Porteclefs

I tried to respond but got a "you already answered or your session expired" error message. David.thompson.esq (talk) 16:46, 19 July 2017 (UTC)

So you've decided to poll Wikipedians

Hi. I notice you are surveying Wikipedians for your academic research project. Please take a look at Wikipedia:Ethically researching Wikipedia. Wikipedia would prefer your cooperation, as we are always interested in the state of Wikipedia but we want to ensure studies involving our editors remain ethical. Indeed, we are an interested audience to your work as well as being your test subjects. If you have any questions, please ask. Chris Troutman (talk) 21:45, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Hi Chris Troutman! We certainly appreciate your concern. In fact, we've taken many steps to ensure that we are in conformity with Wikipedia's standards and ethical processes. Please see our research page (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_%2B_Politics) and it's talk page (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_%2B_Politics) where we've gone to great lengths to abide by the community's standards. Additionally, we've obtained an IRB from the University of Chicago for this survey. Let me know if you have any additional concerns that are not covered in any of these materials. Yours, Porteclefs (talk) 21:58, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

You're correct. I saw the link on meta only after I posted my message, hence why I redacted part of my comment. Thanks for your compliance and good luck. Chris Troutman (talk) 22:02, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Survey responses

• Sorry! I didn't see the invitation until just now, and it looks like the survey is over. Robg37 (talk) 18:02, 3 October 2018 (UTC)

• I've responded to your survey. – _•Raven  ^.talk 09:46, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks .Raven!! Porteclefs (talk) 15:30, 25 June 2017 (UTC)

•:Done, btw don't edit much politically focused wikipedia articles but I do follow politics in general DoctorHver (talk) 15:58, 27 July 2017 (UTC)

• I've responded to your survey. Please do NOT report me to the authorities: they'll turn me over to Nurse Ratched - and then I'll be never heard of again... .. . Sintermerte (talk) 17:12, 5 August 2017 (UTC)

•Thank you for conducting this survey. I am concerned about the subjective nature of Wikipedia in general. I strive to be objective in editing Wikipedia. Unfortunately, it's sometimes a battle of which side has the most editors and the most persistent editors. However, the area of the most concern to me is the weighting/volume of "support" and "criticism" sections in certain articles. For example, a criticism section could be long and dominate. I've also seen support sections have a lot of, "well some people claim this as support, but it's not true." Another example was a recent article on a bill that changed Federal Student Loans, it listed a lot of positive changes and cited a source that is generally regarded as politically biased, but failed to list criticism or negative after effects of the legislation.--Ldurkin (talk) 19:06, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

IRB

First off, this talk page has gotten off to a confusing start. Everyone is just adding their topic into the first conversation. TOPICS, folks. Start a new one, if you have a question or comment. MY topic is IRB. Please tell me about an IRB. My academic background was long ago and far away, and not involving social sciences. Sorry to be suspicious snd uncooperative. My experiences online have taught me cynicism and skepticism in spades. 'Sides, my editing is usually pretty politically neutral, if not neutered: grammer, redundant phrasing, spelling, predication and verb tenses, etc. I read political articles to inform myself, and fix typos as I find them. Not really issue-driven, usually. That being said, I'm impressed by what little I know of the U of C. I know you need a sizeable body of data to generate anything useful. Mayhaps ... rags (talk) 11:10, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

Thank you rags! IRB stands for "Institutional Review Board". An IRB is an independent ethical review committee. IRB at the University of Chicago (where this research is 'housed') reviewed a detailed description of the research we are conducting including how we are obtaining information (e.g. this survey)and how we are protecting and preserving anonymity. Basically, IRB review and approval is a signal to the researchers and the subjects involved in the research that everyone is being protected ethically, legally, and physically. Does this answer your question? One other thing that I'd like to point you to is our Research page which has a discussion and some additional information about the project: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_%2B_Politics Porteclefs (talk) 12:45, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

OTAY! I can work with that. I'll look it over, and will prob take your survey in the next day or 2. Thanks for your quick response. Hope you didn't mind me organizing your talk page a bit. It takes many 'editors' awhile to get 'wikified'. It took me several years.

When do you expect to have results, and will you be sharing them online, with maybe a link here? rags (talk) 16:48, 9 April 2018 (UTC)

rags Initial results are available in this preprint: https://arxiv.org/pdf/1712.06414.pdf We are still gathering data from this survey to improve the reliability of our measure. Thank you for your interest! Porteclefs (talk) 01:21, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Questions

1. Can you complete meta:Research:Wikipedia + Politics?
2. Why did you choose a sample size of 500?
3. What is your best guess of how many Wikipedians exist who meet your inclusion criteria?
4. Can you post your IRB approval?
5. What effort have you made to prevent disruption to the community you are polling?
6. What is your best guess at how many other researchers are surveying the same pool as you?

Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 01:25, 12 April 2018 (UTC)

Hi Blue Rasberry !!

1. What more do you think it needs?
2. A sample size of roughly 500 will give us the statistical power we need to detect a correlation above the threshold we are after with a p<0.05.
3. 10's of thousands.
4. Our IRB is IRB17-0679 and can be confirmed with the University of Chicago IRB at any time. Anything I post here beyond the IRB number is arbitrary.
5. We worked with the community to develop a distribution process that would limit disruption. All solicitations are being made by hand by me. I am limiting the number of solicitations I make each day to no more than 50.
6. To my knowledge, no one is surveying this pool as it has been determined by a unique metric.

I hope that this answers your questions :)

Can you show me the community discussion where you cleared this? Can you describe how you estimated the disruption you would cause with your survey?

We certainly appreciate your concern. In fact, we've taken many steps to ensure that we are in conformity with Wikipedia's standards and ethical processes. Please see our research page (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Wikipedia_%2B_Politics) and it's talk page (https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Wikipedia_%2B_Politics) where we've gone to great lengths to abide by the community's standards. Additionally, we've obtained an IRB from the University of Chicago for this survey. I have already discussed this in my talk page, above. Additionally, this project was conceived and discussed widely at the most recent WikiCite conference. Moreover, I worked directly with senior members of the Wikimedia research team to ensure that I have not missed anything w/r/t community standards.Porteclefs (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Every major university in the English speaking world has done a survey like this. I suspect that more than 70% of the people you are surveying have already been presented a few times with a survey asking some of the questions you are asking.

How did you calculate the percentage in your "suspicion"? Moreover, is it your contention that simply because others have conducted a survey, mine is, somehow, disruptive?Porteclefs (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Where did you get the number 10s of thousands? Based on the characteristics of the accounts you are targeting it looks like you are targeting a pool of about 3000 Wikipedia editors and the ones that every other research solicits for time and attention. This is not a big community and when you ask for so many people to give their time it is a significant labor draw from our mission. Also, you present your project as if its values align with the values of this community.

There are, in fact 157,402 registered editors for whom we have alignments that fit our pool. Your number of 3000 is simply wrong and represents roughly 2% of the editors whose characteristics we are targeting. We are, in fact, targeting roughly 1/3 of 1% of the possible pool. This is not disruptive.Porteclefs (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Can you link to the IRB approval or should I contact the office of human research protections directly?

I would ask that you contact the office directly. It is not standard practice for researchers to post these approvals. You have the IRB number and are free to investigate to your satisfaction.Porteclefs (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Your answers seem very much like the last 100 similar research projects I have seen. I get the idea that you have little awareness of how many researchers poll the Wikipedia community incessantly with very similar questions and no background awareness of the basics of the Wikipedia community.

I'm sorry that you feel this way. I am not accountable to your feelings.Porteclefs (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I advise you to seek other opinions and community review. Clearly state how much time and labor you want to draw and come to a clearer understand of what percentage of the survey pool you are targeting. I cannot guide you every step of the way but I think if you ask for other opinions, other would confirm that many things you are doing stand out as strange and uninformed. I am not sure that you have self awareness of this. I can help but not immediately. I worry that you are drawing time and attention away from this small community and only collecting data which you mischaracterize, fail to understand, and which could be collected in a less invasive way without taking so much time away from routine community engagement.

Your worries are your own. I am in conformity with the community's standards. I have discussed this widely. I have a research page on which you are welcome to voice your concerns.Porteclefs (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I could be mistaken about any or all of this! I only see what you have posted and we have hardly talked. I only wish the best for research because good research helps the wiki community.

Much appreciated.Porteclefs (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 00:23, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

Blue Rasberry , thank you for your concern. I've taken it under advisement and have attempted to answer your questions as I understand them. Additional concerns should be voiced on this project's research page.Porteclefs (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2018 (UTC)

I hear you! Thanks. Blue Rasberry (talk) 02:00, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Thanks, Blue Rasberry ! I appreciate it.Porteclefs (talk) 12:32, 17 April 2018 (UTC)

Please use secure URL for study

Hello,

thank you for the invitation to participate in the study. I however noticed that you are using the insecure http:// link to solicit responses. This could be a bad idea for some of your subjects, since it allows deanonymizing their Wikipedia identity if their Internet traffic is being monitored by a hostile party. You should instead use the https:// version of the link to shield the identity of the respondents. So instead of asking them to go to http://uchicago.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9S3JByWf57fXEkR?Q_DL=XXXX please ask them to go to https://uchicago.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_9S3JByWf57fXEkR?Q_DL=XXXX. I checked, and this site seems to be served by either protocol correctly, so you should probably use the encrypted (https://) version instead. Thank you, hydrox (talk) 13:28, 13 April 2018 (UTC)

DONE! Thank you hydrox.

Managing a conflict of interest

Hello, Porteclefs. We welcome your contributions, but if you have an external relationship with the people, places or things you have written about on Wikipedia, you may have a conflict of interest (COI). Editors with a conflict of interest may be unduly influenced by their connection to the topic. See the conflict of interest guideline and FAQ for organizations for more information. We ask that you:

• avoid editing or creating articles about yourself, your family, friends, colleagues, company, organization, clients, or competitors;
• propose changes on the talk pages of affected articles (you can use the {{request edit}} template);
• disclose your conflict of interest when discussing affected articles (see Wikipedia:Conflict of interest#How to disclose a COI);
• avoid linking to your organization's website in other articles (see Wikipedia:Spam#External link spamming);
• do your best to comply with Wikipedia's content policies.

In addition, you are required by the Wikimedia Foundation's terms of use to disclose your employer, client, and affiliation with respect to any contribution which forms all or part of work for which you receive, or expect to receive, compensation. See Wikipedia:Paid-contribution disclosure.

Also, editing for the purpose of advertising, publicising, or promoting anyone or anything is not permitted. Thank you. MrOllie (talk) 16:06, 21 November 2022 (UTC)