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Documentation of Design Research recruiting practices
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Document how DR does recruiting for user studies that involve active editors in the Design Research space on MediaWiki.org. Probably goes here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Participant_Recruiting

The process used by the Growth team (RIP) was something like:

  1. document study on the Research namespace on Meta
  2. post an announcement on a public forum about the intent to recruit, the recruitment mechanism and criteria, and link to document on meta. The public forum could be a noticeboard on the relevant wiki(s) or a relevant mailing list
  3. wait a week (if possible) to let people opt out and/or ask questions about the study
  4. send recruitment messages via MassMessage (preferred) or email (if necessary)

The message should include a link/email that people can use to opt-out of this and future research recruiting messages. I suggest we create an opt-out survey so that we can keep all our opt-outs together (tho that would be a separate Phab task).

Here's an example of a message the Growth team sent announcing their VE A/B test. Although this message wasn't about recruitment, many of the same considerations apply: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Village_pump_(miscellaneous)&diff=prev&oldid=662372304

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We do have documentation here: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research/Design_Research/Participant_recruiting

We should add the part about adding a very basic page (on the DR Mediawiki page) with a description of the goals of the research being done, the method, a place holder for where to locate the findings when they are done, and whatever relevant information about the research that is needed to inform about the project.

Do we need to announce every heuristic and usability test we do in a public posting? I am aligned with being transparent and open, and also am aiming to create efficiencies in our recruiting process.

Another thought. I don't want to bias the group of people we recruit by describing the research too much (this is why I keep the research stub pages that I create pretty basic). Let's figure out how to navigate this line.