On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 9:54 AM, Aaron Halfaker <[email protected]>
wrote:

> I should add that the research-and-data team is also on board with this
> approach.  Honestly, I think it's a little silly that we make the
> distinction between methodological expertise when we split the team up.
>

+1. I should have said "the research team", since we're really one big
data-loving family.



> But "thick data", come on.  We can get a better term than that?  How about
> "meaningful measurements"?  Or we could just call it "competent application
> of methods".
>

Or just... "science" ;) I suspect "thick data" is an unfortunate
consequence of an industry jargon arms race: researchers get listened to
(not to mention hired) in our field if they characterize what they do as
"big data", because that term is hot right now--even though it's really no
more accurate or useful, as a term, than "Web 2.0" was when that was A Big
Thing.

So some qual researchers feel having a catchy term of their own will make
folks more likely to listen to them. I feel fortunate that at our
organization, at least, I never feel like I need to use buzzwords in order
to get PMs to take me seriously. \o/

J


>
> -Aaron
>
>
> On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 11:43 AM, Jonathan Morgan <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
>> Thanks for sharing this, Asaf and Raul. The design research team is
>> (obviously) onboard with this approach.
>>
>> Related: here's a post on doing ethnographic work in a Wikipedia context,
>> written for Medium by veteran Wikiresearcher Heather Ford:
>> https://medium.com/ethnography-matters/what-does-it-mean-to-be-a-participant-observer-in-a-place-like-wikipedia-89d6727276ba#.8yo56x7gk
>>
>> Jonathan "I dearly miss my Nokia 925" Morgan
>>
>> On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 6:04 AM, Toby Negrin <[email protected]>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Asaf --
>>>
>>> Thanks for sharing this. It's a good article and there's a lot to agree
>>> with. Certainly there's a clear need for both qualitative and quantitive
>>> research and figuring out how to combine them is a worthwhile challenge. A
>>> lot of modern productive development practices stress empathy, meeting
>>> users where they are along with big data and we're certainly aspiring to
>>> this level of work in the Reading team.
>>>
>>> Where I think the Foundation and the Movement struggle is on the
>>> evaluation side and I don't think the article addresses this issue
>>> particularly well. Measuring the impact of non-profit work has always been
>>> challenging and will continue to be so. It's certainly true that the
>>> emphasis on big data has been less helpful here.
>>>
>>> Finally, since I can't resist, Nokia failed because they didn't do
>>> ethnographic research on their existing users in Europe and North America,
>>> not potential users across the planet and missed the fact that people would
>>> be thrilled to trade in their candy-bar phones for fancy iphones and
>>> androids!
>>>
>>> -Toby
>>>
>>> On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 5:34 AM, Marcel Ruiz Forns <[email protected]
>>> > wrote:
>>>
>>>> Awesome reading, I liked it a lot.
>>>> Thanks!
>>>>
>>>> On Wed, Jan 27, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Asaf Bartov <[email protected]>
>>>> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Estonian Wikipedian Raul Veede, User:Oop, asked to relay this link to
>>>>> "the metrics people", so I am sending it here and to the Community
>>>>> Engagement team at the Wikimedia Foundation.
>>>>>
>>>>> <http://goog_433392935>
>>>>>
>>>>> https://medium.com/ethnography-matters/why-big-data-needs-thick-data-b4b3e75e3d7#.xxhn4bpvc
>>>>>
>>>>> Cheers,
>>>>>
>>>>>    A.
>>>>> --
>>>>>     Asaf Bartov
>>>>>     Wikimedia Foundation <http://www.wikimediafoundation.org>
>>>>>
>>>>> Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share
>>>>> in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality!
>>>>> https://donate.wikimedia.org
>>>>>
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>>>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> --
>>>> *Marcel Ruiz Forns*
>>>> Analytics Developer
>>>> Wikimedia Foundation
>>>>
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>>>>
>>>
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>>
>>
>> --
>> Jonathan T. Morgan
>> Senior Design Researcher
>> Wikimedia Foundation
>> User:Jmorgan (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)>
>>
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-- 
Jonathan T. Morgan
Senior Design Researcher
Wikimedia Foundation
User:Jmorgan (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)>
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