Gerard,
To clarify, what grosses me out ("makes me uncomfortable") is the prospect
of third parties gathering and storing sensitive personal information about
individual Wikipedia editors without proper oversight mechanisms. Health
and medical data is one of the most sensitive kinds of individual data that
exists. In the United States, as in many other countries, access to this
information is heavily regulated--as it should be. Researchers who gather
this kind of data should be held to a very high standard of proof that they
will use the data responsibly, and take specific care to avoid information
leakage. Ideally, they should be held legally responsible for proper
behavior--and that depends heavily on their local jurisdiction and on their
own truthfulness and transparency--things the rest of us in the movement
have little control over. In my opinion, anyone who cares about both
science and ethics should always err on the side of avoiding harm
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belmont_Report>--even if that sometimes
means refraining from asking research questions that have scientific merit
or that could yield practical community benefit.
To your comment about Clarice Phelps, I'm not aware of this individual (or
article?) and do not know what you are referring to. But I would caution
you not to make public speculative statements about the mental health
status of any editor, or make generalizations about the motivations or
actions of all people who you believe have particular mental
characteristics, based on specific incidents you have witnessed or
interactions you have had. If I have misread your statement, I apologize
for the error.
Best,
Jonathan
On Thu, Apr 2, 2020 at 11:29 AM Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijs...@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Hoi,
> We regularly have problems with people. We have people who are banned
> because people think they are problematic. We have banned people who have
> contributed hugely to our projects. The notion that it is stigmatising is a
> notion whereby we wash our hands in innocence, we do not want to know.
>
> It is one thing that you personally are grossed out but I hope you
> understand that given that this is an issue we need to address. It is not
> only people who do not care for rules, it is also the people who obsess
> about rules. You find it in the excessive attention for Clarice Phelps.
> People do get hurt, people do get traumatised because of this inattention.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> On Thu, 2 Apr 2020 at 17:58, Jonathan Morgan <jmor...@wikimedia.org>
> wrote:
>
> > There's this study
> > <
> >
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:The_Construction_and_Application_of_Personality_Profile_Based_on_User_Behavior_in_Wikipedia
> > >
> > but I don't know if it was ever completed (and as you can infer from my
> > posts on the talkpage, I very much hope it was NOT).
> >
> > In general, any kind of psychometric profiling of Wikipedia editors kind
> of
> > grosses me out. But as an armchair psychologist myself, as well as a
> > non-neurotypical individual, sure I'm happy to hypothesize that there are
> > many of us in the projects. It takes a certain mindset to find the
> process
> > of building an encyclopedia using 20-year old software paradigms to be
> > engaging ;)
> >
> > - J
> >
> > On Thu, Apr 2, 2020 at 8:49 AM RhinosF1 - <rhino...@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > > Evening all,
> > >
> > > I hope everyone is doing well given the crazy world we’re living in.
> > >
> > > I was having a conversation with a few users on Discord today and we
> were
> > > wondering whether wikimedia (or users of other similiar sites would be
> > > fine) disproportinately fall into the category of having aspergers,
> ADHD
> > > and other simmilar conditions.
> > >
> > > It would be even better if anyone knew what sort of areas these users
> > were
> > > more likely to work in.
> > >
> > > Following a chat with Issac in #wikimedia-research, I understand there
> > > isn’t much support for this kind of research as users may not want to
> > > reveal this information and there is no clear reason for collecting the
> > > information but if anyone knows of past research or has any
> information,
> > > that would be helpful.
> > >
> > > Stay Safe,
> > > RhinosF1
> > > --
> > > Thanks,
> > > Samuel
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wiki-research-l mailing list
> > > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
> > >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Jonathan T. Morgan
> > Senior Design Researcher
> > Wikimedia Foundation
> > User:Jmorgan (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)>
> > (Uses He/Him)
> >
> > *Please note that I do not expect a response from you on evenings or
> > weekends*
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wiki-research-l mailing list
> > Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
> >
> _______________________________________________
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>
--
Jonathan T. Morgan
Senior Design Researcher
Wikimedia Foundation
User:Jmorgan (WMF) <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Jmorgan_(WMF)>
(Uses He/Him)
*Please note that I do not expect a response from you on evenings or
weekends*
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