I concur with Phil. That thing is more press stunt than it is a conclusive scientific study. The key thing that makes me discount it is, just like in a survey of articles, Wikipedia as a community is both gargantuan and diverse. The motivation and character of the long tail of contributors who steadily make a few edits a month is obviously vastly different than the top hundred editors by number of edits. I've yet to see a serious sociologist break down and study the community like they would a meatspace culture (though there are those doing so from a purely statistical perspective).
Steven On Sat, Jun 27, 2009 at 3:16 PM, Phil Nash <pn007a2...@blueyonder.co.uk>wrote: > Eddie Tejeda wrote: > >> 'Forget altruism. Misanthropy and egotism are the fuel of online > >> social production. That's the conclusion suggested by a new study of > >> the character traits of the contributors to Wikipedia. A team of > >> Israeli research psychologists gave personality tests to 69 > >> Wikipedians and 70 non-Wikipedians. They discovered that, as New > >> Scientist puts > >> it< > http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn16349-psychologist-finds-wikipedians-grumpy-and-closedminded.html > >, > >> Wikipedians are generally "grumpy," "disagreeable," and "closed to > >> new ideas."' > >> http://www.roughtype.com/archives/2009/06/the_sour_wikipe.php > >> > >> I wonder how the mailing list will react.... > > 1. Small sample, making statistical significance difficult to assess > 2. Selected sample, meaning likewise - did the Wikipedians contribute to > en:wiki or other wikis? > 2a. Sample selection for non-Wikipedia editors? How and from where? > 3. If the questionnaire isn't published, it's incapable of independent > analysis for bias in the questions asked > 4. Peer-reviewed research by whom? > > and that's just for starters. I look forward to seeing the whole lot, > because I, for one, disbelieve such wide conclusions. > > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > -- Steven Walling | @StevenWalling mobile: 360.606.2930 skype: stevenwalling _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
