As another example, the Path of Exile community moved off onto their own community-run wiki domain, but the Fandom variant (which is woefully out of date) continues to be one of the top results when searching for a PoE wiki page.

In some regards that’s inevitable, but it clearly shows what Fandom’s priorities are.

Fandom purchasing Gamepedia and moving everything onto Fandom Wikia was so awful. I’m so upset the Dota2 Gamepedia wiki is now on Fandom, and I’m sure many other communities feel that way for their own community run and community led wiki pages.

Not that I was particularly warm about Gamepedia either, but at the bare minimum I didn’t feel like the page was all ads and no information. Fandom wikis are explicitly set-up to drive as many eyeballs as possible onto advertising and engagement, and are holding actually relevant information for the visitor as a hostage to get those eyeballs. It’s information masquerading as a social media site.

The Runescape community convincing Jagex to cover the hosting costs and moving all their wiki pages to their own set-up has been such a huge boon for their community. It is super unfortunate that for many communities, the community-led wiki pages are a huge trove of information but the companies/games/groups these communities coalesce around have shown little to no interest in merely just financially supporting the endeavor.

The key difference between manifest V2.0 and V3.0 with regards to uBO is in V2, the extension has direct access to the browser’s process in making web requests and can make direct changes to those requests. V3 instead requires the extension to declare a list of urls and the browser will act on the extension’s behalf. This is a very simplified explanation that isn’t in any meaningful depth and misses a ton of nuance.

The outcome though is V3 makes it significantly more difficult for uBO to achieve its goals for its users. It is a downright and explicit downgrade, and when Chrome fully moves to Manifest V3.0, uBO’s ability to serve its core functions will likely be diminished.

The “numbers” are called Discriminators and served a variety of purposes:

• Identity wise it meant multiple people could have the same username text. If you wanted to be John, you could be John#6754 and someone else could be John#1298 and both of you could be John! Now there is only one john.
• It provided parity. EVERYONE had it, therefore no one is better or worse than other excluding particular number combinations. If you were John#5363 and hated the discriminator, well everyone else had one, versus someone behind john, and then someone having to be john_87 because there’s already a john

You argue that being able to use effectively the same username everywhere is a good thing. The unfortunate reality is the rollout Discord used alongside the limited number of permutations (combinations?) of short usernames makes this impractical. For example, a friend largely goes by a 4-char username, and the switch by Discord means they can’t use that 4-char username on Discord anymore. It’s easy to say like “well, just add something to the end”, but that is exactly what discriminators did.

At the end of the day the benefits weren’t as compelling as the losses (it would suck to have one’s identity impersonated or username stolen, or now most folks with short usernames have to stop friend requests cause they are getting spammed with them, or the fact these accounts are valuable and can be sold).

It is understandable that some people don’t really care about the matter and that’s fine, but it doesn’t make the frustrations other few less important.

Reddit doesn’t (at least as far as I know) store a history of edits, so what is saved on the database is what your comment literally is. The reason people suggest overwriting comments is because the comment itself has value (for a variety of reasons), so overwriting the comment with something valueless (in the sense that it has no value for Reddit) is better, so the database itself is updated with that valueless comment.

After that whatever you do with the account is up to you.

I in general find lay people have a very weak understanding of how research functions. This is a very generic statement, but everything from IRB processes to how science is reported in manuscripts and everything in between tends to be a quagmire, and this is absolutely with recognition that some of this process is mired in red-tape, bureaucracy, and endless administration.

For example, there’s a long-standing idea that IRBs are the gatekeepers of research. In reality, any IRB worth their weight (and really, all of them are for compliance) should be viewed as a research stakeholder. They should be there to make research happen and let scientists do the best research they can with the minimal amount of harm to participants. Sometimes this involves compromises, or finding alternatives that are less harmful, and this is a good thing. No researcher should dislike their IRB at all, but criticizing unnecessary process & paperwork is very much a matter of process rather than a matter of what the IRB does. A IRB taking a long time to turn something around is a different matter from the IRB exhaustively reviewing the proposed work and returning questions that need to be addressed.

Another common example is scientific studies are frequently criticized about sample sizes. Yes, a lot of research would definitely benefit from better sampling and larger samples, but narrowly focusing on sample sizes misses a lot of the other considerations taken for evaluating statistical power. For example, if one wants to know whether beheading people results in injuries incongruent with life, one doesn’t really need a large sample to come to this conclusion because the effect (size) is so large. Of course more numbers help, but past a point more numbers only add to the cost of the research without measurably improving the quality of the statistical inferences made. We could instead save some of this money and repurpose it for repeating a study.

And on that note, study replication is very much a really needed thing, particularly in applied research areas where we care a lot about behavioral outcomes. We don’t have enough of this, it is not funded well enough, and by and large the general public is right in that we do need more of this. It’s not exciting to do at all. On the other hand, meta-analysis papers which pull results from a large number of papers looking at a particular topic usually give a helpful benchmark on the broad direction and general take-away conclusions of a particular topic.

In this topic about IRBs, A/B UI/UX testing for the set-up that Reddit did it, and being run out of an university setting? That’s hyperbole. I don’t like businesses doing aggressive user-focused testing without informing the user, particularly with UI/UX changes I dislike (looking at you too Twitch with your constant layout changes), but at the end of the day these kinds of testing generally don’t ever rise up to the threshold needed to be a particularly meaningful blip. Insinuating otherwise vastly mischaracterize how research is done in formal, structured settings.

> But the situation linked in OP is exactly of a user who was so upset by unexpected behavior secretly thrust upon him that he had to go online to ask others for help

You will need to convince the IRB that such an outcome is more than just minimal risk. The very definition of minimal risk refers to the probability and magnitude of harm. Being unable to use a website unexpectedly or being prompted to sign up for an account before being able to view something is very much not a kind of “harm” that is greater than those ordinary encountered in daily life, no more different than accidentally spilling some creamer on a granite tabletop or realizing one forgot their keys and got locked out of their room.

We can torture the words as much as we want to lead to a particular interpretation, but by and large these are not the kind of word meanderings that IRBs tolerate.

I’ve read the rest of your comment and my primary issue is your take on it and the subsequent interpretation(s) are not how these policies and practices are implemented, interpreted, and actioned at IRBs nationally.

For example, this is how Indiana University guides researchers for making exempt determinations when reaching out to their IRB. University of South Carolina’s IRB provides explicit examples.

Firefox’s approach to its in-browser experiments is very much in line with desired and ethical research practices, in so far as we view Mozilla as a privacy-first organization. The availability and “opt-in” to a nightly build is not considered research.

Your contention with not being provided information after the experiment is qualified with “whenever appropriate” and “additional pertinent information”. Debriefing after a deception study is very much appropriate and considered required. However, these are considerations in context of waiving informed consent. I would also point out that “legally authorized representative” in this phrasing refers to people who are legally designated as a representative of the subject, and not the admin of the site in question. For example (broadly), minors cannot legally satisfy “informed consent”, therefore their legally authorized representative, like their parent or legal guardian, are those who sign the forms on behalf of their children. Adolescents may qualify for informed assent. There’s a whole set of additional considerations that experiments much consider for when working with adolescents who reach the age of majority during the research process in context of this.

The waiving of the requirement to document informed consent requires any of the listed qualifications apply, not all. No one is saying that emotional harm is not real, but rather the contention is whether the kind of emotional harm that comes from being forced to log-in to view a website is so significant of a magnitude that it rises above the kind of everyday “harm” experienced in ordinary life. Can you demonstrate that this is the case?

The rest of the discussion about shadowbanning from Facebook and/or other related things are interesting comments but not the point I am making.

Rather, my point is if you replicated the exact same experiment Reddit runs on a University academic setting, it is highly unlikely you will be run out of the university by the IRB from doing so. My point is that, NO, you will NOT be run out of an academic research institute by their IRB for doing something like what Reddit did here, and the way the IRB determines minimum risk and exemptions is part of the reason why, because this specific experiment largely meets many of the metrics for it.

To iterate again, being unable to view the content of a webpage without logging may lead to some discomfort, but this discomfort is not going to rise up to any meaningful level to lead to most IRBs to call it as greater than minimal risk. We can of course twist the situation to make it so, but torturing the very situation to achieve a particular interpretation does not fly with IRB review.

As for Facebook’s psychological manipulation of its users? They can go shove it, honestly.

I don’t like the kind of A/B testing that large corporations do, but I’m not so certain that this particular user experiment Reddit is running would qualify for rigorous IRB review in most academic settings.

Firstly, let’s talk about consent. An IRB can make a determination to waive the requirement to obtain informed consent for research. The IRB must find and document:

(i) The research involves no more than minimal risk to the subjects;
(ii) The research could not practicably be carried out without the requested waiver or alteration;
(iii) If the research involves using identifiable private information or identifiable biospecimens, the research could not practicably be carried out without using such information or biospecimens in an identifiable format;
(iv) The waiver or alteration will not adversely affect the rights and welfare of the subjects; and
(v) Whenever appropriate, the subjects or legally authorized representatives will be provided with additional pertinent information after participation.

Secondly, some kinds of research can be waived from documenting informed consent:

(i) That the only record linking the subject and the research would be the informed consent form and the principal risk would be potential harm resulting from a breach of confidentiality. Each subject (or legally authorized representative) will be asked whether the subject wants documentation linking the subject with the research, and the subject’s wishes will govern;
(ii) That the research presents no more than minimal risk of harm to subjects and involves no procedures for which written consent is normally required outside of the research context; or
(iii) If the subjects or legally authorized representatives are members of a distinct cultural group or community in which signing forms is not the norm, that the research presents no more than minimal risk of harm to subjects and provided there is an appropriate alternative mechanism for documenting that informed consent was obtained.

Insofar as the kind of UI/UX A/B testing which is employed poses minimal risk to the participant and the waiving of the need to obtain informed consent has no adverse effect on the participant, an IRB is likely to make a determination that consent can be waived. It would not surprise me that Universities themselves utilize UI/UX A/B testing for their own websites, both external and internal facing, for improvement. I doubt many would explicitly file a with their IRB to conduct such an experiment, but some may reach out to inquire if there are explicit concerns.

However, at a level even above informed consent, is a question of whether the research is actually subjected to IRB review to begin with. There is a classification of research that is exempt from human subjects review, and some kinds of research do qualify for human subjects review exemptions.

For UI/UX A/B testing, this particular section will have some application, considering a lot of UI/UX A/B testing only cares for aggregate responses to human behavior:

(2) Research that only includes interactions involving educational tests (cognitive, diagnostic, aptitude, achievement), survey procedures, interview procedures, or observation of public behavior (including visual or auditory recording) if at least one of the following criteria is met:

(i) The information obtained is recorded by the investigator in such a manner that the identity of the human subjects cannot readily be ascertained, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects;
(ii) Any disclosure of the human subjects’ responses outside the research would not reasonably place the subjects at risk of criminal or civil liability or be damaging to the subjects’ financial standing, employability, educational advancement, or reputation; or
(iii) The information obtained is recorded by the investigator in such a manner that the identity of the human subjects can readily be ascertained, directly or through identifiers linked to the subjects, and an IRB conducts a limited IRB review to make the determination required by §46.111(a)(7).

Now, one can make the argument that the kind of profile information websites like Reddit have on you is identifying. In practice, “personally identifying information” has specific definitions and the information that Reddit has on you is unlikely to satisfy that criteria.

Finally, this particular set of charts is a helpful reference for whether research even qualifies for IRB/human subjects review to begin with, and walks through the decision points. Notice that one specifically starts with a question of whether the research contributes to generalizable knowledge…

In short, if you ran the exact same experiment Reddit is running in an University setting for an university website (for example, testing whether making visitors create an university website account [???] to view an article published by the University press versus not having to do so makes a difference in engagement metrics), I doubt you would be run out of the University by the IRB. Perhaps the IRB might have a stern word if you failed to check-in with them prior, but even so I’m not confident that will be the case (I’m more inclined to believe the IRB member who you first reach out to will kindly tell you to sod off).

Now with ALL of that said, I still dislike the fact businesses run these experiments. It’s definitely not ethical in the sense that businesses should not be aggressively using its everyday users as guinea pigs for their experiments, but just merely being a shitty thing to do is not sufficient by itself to merit the full IRB process.