Finally, what looks like some serious WP stats, Interesting... Options Rating

[the fieryangel]

Off of the WMF blog

First preliminary results from UNU-Merit Survey of Wikipedia Readers and Contributors available
April 16th, 2009

From late October to early November 2008, the Wikimedia Foundation and UNU-Merit conducted the first multilingual survey of Wikipedia readers and contributors in 20 languages. In total, more than 130,000 Wikipedia readers and contributors completed the extensive survey questionnaire (out of more than 300,000 people total who took at least part of the questionnaire).* This level of response far exceeded our expectations, and the data that was collected provides a wealth of information about the Wikipedia community. English, German and Spanish were the most responsive Wikipedia editions and together make up two thirds of the responses.

The UNU-Merit team has spent the previous months cleaning and preparing the data, and is now making available first results for some of our priority questions. Key outcomes of this first analysis include:

* 65% of respondents self-described as readers, and 35% as (mostly occasional) contributors. Former contributors are analysed separately.
* Respondents came from over 200 countries, ranging from 10 to 85 years completed the survey; their average age is 26 years, and 25% of the respondents are younger than 18 years. Female respondents are a bit younger than the average (24 years)
* Among these, readers and contributors are on average in their mid-twenties, and predominantly male (75%)
* Women, with a share of 25% in all respondents, are more strongly represented among readers (32%) and less strongly represented among contributors (13%).
* Both educational levels and age are slightly higher among contributors than among readers.
* Regarding their motivations to contribute, respondents mentioned as their top two reasons that (1) they liked the idea of sharing knowledge, and (2) that they had come across an error and wanted to fix it.
* The concern that they might not have enough information to contribute is the main reason holding back potential contributors, mentioned by 51% of this group. Fourty-eight percent mentioned they were happy readers of Wikipedia, and saw no reason to get involved as contributors.
* The most common reason why respondents have not donated money to the Wikimedia Foundation, mentioned by more than 42% of respondents, is that they don’t know how. (If you happen to be one of them, we suggest you go to donate.wikipedia.org ;-) )

Ruediger Glott and Philipp Schmidt from UNU-Merit have made available additional data in the online workbook of their analysis (PDF file), and we’re planning to give you regular updates with new data every couple of weeks from now on. The survey team also maintains its own website at wikipediastudy.org.

This is a landmark moment in the history of Wikipedia and the Wikimedia movement. These and future findings that will result from this data will help to shape our efforts to reach new contributors and new readers. The Wikimedia Foundation wishes to thank everyone who has made this survey possible, especially the UNU-Merit Team and the community of translators.

Erik Moeller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation

* In addition to the 130,000 responses overall, we’ve received 40,000 responses from the Russian Wikipedia, which very significantly overrepresents this group in the total response set. The survey team has excluded this group from the data until the possible causes for this overrepresentation can be fully understood.

Hmm, the part about 13% of the contributors being women caught my eye...

[Jon Awbrey]

Off The WMF Blog

My sediments exactly …

And another one bites the dust —

Ja Ja

[CharlotteWebb]

Finally, female Wikipedians are significantly younger (24.2 years) than male community members (26.4 years).

They should clarify that this refers to calendar age, not mental age.

[cyofee]

Hmm, the part about 13% of the contributors being women caught my eye...

But the real question is how many of those were born as women.

Of course, that would be tough to ask in a survey.

[Noroton]

Off of the WMF blog

First preliminary results from UNU-Merit Survey of Wikipedia Readers and Contributors available
* Respondents came from over 200 countries, ranging from 10 to 85 years completed the survey; their average age is 26 years, and 25% of the respondents are younger than 18 years. Female respondents are a bit younger than the average (24 years)
* Among these, readers and contributors are on average in their mid-twenties, and predominantly male (75%)

If the *average* age is 26, then it probably takes only one codger to significantly raise the average age and many, many teenagers to lower it. From this, I conclude that the respondents were overwhelmingly teenagers and college-age people. Which seems to be the norm for the editors I've run across. My completely uneducated stab-in-the-dark guess is that the median age is probably about 20.

In other words, the Frat House years, with some spillover. Don't they say that the human mind is still emotionally forming until about age 25?

[CharlotteWebb]

My completely uneducated stab-in-the-dark guess is that the median age is probably about 20.

Pretty close. Survey says "Half of the respondents are are [sic] younger than 22 years".

[thekohser]

Off of the WMF blog

First preliminary results from UNU-Merit Survey of Wikipedia Readers and Contributors
* 65% of respondents self-described as readers, and 35% as (mostly occasional) contributors. Former contributors are analysed separately.

That's the part I'm eager to see.

[Noroton]

The status of the respondents regarding partnerships also corresponds to the age structure of the Wikipedia community, as only 30% of the respondents say they have a partner. Correspondingly, the share of Wikipedians with children is only 14%. The difference between readers and contributors in this regard is negligible.

In other words, there are far more children on Wikipedia than parents with children. So I assume consensus will never get all the inappropriate pics off of Wikipedia, if we define "inappropriate" as "what most parents would want to keep off of their children's computer screens."

In other findings, malcontents, oddballs, the naive, the inexperienced, misfits and misanthropes make up 97.8 percent of Wikipedia readers and contributors. The other 2.2 percent visited the site by mistake.

[Son of a Yeti]

My completely uneducated stab-in-the-dark guess is that the median age is probably about 20.

Pretty close. Survey says "Half of the respondents are are [sic] younger than 22 years".

The sentence was apparently written ad spellchecked by this half.

[The Adversary]

Hmm, the part about 13% of the contributors being women caught my eye...

But the real question is how many of those were born as women.

0%?

I thought that most women were born as baby girls.

[Peter Damian]

... So I assume consensus will never get all the inappropriate pics off of Wikipedia, if we define "inappropriate" as "what most parents would want to keep off of their children's computer screens."

Very sound logic.

Off of the WMF blog

First preliminary results from UNU-Merit Survey of Wikipedia Readers and Contributors
* 65% of respondents self-described as readers, and 35% as (mostly occasional) contributors. Former contributors are analysed separately.

That's the part I'm eager to see.

And that is a good point too.

This post has been edited by Peter Damian: Sat 18th April 2009, 6:31am

[CharlotteWebb]

Survey says "Half of the respondents are are [sic] younger than 22 years".

The sentence was apparently written ad spellchecked by this half.

Eh don't be cruel, I've been known to do that myself. That's what everyone would assume had I not made it clear that it someone else's error.

I guess if I had a big stack of somebody else's money to throw around I could pay some presumptuous quacks to study why I don't stutter when speaking or writing (you know, with pen and paper), only when typing.

This post has been edited by CharlotteWebb: Sat 18th April 2009, 10:19am

[JohnA]

I'm rather surprised that by their mid-20s most of Wikipedia's contributors had worked out which sex they were. Its clearly not my impression.

[dtobias]

I'm rather surprised that by their mid-20s most of Wikipedia's contributors had worked out which sex they were. Its clearly not my impression.

"I think my sex is male, but I don't know if I am black or white!"
-- A parody of Michael Jackson's "Black or White" song

[GlassBeadGame]

I am surprised that there is no discussion of selection or that we would even entertain the results without any information about selection. That the survey indicates a mere 2:1 ratio between "reader" and "contributor" indicates that something is seriously amiss. Looking things up on Wikipedia is very, very common. Editing Wikipedia is rare.

[thekohser]

I am surprised that there is no discussion of selection or that we would even entertain the results without any information about selection. That the survey indicates a mere 2:1 ratio between "reader" and "contributor" indicates that something is seriously amiss. Looking things up on Wikipedia is very, very common. Editing Wikipedia is rare.

Self-selection bias. "Contributors" are probably 10x to 100x more likely to participate in a survey on the site than "Readers" would be. As for completing a survey once started, the differential is likely even higher again by a factor of 2 or 3 to 1.

This is what I do for a living -- remind stakeholders of the inherent biases in survey data collection.

Greg

[LessHorrid vanU]

I am surprised that there is no discussion of selection or that we would even entertain the results without any information about selection. That the survey indicates a mere 2:1 ratio between "reader" and "contributor" indicates that something is seriously amiss. Looking things up on Wikipedia is very, very common. Editing Wikipedia is rare.

Self-selection bias. "Contributors" are probably 10x to 100x more likely to participate in a survey on the site than "Readers" would be. As for completing a survey once started, the differential is likely even higher again by a factor of 2 or 3 to 1.

This is what I do for a living -- remind stakeholders of the inherent biases in survey data collection.

Greg

What he said; you have to be a regular reader just to be more likely to know the survey existed, and a regular enough reader to feel that you should participate.

[thekohser]

A few things look odd to me, from the preliminary report...

For the purpose of this first data analysis we have also removed the response to the Russian version of the survey because it is still unclear why this group of the Wikipedians is overrepresented. (Aren't a lot of proxy addresses served out of Russia?)


The number of English language respondents: 43,912
The number of USA-based respondents: 18,413

Spain and Brazil each pulled more respondents than Great Britain.

Mexico more than France.

Three times more "Ex-contributors" responded than current Administrators.

"Since it is impossible to quantify the universe of people using Wikipedia and how many of them are contributors..." (No, it's possible -- you just didn't bother yourself with a methodology and cost that would have made such quantification possible.)

"...among the resopndents..." (They don't use spell check.)

"Half of the respondents are are younger than 22 years" (Talk like a pirate day?)

Number of respondents in the sample: N=130576
Number of respondents asked the question why they don't donate financially to the Wikimedia Foundation: N=130576

"The least important reason for not donating money to Wikipedia is disagreement with Wikipedia's policies and practices." (Oh, really? Are you sure? Disagreement with Wikipedia's policies and practices netted 9.7% of respondents. It seems that enough of the other people are making donations to keep the project running netted 3.84%. And, I do not trust that my donation will be used wisely was marked by 1.9%.)

+++ +++ +++

Thus far, the preliminary, top-line analysis strikes me as shallow and amateurish.

This post has been edited by thekohser: Sat 25th April 2009, 2:14am