Beyond the Individual: A Community-Engaged Framework for Ethical Online Community Research

Abstract: Online community research routinely poses minimal risk to individuals, but does the same hold true for online communities? In response to high-profile breaches of online community trust and increased debate in the social computing research community on the ethics of online community research, this paper investigates community-level harms and benefits of research. Through 9 participatory-inspired workshops with four critical online communities (Wikipedia, InTheRooms, CaringBridge, and r/AskHistorians) we found researchers should engage more directly with communities' primary purpose by rationalizing their methods and contributions in the context of community goals to equalize the beneficiaries of community research. To facilitate deeper alignment of these expectations, we present the FACTORS (Functions for Action with Communities: Teaching, Overseeing, Reciprocating, and Sustaining) framework for ethical online community research. Finally, we reflect on our findings by providing implications for researchers and online communities to identify and implement functions for navigating community-level harms and benefits.