Wikiversity:Community Review/Wikimedia Ethics:Ethical Breaching Experiments

Wikimedia Ethics/Ethical Breaching Experiments‎

Several hours ago, User:Jimbo Wales deleted 2 subpages (this and this of the Wikimedia Ethics project, apparently in response to a request on Wikipedia. I left a note on RCA when I first saw it, and have since discussed it on IRC and found the discussion on his WP talk. He also indef blocked the primary contributor to the page.

It's quite clear to me that this is out of process:

1. The project does seem to fall within Wikiversity's scope, as established by precedent in numerous and exhaustive discussions surrounding most of the other pages in the Wikimedia Ethics project. As this page was primarily simply an investigation into breaching projects that have taken place on Wikipedia, it is clearly within the scope of Wikipedia studies.
2. Unlike the materials in that project that were found to be objectionable, this was because they were perceived to be attacks or inappropriate criticism of individual Wikipedia editors. This page does not do that.
3. Since the page seems within scope and I didn't see anything in User:Privatemusings' other contributions, the block was inappropriate as well.
4. The only "background" to this seems to be this note on Jimbo's WP talk page, which is insufficient reason for the actions he performed here.

While Jimmy is perhaps deservedly venerated by some or our community, I don't think we would let this stand if any of our Custodians went outside of process in this fashion, and he should go by the same standards that we do. I would like to have a community review of this to settle the following:

1. Does this project lie within our scope (it seems to fit within current policy, therefore this can't be resolved at WV:RFD).
2. Should User:Jimbo Wales be required to engage in community discussion before using sysop tools? (He has neither gone through mentorship nor an RFA here, and is hardly an active contributor.

Thank you. I agree completely and would like to emphasize that what I want to do here is empower this community to have stronger policies against this kind of trolling and disruption. You have important work to do here. One of the most important ways to build a community is to set down very clearly what you are NOT. Strong community does not come from an "anything goes" attitude - but from rallying around a set of principles that define the mission in such a way that productive work can be accomplished.--Jimbo Wales 14:53, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Jimmy, the main policy that went through for dealing with these situations was Wikiversity:Community Review/Policy and process, which is why we're here now. Various limiting policies were discussed as well, but we couldn't come to agreement on a line that wouldn't end up throwing out babies in the bathwater, so case-by-case discussions and the following of precedent were adopted to allow better flexibility. --SB_Johnny ^talk 12:06, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I haven't seen the pages you deleted Jim, nor am I familiar with any history that may be regurgitating in this discussion (I'm pretty new to WV). But I'm guessing the two pages were offensive in some fundamental way, and that a Wikimedia Foundation policy generally was enough to justify the deletion..? If it was simply troll content, would a policy necessarily have addressed the issue? I take it a no-deletion policy is now considered not possible? Perhaps its the experience of others that such a liberal policy only feeds trolls, I dunno. In my experience it is weak and premature policy that feeds trolls.

What I'm mostly wondering is if it is a policy that is needed to "empower" this community, or more support for the community in the first place so that we can realistically create policy? As I've said, I am new to the community, but on seeing mention of the WMF Board discussing the closure of Wikiversity, my commitment to helping build this community is wavering. So, you could say you and the board is presently disempowering a community and prolonging the absence of policy therefore.

I am not saying 'keep out of it' quite the opposite. I'm asking for a clearer indication of what you think the Board expects, what their commitment is to Wikiversity, and what they think they can do to help strengthen the community and not undermine it. I think a statement such as this is now needed more than ever if empowerment is what its about. Thanks Leighblackall 06:22, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Hi Leighblackall, the pages were Wikimedia Ethics/Ethical Breaching Experiments and Wikimedia Ethics/Ethical Breaching Experiments/planning. Sorry for the confusion. --SB_Johnny ^talk 12:06, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Thanks ahead of time for your thoughts on these issues. --SB_Johnny ^talk 13:17, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

• Endorse deletion and the right of Jimbo, as a member of the WMF board, to take actions such as this as he considers appropriate and in the interests of this project or sister projects. The block, or more specifically the length of the block, is perhaps excessive. On the material in question, that something may be in scope, or at least as it is currently set out, does not mean it is appropriate. In my view, most of the "Wikimedia Ethics" work that we've seen has been misguided and poorly thought out. This is simply the latest example. Discussions about such content can be carried out at WV:RFD. Just because content doesn't necessarily fall outside any guidelines it doesn't mean we can't consider deleting it at RFD.
• I would acknowledge that it would be helpful if Jimbo could explain his reasons for taking these actions. I can fully understand why he has done but it would be useful for everyone to have a clear statement about this situation that can provide guidance as to what future work is and isn't appropriate.
• I think a few in the community here are being naive to think we can reasonably expect to host projects such as this or should consider doing. These kinds of projects are clearly going to be controversial and as a small project I don't believe we really have the policies, guidelines, and processes in place to deal with any problems that will inevitably arise. We would be much better focusing on creating learning resources that have a much wider appeal to the public and aren't going to cause as much hassle. I think people are perhaps attracted by the excitement of these kinds of project but blind to reality of the consequences. We've seen Wikiversity try to act as the Court of the Wikimedia Foundation and analyse conflicts that have occurred elsewhere and inevitably found users turning up irritated about that. We now have attempts to organise sock puppetry and similar "experiments" on our sister projects that would violate their policies and some seen unable to foresee that might not go well.
• Nothing of any value would come from allowing this project to continue here. Jimbo is completely right to try to nip this in the bud to allow us to concentrate on creating proper learning resources that might be of use to someone. Adambro 13:59, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

It's undeniably true that the WMF board could grant its members individual rights to do pretty much anything on WMF projects. I don't believe for a moment that they would ever actually pass such a motion though. Board membership is a red herring here. 87.254.92.101 14:17, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Responding to Adambro's comments:

Jimbo clearly did not have time to discuss this with the board, and his current position is honorary in any case. He's also not supposed to interfere with content in this manner according to the general rules (and/or laws) of the game. I should also point out that other pages in that project failed to be deleted at RFD because there was no policy to exclude them, and these pages are arguably less offensive than some of the others were.

From what I understand (and I've also read some of Privatemusings' comments on the project at Wikipedia Review), the goal here is to examine the ethics of these "breaching experiments". The experiments were already going on (and I suspect continue to this day), so there's no harm discussing them and documenting them. On the contrary, having them in an open document like this should be helpful for those who are on the other side and are looking for ways to prevent the breaches and/or the problems the experiments are meant to expose.

As far as Jimbo having free rein here, I should point out that the last time he got involved turned out to have very destructive consequences for the community, and in fact he was less than honest in his description of the "endorsement" he recieved from the 'crats. He needs to discuss things in the open, on the wiki, with the full participation of the community. His status as founder does not give him license to act unilaterally on this wiki. --SB_Johnny ^talk 14:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Board discussing closure of Wikiversity

I am currently discussing the closure of Wikiversity with the board. That is an unlikely outcome, but I mention it because I really want to press the point that the scope of Wikiversity has to be restricted to genuine OER. I think that my actions here are strongly supportive of the genuine community who want to do that, making it clear to them that they have very strong support for making it happen. Some may feel that Wikiversity should be a place for silly and juvenile experimentation. If people want to discuss such things, there is an entire Internet open to them - they should not hijack Wikiversity for these purposes.--Jimbo Wales 14:49, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

This has been discussed and reviewed endlessly over the past year or two (since the original project was started). Wikipedia is a notable topic for research and study, and there is a fairly broad consensus that Wikiversity is a good place to do it. The board members are of course welcome to participate in this discussion: our community is open to all and all opinions are valued. --SB_Johnny ^talk 15:10, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Wikiversity has plenty of research projects. People were already discussing that the pages you deleted should just document how its done, why its done, how it can be resolved, rather than encouraging people to go out and do it. People can goto a university or school and learn about system security and how people hack into computers in order to prevent it. This should be no different if done appropriately, which Privatemusing is open to doing. One user who even admitted to you that he knows nothing about this project took it upon himself to call on you because he wasn't interested in Wikiversity process. If anything I think that user should be blocked for disrupting Wikiversity. Your discussions of closing this project will likely only encourage more people to leave and perhaps drive people to do research projects elsewhere. I think finding an appropriate way to research known problems is not juvenile of us. I think RTG's actions were juvenile. Are you aware that RTG made some inappropriate and rather juvenile changes to the pages you deleted before he or she wrote you [1][2]? -- darklama  15:18, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

That actually reminds me of a segment I heard on w:NPR on Thursday about "hacking contests" held by Russian software engineers at some university in Siberia. They are more or less endorsed by the university to help train people to build more secure systems (since if you don't know how to hack, you won't know how to defend). I'm not sure how to look up the story though. --SB_Johnny ^talk 15:21, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Just to be clear. I don't think anyone is endorsing that Wikimedia servers be used for the purposes of training people how to hack. -- darklama  15:33, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I wasn't saying that. It's just that there's no harm in documenting what's been done and how, since it's already happened. --SB_Johnny ^talk 15:34, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I support the closure of Wikiversity by the Foundation. Plainly the Foundation cannot countenance any attempt by any of its projects to damage other of its projects and so damage the purpose of the Foundation itself. Jon 15:37, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Maybe Wikiversity needs a policy along the lines of Wikipedia's "no legal threats", but wide enough to encompass similar threatening comments. On second thought perhaps it's best to let people make their threats. Observing them do so can be very educational. 87.254.92.101 15:54, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I am alarmed to see that the Board is discussing the closure of Wikiversity! Is Wayne Mackintosh still on that Board? Is Eric Moller still working on Wikieducator projects? This is not to say anything about their professionalism or actual interests in such a discussion, but it is to point out a potential conflict of interest on position alone if the Board is discussing such a thing! At the very least, I hope to see the record of such a discussion, because the mere mention of such a thing has severely dented my confidence in Wikiversity and the Foundation with it. A colleague and I are preparing to start training staff at The University of Canberra on how to participate in Wikiversity and sister projects. Just last week, we were discussing a considerable investment of time and IP around Nutrition and Health topics. Needless to say - seeing this remark from Jim will have to to be taken into account before we commit to such work. It is very disappointing :( Leighblackall 05:59, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

• Recuse - see below in "My similar deletion" for my primary role in the matter. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:20, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

To Jimbo Wales: being a big fan of OER in general and WV in particular, I have to say that the information about the "closure" hit me very hard. In fact I was writing a longer comment, but deleted it afterward to focus more on the crucial question:

• Who proposed the closure of Wikiversity? Name(s) please... Who propose such a thing, should stand behind it as a person.
• Do you want have WV closed?

Sincerely, --Gbaor 19:32, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I raised it as a possibility. I stand behind it. I do not want to see Wikiversity closed - very far from it. What I want to see is Wikiversity's community feeling brave enough and strong enough to simply ban trolls on sight, and ask them to take their silly projects somewhere else - they can start their own "breaching experiments" site if they want. This project could be one of the most important and most exciting projects in the entire universe of education - and I think it can and will become that. But not unless the Foundation and the community take the potential seriously. If we can't take it seriously, and if we can't support this community towards positive goals, we should shut it or spin it off and let someone serious do it.--Jimbo Wales 01:48, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Thank you for your honesty! What I don't really understand, why you proposed the closure if you don't want to have it closed? At this point I also feel that I have to react to some of your comments:

• "...Wikiversity has to be restricted to genuine OER." - I don't think that WV should be restricted to anything. What I value above all in this site is its openness. The content of pages you deleted were questionable, but as for me, this is not a reason to delete and ban without discussion. If one just removes the planning part and keep the "documentary" part from past events, it would be much better and even interesting. Besides we are not a conventional OER, we are WV - the sister project of WP - an unconventional encyclopedia. The difference between us is the openness and several thousands of active contributors.
• "...the community take the potential seriously." - I want to assure you that everybody here takes the potential seriously. I would like to invite you to take a "WP vacation" and stay with us a little bit more, so you can see that the community here is about.
• "...let someone serious do it." - What do you meant by this? Any candidates already? Anyone with interest in building the site is most welcomed, but frankly the meaning of your last sentence for me is: Stick to the rules or you (WV) will be replaced. --Gbaor 09:16, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Breeching ethics in a real world and digging holes in the garden

Breeching ethics is a break in the rules. You do not do that in any university. You are likely to be expelled for such behaviour because it is not a matter of how ethical you see it but a matter of how ethical you didn't see it whilst continuing to act, i.e. the ultimate incompentence, the liability. How about a police psychologist around dropping litter and parking out on the road as an experiment in breaking the law. He is absolutely crazy, with no capacity for the job. You can't think of him as a competent professional any more. I don't know about closing Wikiversity because I have not been studying it and all I know of this project is a few very good pieces of work, above and beyond the scope of this rubbish. But of Jimbo acting like this I can say, it is Jimbos perspective when finding somebody digging holes in the back yard that lends his position some merit. He doesn't interfere with the running of the wikis save for promoting and explaining them, he gave them away to us in fact, but when somebody is digging holes in the back yard and everybody else in the house has been chatting about it for three months, Jimbo is liable to walk out there and say, "Clear off!". The ultimate and obvious findings of ethical breeching experiments: The breecher gets fired. RTG 16:05, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Nobody is condoning or endorsing law breaking. However people do break laws. Social scientists, psychologists, philosophers, engineers, lawyers, law enforcement, and perhaps people in many other fields like to study why people break laws, how they break laws, when do they break the law, etc. -- darklama  16:18, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

As I've said on IRC, this was never simply about passively observing "breaching experiments", aka violating policies to make a point. The description, "On this page we discuss, brainstorm, and possibly execute ethical breaching experiments" on Wikimedia Ethics/Ethical Breaching Experiments, and on Wikimedia Ethics/Ethical Breaching Experiments/planning where it says "make some notes about your intended experiment" make that clear. Unfortunately the idea of studying breaching experiments here has been tainted by the proposal to use Wikiversity as a base for launching attacks on our sister projects so if it ever was an appropriate subject to study here, it certainly isn't now. Adambro 16:24, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

N.B. almost certainly an "ethical breaching experiment" is intended to mean carrying out a breaching experiment in an ethical manner. I think you (RTG) have understood it differently to that. Clearly breaching experiments, carried out ethically, can be accepted in academia and are not intrinsically a firing offense. Possibly what you want to argue is that people here are clothing mischievous behaviour in academic language in order to disguise the mischievous nature (I don't necessarily agree with that but it could provide the basis for a reasoned discussion). 87.254.92.101 16:27, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

How can you conduct a breech of ethics in an ethical manner? You should be working on cold fusion. Certainly the project in its core invites disruption of the projects. "Experiments" is a very perspective driven word for the title. I have suggested a Hall of Fame on the talk page and elsewhere a set of barnstars. We used to get little stars in our school and we performed quite well. RTG 16:32, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

And, yes it does condone and endorse. Alludes to performing breeches of ethics and has suggestions sections. What train are you on? Wake up. RTG 16:33, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Experiments in breeching fire safety. Let's perform experiments like this in our own home. Who is up for it? No, it's not a very good line of experiments. RTG 16:37, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm having a lot of difficulty following you RTG. Is it your contention that all breaching experiments involve breaches of ethics? Or just that the ones that would be discussed on that particular project would do so? 87.254.92.101 16:45, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I'm not having difficulty following you, but I think you're making a category mistake. WP:POINT is not an ethical or moral principle, but rather just a guideline agreed to in the hopes of avoiding community strife (since, after all, what is done on a wiki is just as easily undone). The point for Wikiversity is that these breaching experiments have indeed taken place, and have had considerable effect (w:Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Biographies of living people being the obvious example of a political movement within the community in response to the sorts of experiments documented on the page in question). Were the experiments in violation of Wikipedian norms? Yes. Did they do any harm to the "living people" who are the subjects of the articles? No. Does the end justify the means? Well, that's the question being asked on that page. --SB_Johnny ^talk 19:20, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

The kind of experiments given on the page, such as inserting false information or creating false biographies are harmful. Not necessarily to the subject of the article, even less likely if the subject doesn't exist, but potentially harmful to people who are trying to use Wikipedia. I very much doubt anyone could come up with a "breaching experiment" that wasn't harmful but that question is irrelevant if most of these experiemnts would violate policies or guidelines, organising experiments which involve violating a sister project's policies or guidelines is not something to be done at Wikiversity, whatever the community consensus at the time might apparently say. Jimbo has a responsibility to look after the WMF projects and that will at times involve going against what many people may think. It is a credit to him that he isn't afraid to do so. I hope that he will, whilst considering what has been said here, restate that this type of content is inappropriate and that it should be deleted. This isn't the Wikipedia Review wiki. Adambro 19:40, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

The false information added was very intentionally constructed to be "non-harmful", and I can confirm that as I've been following it. I'll try to get the diffs for you.

That's the whole point of the ethics of the experiment: do no harm. I assume Privatemusings will have something to say on this, but I'll also ask the experimenters to weigh in. --SB_Johnny ^talk 20:10, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

The idea that adding any false information to articles can ever be "non-harmful" is a concept I struggle to understand. Nevertheless, diffs to look at are always appreciated. Adambro 20:16, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

This is a good point - SB_Johnny is, I think, considering harm only to the article subjects. But if I write graffiti in chalk (very fixable) on someone's house, and that graffiti is carefully worded so as not to offend anyone, has my act caused any harm? I think you, and many people including me, would say "yes, you caused harm; you put graffiti on that guy's house".

One problem here though is that we're discussing exactly the ethical issues that the deleted page apparently existed for. If I were to go so far as to say "ah, but how about a breaching experiment arranged like <hypothetical experiment>, that would be completely ethical, right?" then I'd have gone to the next step of actually designing an ethical breaching experiment. Should I then be blocked and this page deleted? 87.254.92.101 20:42, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

While an abstract discussion of non-offensive chalk on someone else's house could very well be interesting in a sophomore philosophy class, it has little bearing on the current case. It may be fun to speculate on cases where this sort of thing could be ok, but that should not deter us from recognizing that this should have been deleted and the perpetrator blocked for doing nothing more than annoying and disrupting others. I encourage this community to quickly grow strong policies to prevent such juvenile nonsense going forward. Are you a serious effort to generate free OERs that will change the world, or are you a sophomoric place for trolls? It is within your power to choose.--Jimbo Wales 04:21, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

It wasn't intended to be abstract - it's a direct analogy. The question was raised as to whether inserting untrue information into Wikipedia could ever be non-harmful. SB_Johnny made the point that the information inserted was carefully designed to be non-harmful (like the chalk graffiti). I think that deliberately messing someone's work up, even in small ways, is always going to have some element of harm whether in an encyclopedia or on someone's house. Now you might feel that's trite or simplistic but I think it has "bearing on the current case". With regards to "sophomore" I think you were intending to be insulting (if your aggressive manner in this discussion is itself a breaching experiment then I think it very effectively makes a point) but realistically a university or even a wikiversity is a place you should expect to encounter sophomores, materials aimed at them and discussions involving them (though hopefully much more than that too). 87.254.92.101 10:18, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

If the rules were designed to be impervious, you'd really be on to something. Imagine hacking for a company or burgling past high tech defenses, like James Bond or something, wow! But, let's consider a similar and non-harmful experiment. Let's have the police ring the fire brigade and time them to see how long they took? "Did anyone get hurt?" you ask the fireman when he arrives expecting a fire. Then, how do we focus study be on the most notable fire brigade ringers of the past? Are they quite ingenious? That's all you've got here, public service phone numbers, Bart, not fort knox vault breaking. The rules are not even designed to prevent harm, they are designed to control the addition and removal of information. There may be a few parts of that which say that information can be harmful. Why don't you study that? "How can information become or be used in ways that are harmful?" There's definitely more scope for that one, it would more than cover your Wikipedia attacks and it would appear that is the topic folk are suggesting. It would also be quite useful in defining ethics. Possible a major point of reference. Or really must you ring the fire brigade too? RTG 16:36, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Some of the other subpages in the project do actually cover how harm can come about from that. Or at least they did... I haven't really had a look in a while. --SB_Johnny ^talk 17:19, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

My similar deletion

This is a page I deleted. It was a socking guide. I deleted it with a user page statement as to the reason why. Discussion can be found here. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:50, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

By the way, as the primary admin who first took it upon himself to deal with this issue on March 1st, I am sadden that no one came to me first, especially when I deleted the most harmful of the material. I find it odd how my deletion was ignored in the original discussion, and that it seems as if Wikiversity took no steps towards correcting the problem. Ottava Rima (talk) 19:56, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

Ottava, I'm glad you've been on the case, but I don't understand what your issue is here. Who was supposed to come to you, and what were you expecting?

From my perspective, the issue here is how it was handled by Jimbo, and what we should do from here. --SB_Johnny ^talk 20:45, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

This shows that RTG knew of my deletion and instead of coming to me, went to Jimbo and acted as if no action was taken about the matter. Ottava Rima (talk) 20:54, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

I rolled back one of RTG's contribs as trolling. If you feel more response is required, you should make the response. --SB_Johnny ^talk 21:51, 13 March 2010 (UTC)

WMF Board discussion about closing Wikiversity

Note: This discussion relates to this info from Jimbo Wales.

Sigh.

• The more deletion without community discussion the more we foster the motivation to sockpuppet harmfully undetected. How to do this info and discussion of course goes on elsewhere.
• The board discussion about closing Wikiversity (a different review topic?) - would it perhaps also be related to those in the Wikieducator camp?

-- Jtneill - Talk - c 00:17, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Regarding the "board discussion about closing Wikiversity" - could you point to that discussion JT? The relations and plans there have always troubled me, and if I'm about to invest energy encouraging my Institution to work on WV, I'd like to be sure those troubles aren't going to come back and bite me again. Leighblackall 01:08, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I've added a heading and note with link above. -- Jtneill - Talk - c 01:15, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

I am confident that Wikiversity will adopt firm policies in line with other WMF projects against trolling. The key is that this needs to be a serious, responsible, professional project, and not a haven for "breaching experiments" and attacks on Wikipedians. Stick to serious work, and all will be fine. It's really up to the community here to get things under control so that serious work can happen.--Jimbo Wales 04:11, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Jim, could you or someone point to a log of the things that the Foundation consider in need of control? Sorry if this request repeats discussion history elsewhere). I was not aware that WV was seen as a haven for trolls, breaching experiments (what are they?), and attacks on Wikipedians. I admit I don't have the overview that other custodians of WV would - (I'm trying hard not to get drawn into these things so I can focus on content generation and user recruitment across Pedia, Books, Versity and News), but my experience with WV to date has been excellent by comparison say to Wikieducator. Leighblackall 05:40, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Breaching experiments are experiments involving breaches of social norms. While they can be instructive, they pretty much by definition cause discomfort and potentially animosity in those involved (especially those unwittingly involved), so there are inherent ethical issues in carrying them out. 87.254.92.101 09:54, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Leigh Blackall has blogged some further thoughts on this: Is the Wikimedia Foundation going to close Wikiversity? - -- Jtneill - Talk - c 11:06, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

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 Wikiversity: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. -- darklama  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. -- darklama  15:22, 14 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)

Wikimedia Ethics

Why does the resource Wikimedia Ethics/Ethics on Wikipedia and the Internet appear as a subfield of Wikimedia Ethics/Ethical Breaching Experiments? Are there signs that the whole area has been approached with careful thinking? RTG 17:32, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Not sure what you mean by "subfield", but both pages are part of the same project. You might want to ask on Talk:Wikimedia Ethics, as this really isn't an issue for this discussion. --SB_Johnny ^talk 17:37, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Thoughts from Privatemusings

First, thanks to SB for unblocking me - I'm pleased to be able to participate here, and in WikiVersity in general (I'm not the most active, but I've enjoyed my time here for a couple of years now, and do intend to continue participation, hopefully).

I support the new project / page name (from 'ethical breaching' to 'the ethics of....') - and hope that a few of the people who have commented here are up for signing up or just generally helping out - a few folk have mentioned that they feel it would be useful if I said a few words about my intent when I started the project - I kinda feel that this diff (the start of the page) sums it up. It seems to me that the 'possibly execute' bit I mentioned there is what has caused the most trouble - I'm happy to see that gone from the current project, and (as I mentioned over on en) I think the project is going to develop slowly, and everything will be discussed out in the open - to be clear though, I have absolutely no plans to encourage / enable / design / execute / get involved in any way with any breaching experiments.

In regard to Jimbo's ations - I received a short email from him after he blocked me, which I'm yet to respond to - I think he's been hasty here, and I hope the entire situation will now calm a little, and talk of closing wikiversity etc. can move on to more productive discussions.

Finally, I'd like to encourage anyone from board member to curious lurker to pop in to my talk page at any time if you have any questions / concerns / ideas / advice etc. etc. - I've promised for quite a while that I'll stop absolutely anything that I'm doing and listen and discuss concerns. I'm also committed to abiding by any consensus. Perhaps reiterating these extant committments will help those still worried to feel that there's a positive way forward. Cheers, Privatemusings 23:37, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

just a quick note to say that I also replied to Jimbo via email. Privatemusings 00:01, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Some comments

Similar breaching experiments of Wikipedia have been published in professional journals [3], or have received considerable (and sometimes positive) coverage from popular media [4][5][6]. The references for these breaching experiments are used as citations in the article w:Reliability of Wikipedia, as notable measurements and indications of Wikipedia's reliability. I do believe that breaching experiments, under controlled conditions, are the only way to test certain aspects of Wikipedia's reliability. However, because misinformation harms real people, research ethics mandate that any breaching experiments be performed in a way that includes a carefully thought-out attempt to minimize incidental damage to the integrity of the wiki. I don't think this was done here. For example, the attempt to transform the fabricated article into a DYK probably led to the misinformation being gratuitously broadcasted to more people than was necessary.

On this particular wiki, we've already got a proposed policy that could be interpreted as prohibiting Wikiversity from hosting any "breaching experiments" of Wikipedia--Wikiversity:No shrines for vandals. It seems to me that just as Wikiversity should not protect, sanction, glorify etc. the people who disrupt it, it should also not sanction or glorify the people who disrupt its sister projects. This could include recognizing people who commit blockable offenses on Wikipedia as some of its "original researchers," with the offenses being the "research." At this stage in its development, Wikiversity's research is largely informal, and Wikiversity lacks an organized system of peer review for researchers to receive ethical and scientific feedback on their experiments. This, I believe, is a major shortcoming of our research facilities. Ideally, the experiment should have been recognized as a problem while the research was still taking place, by fellow members of the Wikiversity community who were giving it feedback. For example, in addition to the ethical problems discussed above, I also believe there were several scientific problems with the research, such as the lack of discernible controls and clearly-articulated hypotheses. In the absence of an organized system of research review and feedback, certain other policies such as "No shrines for vandals" probably need to be strengthened to prohibit the misconduct here. There is an ongoing discussion about developing a Wikiversity:Original research policy, and this type of clause would also fit within its scope. --JacobFrank ^{purification through transgression} 05:22, 15 March 2010 (UTC)

Where are the Wikiversity admins?

This breaching project should have been deleted on sight and the editors involved banned as trolls. Where are the Wikiversity admins and why are they not protecting the integrity of this project? The fact that Jimbo had to intervene is a sad commentary on the diligence of the admins here. It is especially troubling to see that two of the main people defending the breaching project, darklama and SB Johnny, are administrators here. Ottava is to be commended for at least objecting to the most blatantly problematic aspects of this project. I don't understand her reluctance, however, to delete the rest of it, nor the lack of any action by the other admins here to put an end to such trolling. Kaldari 15:44, 15 March 2010 (UTC)