[Foundation-l] WMF and UNU-Merit announce first survey of Wikipedians

Sun Jan 27 15:40:10 UTC 2008

"I've just taken a look at the survey and must sadly
say that it needs a
lot of work done to it in regards to spelling, grammar
and questions.
For example: ...is a resident of the[sic] Germany.
Also: IMHO Wiki's
aren't the best way of conducting a survey, sorry.
Other options should
be thought of here, Wikis aren't supposed to replace
everything else on
the web (and Wiki!=editable web)."

Well, that's kind of like saying "Wikipedia articles
have too many problems with spelling, grammar, and
content, so it's not worth bothering with." As a wiki,
problems with the survey can be fixed by whomever
finds them :). IOW, that's what the edit buttons are
for (none of those surveys are protected, as page
protection is very much frowned upon at Wikiversity).

I don't think the Wikiversity resource can necessarily
replace a "professional" survey, but it can be a place
to develop them, much as Wikibooks is used to develop
printed and/or pdf books. One thing we all should have
learned by now is that user-generated content can be
just as good as "professionally" generated content --
in fact it can even be better due to its flexibility
and adaptability. The census suffered primarily from a
lack of interactivity and a somewhat "top-down"
structure, and any survey created by the foundation
without user input isn't necessarily going to ask all
the right questions. Using the wiki approach (mostly
in respect to the wiki "ethic", but also using the
wiki software because that's what happens to be
available) allows us not only to ask questions, but at
the same time we can ask participants what sorts of
questions they would like to ask in turn, and that
second aspect is exactly what we need when trying to
decide what questions would be on an "official
survey", if you take my meaning. 

-johnny.

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