[Foundation-l] Dumb survey about Commons

Mon Oct 26 19:57:35 UTC 2009

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 12:41 PM, Guillaume Paumier
<gpaumier at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hi Milos,
>
> Milos Rancic wrote:
>  >
>> * And the winner: What is my reason to participate? And there is no
>> *my* reason, even Commons is the free content project? No reason to
>> answer.
>
> The survey was designed specifically to avoid general statements. As you
> very well state yourself, general statements would be quite useless, and
> we want to know the underlying goal of the user. In the case you raise,
> what is the reason why you participate in a free content project? (you
> can answer off-list). I believe the answer would be one of those offered
> in the survey (but of course, I may be wrong).

Because I support free content projects [and because I am a
Wikimedian]. (My visual and sound production is miserable, but I am
actively supporting it by asking those with relevant production to
free their work.)

>> * Then, no possibility to say that I am definitely not working on
>> "quality review, improvement & promotion of featured works"; just
>> "rarely"; as well as that I didn't upload any animation.
>
> I don't really see the difference from a design point of view.
>
> A similar concern I have heard is that some radio buttons should bem
> non-mutually exclusive choices (e.g. for the "what is the main reason"
> questions). I agree it is more difficult with radio buttons, because we
> ask the user to actually think about what their priority is. But there
> again, it is more useful from a design point of view.

I understand the reason for mutually exclusive answers. They help in
making survey shorter. And I understand what you are asking a
participant in survey: to try to be as constructive as it is possible.
However, there is significant number of questions to which I can't
give a honest answer if I want to be constructive. Giving "other"
answer is not a constructive behavior and I contribute with music and
photos rarely, but not with video, which means that I can't make
distinction between those types of my behavior.

The survey software has a good option to fork survey paths. If someone
answered that they've made more than, let's say 1000 edits all over
Wikimedia projects, then such person is probably willing to give more
detailed answers. For a lot of us spending 30 minutes on helping to
improve some Wikimedia project is not a lot. And with good questions
and more possibilities (as you said, instead of radio buttons, check
boxes; as well as more options), you will have much better data.

For example, the first question may be with check boxes ("what are the
main reasons?") and the next one may be with radio buttons ("which one
of [your] main reasons is the most important?") or, better, one with a
scale ("put numbers between one and x to describe importance of the
reason").

Wikimedia community is very complex and it is probably impossible to
make useful simple survey. And there is a lot of space for fine tuning
of surveys: you may drive a user with simple set of questions and
contributor with more complex one.

> Thanks for your constructive feedback. We may continue the discussion
> off-list if you wish.

There is a small number of communities which may give relevant input
in making research about themselves and Wikimedian community is one of
them. So, it is helpful to ask it for input. Because of that I didn't
ask who made that survey privately and raised that question here.
(And, I know that my tone wasn't very nice, but, as I said, I was very
frustrated with the survey.)

I'll contact you in the next couple of days privately about one
research project which seems to fit more into Usability project than
to Strategy TFs.