UNU MERIT Wikipedia Survey

Wikipedia Survey Wikimania Buenos Aires 26 August 2009 Collaborative Creativity Group United Nations University MERIT Rishab Ghosh, Ruediger Glott, Philipp Schmidt http://ccg.merit.unu.edu schmidt@merit.unu.edu

BACKGROUND • Wikimedia Foundation & United Nations University MERIT • First official Wikipedia survey (for readers and contributors) • Questionnaire developed with community input and building on existing research • Translated into 22 languages by Wikipedia community

BACKGROUND • Online survey hosted at MERIT. Code reviewed by WP technical community • Survey went live November 2008 • Link to survey was posted in page headers of WP sites • Staggered across different language editions to deal with traffic loads

RESEARCH QUESTIONS / OBJECTIVES • Who is contributing to Wikipedia and how? • Who is using Wikipedia? • What are users' and contributors' perceptions of quality? • Pragmatic findings that help the WMF improve use and benefits. • Establish baseline for possible monitoring system (panel studies)

SCOPE • Questionnaire contains 50+ questions (with sub-questions) on a broad variety of topics and is broken down into sections: – General, Contributing, Reading, Non-contributors, Ex-contributors • 310,000 users/contributors accessed the survey • 175,000 valid responses

ANALYSIS • Extensive data cleaning (removed more than 3500 cases) • First sub-reports shared with WMF – Survey Overview (available via blog) – Non-contributors (for WMF presentation) – Quality

ANALYSIS - NEXT STEPS • August 2009 – Share moderately anonymized data with WMF and make available additional sub-reports • November 2009 – Publish comprehensive survey report (including all sub-reports) • Post publication – Open access to all fully anonymized data

LANGUAGE EDITION SURVEYS • 22 languages (incl. 2 surveys for chinese) • Started with largest language editions • Added further editions based on interest by WMF, availability of volunteer translators, and diversity of sample • Top 5 language editions ~ 80% respondents • Russian largest group (tested against manipulation)

LANGUAGE EDITION SURVEYS

LOCATION • Responses from 231 countries

USER/ACTIVITY TYPES • Readers 66% Contributors 31% • Contributors: 4 hrs / week • Additional categorization based on focus areas

AGE • Quartile: 18 yrs - 22 yrs - 30 yrs - 85 yrs Type Avg Age All respondents 25.22 Readers 24.79 Contributors 26.14 Female 23.79 Male 25.69

GENDER • Gender by user type • Female: 30% readers, 12.5% contributors

EDUCATION • High levels of education (esp. given avg ages) • Contributors slightly higher than readers (~ 50% with tertiary education)

MOTIVATIONS TO CONTRIBUTE • Ranked motivations (1st - 4th)

REASONS FOR NOT CONTRIBUTING

HOW TO INCREASE CONTRIBUTION • I would be much likelier to contribute, if …

FOCUS AREAS AND EXPERTISE • Culture & Arts most popular, Technology & Applied Sciences (then History, Geography) • 70-90% of contributors self-identify as “experts” • Highest shares of experts in technical and scientific fields • Focus areas do not correspond perfectly with expertise levels. “Geography & Places” attracts high levels of contributors, but comparatively low levels of expertise.

FOCUS AREAS AND EXPERTISE

PERCEPTIONS OF QUALITY • Quality compared to “traditional” encyclopedia – Reliability (only category where “traditional” received higher scores) – Broadness – Variety – Depth – Understandability – Timeliness • Compare reader and contributor responses

QUALITY - RELIABILITY • The information provided is correct

QUALITY - DEPTH • The information provides deep understanding of a topic

QUALITY - VARIETY • A wide range of topics is dealt with

PERCEPTIONS OF QUALITY • Contributors are both more critical (reliability, understandability) and more supportive (all other dimensions) than readers. • Relationship between transparency, understanding of the processes and mechanisms, and perception of quality.

ANNEX – ADDITIONAL TABLES

MOTIVATIONS TO CONTRIBUTE

REASONS FOR NOT CONTRIBUTING

UNU MERIT Wikipedia Survey

by Philipp Schmidt on Aug 26, 2009

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