Wikiversity:Community Review/Wikimedia Ethics:Ethical Breaching Experiments/Refocus

Refocus
A good bit of the discussion above has actually morphed into content rather than policy discussion (i.e., a discussion of whether these experiments are or can be ethical), so if the content is kept, it might be better to rename the page as Wikimedia Ethics/The Ethics of Breaching Experiments and flesh out both sides of the debate incorporating some of what has been said here. There's no reason not to continue along those lines, but eventually the review itself should (at least I hope) bring us to a clarification of the two policy issues, namely, (1) whether or not the discussion of these breaches within our scope, and (2) whether or not Jimmy should use sysop tools here without going through the regular processes (such as posting on WV:RCA, WV:RFD, or indeed WV:CR. --SB_Johnny talk 12:17, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1: it is within scope
 * 2: he (and also others) should use WV:RCA, WV:RFD, WV:CR, ...
 * As was mentioned in chat: a mentor could help improve understanding of the ideas of WV. Erkan Yilmaz uses the Chat (try) 12:59, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I guess I should weigh in too: (1) yes, it is within scope, as both the issues it deals with and the experiments themselves have relevance for the study of Wikipedia and its history, and (2) I think it's pretty clear that Jimmy is not at all familiar with Wikiversity policies and procedures, so he should not be using sysop-level tools here (I hope he's becoming more familiar through this process, of course). I think he's somehow restricted from using the tools on Wikipedia as well, but perhaps he can clarify that situation himself. --SB_Johnny talk 13:43, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Comment Is research about Wikipedia and the other WMF projects within scope? Sure. Is planning to violate guidelines, policies and other standard expectations of behaviour on our sister projects acceptable? Definitely not. I can't accept that this project was intended to simply be about discussing breaching experiments, it was about getting involved in the execution of these experiemnts as I suggested at 16:24, 13 March 2010. So, if the question is if this project acceptable my answer would be certainly not. Can it be made acceptable, by removing elements about planning experiments, then the answer is possibly, and I and others have made attempts to do this. On the second point, about Jimbo, it is preferable that he would engage with the community through the usual processes but we can't demand he do so. For as long as Wikiversity is a project of the WMF and Jimbo is a key figure in that organisation we have to be prepared for him to get involved. We have to remember that the "community" is simply the users who are active at a particular moment. That group of individuals might not be able to agree on something which is actually in the interests of the project and sometimes it will be necessary for the WMF to intervene to push things back on the course they want WV to take. The WMF board are also obviously not just concerned with WV, they have to look after the interests of the other projects. As WMF project, we have to accept the reality of having to walk their line. Those who find that a constraint to the type of research they want to do can create their own wiki free of any interference from anyone. Adambro 14:41, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * And I think that can pretty much sum up why this is even an issue. Some people think the project does or is intended to encourage breaching experiments on Wikimedia projects. Some people think the project is only researching/documenting breaching experiments that have already happened so people's motives can be understood without the intention of getting involved or doing breaching experiment. What the project's intentions are seems to be the subject of disagreement. I think everyone can agree that Wikiversity is not to be used as an excuse to do breaching experiments on Wikimedia projects. -- dark lama  15:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think the solution is pretty clear, work to clarify the project's focus. Even if it may seem to some like the project is being refocused, the outcome should still be the same. -- dark lama  15:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC)
 * Focusing the definition of WV scope, and improving policies for reviewing projects on the fringe of acceptable scope, would be a fine improvement. –SJ + > 14:17, 18 March 2010 (UTC)
 * I was talking about the focus of the "Ethical Breaching Experiments" work, not Wikiversity. -- dark lama  01:07, 20 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I think that the Adambro comment was well written and I agree with it. I have no real involvement with Wikiversity but I feel it is naturally integral with the other projects. I think Adam was suggesting that users who have gone before and will come after those small few contributing to this page are important and should be considered. I have suggested above in another section that a valid topic which may cover what some editors ere are pushing for would be "How can information become or be used in ways that are harmful?" or to that effect. It would cover your whole topic here, and without the careless suggestion that disregard for ethics amounts to a field trip, could prove to be a point of reference for studying ethics. Studying crime and punishment with special workshops in commiting crime, that's just silly. Focus yourself on the end and use the means to make it real, solid and tight, not to produce yourself as some sort of exhibit. The encyclopaedia is the collection of exhibits. It is not impossible for a haphazard experiment to produce something surprising but experiments without defined goals or educated predictions are playful messing not serious education. That is what you are amounting here. RTG 17:24, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

"improving policies for reviewing projects on the fringe of acceptable scope, would be a fine improvement" (from above) <-- I believe that the Wikiversity community has a sound research policy in place. The problems are created by people who refuse to follow existing policy. Wikiversity's review process for research is community-led, taking the following steps: The Wikimedia Ethics/Ethical Breaching Experiments page should be reviewed and discussed by the Wikiversity community so that community members can decide if the page was actually outside of the scope of Wikiversity research projects. From the deleted page: "ethical breaching  experiment: An experiment which causes no harm in its execution". The purpose of the deleted research project was to explore how ethical breaching experiments "might be designed and executed to best inform policy and practice on WMF projects". It is not clear to me how this research into ethical breaching experiments fails to fall within the scope of Wikiversity research. The matter should be handled according to the usual wiki process: think, discuss, edit. --JWSchmidt 16:17, 20 March 2010 (UTC)
 * 1) People add research to Wikiversity - they are encouraged to flag it appropriately as "research".
 * 2) If not done already, research is flagged with a template placed at the top of the page.
 * 3) If anyone reviewing (i.e. simply reading) the page finds something within the research to be questionable on methodological, ethical, epistemological grounds, they can add an appropriate template - or modify the existing one.
 * 4) The page(s) in question can be flagged for deletion - or a request for comments can be made