: Reviews will be carried out in a single-blind mode. 
Long papers should have a maximum length of 15 pages and short papers of 
6 pages. Submissions should follow the guidelines of the Springer LNCS 
format. The detailed Call for Research and Innovation papers is 
available here: https://2020-eu.semantics.cc/calls


== Posters and Demos Track ==
The Posters and Demonstrations Track invites innovative work in 
progress, late-breaking research and innovation results, and smaller 
contributions in all fields related to the Semantic Web and Linked Data 
in a broader sense. These include submissions on innovative applications 
with impact on end users, such as demos of solutions that users may test 
or that are yet in the conceptual phase but are worth discussing, and 
also applications or pieces of code that may attract developers and 
potential research or business partners.


= Important Dates:
* Paper Submission Deadline:    June 22, 2020 (11:59 pm, 
Hawaii time)
* Notification of Acceptance: July 22, 2020 (11:59 pm, 
Hawaii time)
* Camera-Ready Paper: August 01, 2020 (11:59 
pm, Hawaii time)


Author instructions: Proceedings are planned to be published via CEUR 
Workshop Proceedings and should follow the guidelines of the Springer 
LNCS format. The detailed Call for Poster and Demos papers is available 
online.


== Industry and Use Case Track ==
Focusing strongly on industry needs and ground breaking technology 
trends SEMANTICS invites presentations on enterprise solutions that deal 
with semantic processing of data and/or information. A special focus of 
Semantics 2019 will be on the convergence of machine learning techniques 
and knowledge graphs. Additional topics of interest are Enterprise 
Knowledge Graphs, Semantic AI & Machine Learning, Enterprise Data 
Integration, Linked Data & Data Publishing, Semantic Search, 
Recommendation Services,

[Wiki-research-l] opensym 2020 call for paper - 25-27 August 2020| Madrid, Spain

[Nicolas Jullien]

Dear all,

OpenSym's call for papers is online!

https://opensym.org/os2020/call-for-papers/


"OpenSym 2020 invites submissions for a range of tracks, including 
completed research papers, posters, and Doctoral Consortium research 
proposals. New this year are the New Ideas and Emerging Research (NIER) 
track, and a Journal-First track. Also new this year is a Journal 
Article Collection in the Journal of Internet and Software Applications, 
to which the best papers in the conference are invited. Papers accepted 
in the full research paper and NIER tracks will be included in the 
conference proceedings published by the ACM. Submissions to the other 
tracks will be included in a non-archival companion proceedings."


NJ
--
Professeur / Professor IMT Atlantique
https://nicolasjullien.wp.mines-telecom.fr/

Directeur de M@rsouin http://www.marsouin.org
Membre du LEGO http://labo-lego.fr

Responsable du M2 management innovation
parcours Mgt du SI et des données @ischool IMT Atlantique
https://innovationmanagement.wp.imt.fr/

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