[actually_a_dog]

I disagree. The actual paper shows it was approved by the ethics boards of two universities. Here is a quote from the paper describing the actual methodology for creating the articles:

> The experiment featured Wikipedia entries authored by faculty and by law students under faculty supervision, who each had access, through their university library, to all the relevant primary and secondary legal materials available to judges and their clerks. This assurance of accuracy and of informed analysis in the content of the entries — though short of that offered by a specialist textbook — indicates that judges or lawyers would be unlikely to be misled by what they might read.

I find nothing ethically questionable at all about publishing accurate legal analysis on a case anywhere, including Wikipedia.

[jasonhansel]

Unfortunately, some IRBs are notoriously bad at preventing unethical research practices, since in practice they are often more focused on ensuring adherence to various bureaucratic requirements.

The issue isn't that they were misleading anyone; the issue is that they were, for research purposes, trying (successfully) to influence the outcomes of court cases without the subjects' consent.

[actually_a_dog]

No, it absolutely was not an attempt to influence judicial outcomes. It was a test to see whether publishing accurate analysis of precedential cases would cause those cases to be cited more than they otherwise would. Not only is there no harm in doing so (since the information is accurate), neither you nor the researchers can know whether any case outcomes were influenced. And, in fact, the analysis of the paper, which says that the cases were cited more often when the citing judge agreed with the conclusion of the case, which, if anything, suggests that the outcomes of these cases were most likely not affected.

Moreover, if you want to claim this study was unethical, you need to show that there at least could have potentially been harm as a result of it being carried out. Please explain how publishing correct legal analysis of cases anywhere could possibly cause harm.

In short, if you want to make this claim, you need to provide actual evidence, and not just outrage.