Wikipedia:Subject Recruitment Approvals Group

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This is a proposal to create a Subject Recruitment Approvals Group which will assist researchers who require subjects from Wikipedia to participate in a study in accordance with Wikipedia:Research. The group would direct the operation of a SubjectRecruitmentBot, which - subject to approval by the Bot Approvals Group - would contact Wikipedia users who match the selection criteria.

Recruiting subjects

A researcher recruiting subjects by contacting users directly on their talkpages would need to be familiar with appropriate guidelines such as Wikipedia:Spam, Wikipedia:Canvassing, and Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines, in particular the view contained within WP:OWNTALK: "all discussion should ultimately be directed solely toward the improvement of the site."

Researchers who consult with the Subject Recruitment Approvals Group prior to recruiting may encounter fewer negative responses, and are less likely to fall foul of Wikipedia's various guidelines and policies.

Researchers who have a registered Wikipedia account, especially with a prior history of positive contributions/interactions within Wikipedia, and who are familiar with Wikipedia's policies and guidelines, are more likely to be received favourably by the Wikipedia community.

Researchers may apply to the Subject Recruitment Approvals Group for assistance with recruiting subjects via this form:

Apply to recruit editors

Review

After an application is filed, it will be reviewed by the Wikipedia community (both SRAG members and non-SRAG members are welcome). During this time, modifications can be made to the application to extend the information or address concerns that are raised. Whether or not an application is approved will depend on the consensus of those participating in the discussion. Consensus should be called by an uninvolved editor and should take into account the above requirements, relevant policies and guidelines, and discussion of the application.

If an application is approved via consensus, the approved application will be moved to the list of approved applications, and SRAG members will aid the researcher in configuring the sampling parameters to create a sample of Wikipedia users and make recruitment postings through SubjectRecruitmentBot.

If denied via consensus, the researcher(s) may resubmit an application with modifications. Previously denied applications that are resubmitted without material changes may be summarily rejected.

After approval

Once a study has been approved, the recruitment of subjects will operate as follows:

Researchers create a random sample of editors.
SubjectRecruitmentBot posts a recruitment message to the talk pages of users in the sample.
Recipients of the recruitment message decide whether or not they wish to participate.
(Optional) In studies where recruitment has an end date and that end date has passed, the message will be altered to indicate this.

Changes to approved studies

Should a researcher wish to modify a study after approval, whether or not the study needs to be resubmitted to SRAG for approval depends on the sampling requirements of the modified study. If the modification does not affect the sampling requirements and recruitment messages have already been posted to subjects, no further interaction with SRAG is necessary. If recruitment messages have not yet been sent, or the modification requires the recruitment of a different subset of users than the original study, the application must be resubmitted and reviewed again.

Members

Membership of SRAG is open to anyone interested in the process; especially useful are people who:

have an understanding of the scientific method and/or experience in the design and implementation of research studies; and/or
who are familiar with Wikipedia's policies, guidelines, culture and norms

Please add your name below:

Member list

Members with "Recruiter" as yes have access to SubjectRecruitmentBot.

User	Recruiter?	Joined	Notes
Active Members
EpochFail (talk · contribs)	No	2010-05-21	computer science, researcher
PiperNigrum (talk · contribs)	No	2010-05-21	computer science, researcher
Josh Parris (talk · contribs)	No	2010-05-21
Axl (talk · contribs)	No	2010-05-24	Physician & pulmonologist

Current requests

Wikipedia:Subject Recruitment Approvals Group/Requests/Wikipedia and Medicine: A Look at Readership, Editor Numbers, and the Significance of Language