[1] The usual view is that private and public spaces become blurred on the Internet.
[2][3] There are a number of objections to this stance, which are all relevant to English Wikipedia research.
[1][4] In particular, it can be difficult for researchers to ensure participant anonymity.
[5] One study of 112 published educational technology research papers was able to identify participant identities in 10 of those papers; the majority of these studies had gathered this data under conditions of anonymity.
[5] An assessment of ethics in Internet-based research, together with some recommendations, has been prepared by a Working Committee of the Interagency Advisory Panel on Research Ethics Archived 2016-03-06 at the Wayback Machine(PRE)in Canada.