Editor survey feedback

This page collects feedback from respondents about the Editors Survey, 2011 that is being conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation. If you have any questions and concerns about the survey, please feel free to share your feedback in bullet points with us. If you have any concerns about privacy, you are free to share your feedback with us anonymously.

For the survey, click here for a direct link.

→ See the FAQ, then add your story

Feedback

Statement of confidentiality. The survey says "We will not share any individually identifiable data with any outside organizations or use the data in any way that is not associated with the objectives of this survey." But the general Wikimedia privacy policy says that there are circumstances when information may have to be released, specifically in response to a subpoena. Does this apply to the survey responses? If so, we should qualify the statement of confidentiality by reference to the general policy. Lloffiwr 13:14, 12 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reply received today at 13.34 on translators-l@lists on wikimedia.org. Lloffiwr 23:07, 16 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

When you arrive on a blog post it does not say who the author is. GerardM 10:55, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]
Typically there are no illustrations and the length of text prevents people from reading the whole text. GerardM 10:55, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

General questions and comments

I looked at the survey that's currently being translated: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Editors_Survey_2011/Translation/en

How was this survey written? Who wrote it? Do the author(s) have any background in surveying?

It seems very long and overly complex. Some of the questions it asks seem unnecessary given that you could query the information based on the user providing the input. Will the username of the person being surveyed be recorded and stored? If so, for how long? (I know you talked about releasing only anonymized data, but I imagine plenty of people would like to know how many people such as sysadmins or those administering the survey will have access to this data and for how long, if it's being stored at all.)

The survey also seems to use some language that won't translate very easily (if at all) into other languages. Terminology and phrasing are particularly important in surveying, so this seems more important than it typically would be.

If a user starts the survey, gets bored, and doesn't finish it, will the results be partially saved?

Can a user choose not to answer particular questions? For example, if a user did not want to answer the gender question, can it simply be skipped? If it can be skipped, is this recorded as a skip ("I choose not to answer")?

What survey software is going to be used to conduct the survey (and where will it be hosted)? I remember one of the past surveys used some particularly bad software that wouldn't allow simple user behavior, such as hitting the back button on your browser.

Is the survey software smart enough to not ask questions if a previous question has been answered in a particular way? For example, if a user answers "no" to participating in future surveys, will the software still ask for an e-mail address?

Why is it an option to choose "unregistered user" if the survey is only being provided to registered users?

Certain terms in the draft are in bold (e.g., "Global South"). Will these be in bold/highlighted in the published survey? If so, why?

A question about a user's sexual orientation is conspicuously missing (given that several other questions reference sexual orientation). Was this an intentional omission? If so, why?

Is there a concern that a question such as "Do you know whether the Wikimedia Foundation that runs Wikipedia is a nonprofit or for-profit organization?" might have biased results given that the survey introduction specifically notes that the Wikimedia Foundation is a non-profit [organization]?

Some questions will presumably have a long list of possible answers (e.g., "What is/are your primary language(s)?"). Will the order of these possible answers be alphabetical, based on referring wiki (put English at the top for users who come from the English Wikipedia), or something else?

Will referring site be tracked (assuming this survey is conducted on a separate domain)?

Is there a reason only Wikipedia is being targeted? It seems to me that figuring out why other projects have such lower rates of participation would be pretty important/valuable information, for example. And is there a reason the page at the strategy wiki isn't more clear about the fact that this is limited to a specific wiki family (i.e., "Editor survey feedback" vs. "Wikipedia editor survey feedback")?

Who will be in charge of determining which data is released and how? If a data trend is embarrassing to the Wikimedia Foundation, there might be an incentive to not release that data. Is there a way to combat this? Who has final say over what information is released?

Apologies for the slew of questions. I skimmed the FAQ, but didn't see any of these answered. If I've simply missed some of these answers and they're posted elsewhere, feel free to just drop a link as a reply. :-)

--MZMcBride 01:05, 11 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymous?

First: CheckUsers are always able to track you so for them it's never anonymous unless you fill them out in an Internet café...

In the personal questions should always be the option "Don't know/Don't want to tell"

Examples:

"Do you have children?" - Men, including me, in certain circumstances don't know...
"Monthly income" - Freelancers and criminals don't want to reveal this for obvious reasons.
"Gender" - Even this may cause problems incase of 'transsexual' and 'transgender' (BTW those words are synonyms)

Patio 11:28, 13 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Hey Patio, thanks for leaving feedback. CheckUsers actually cannot track your responses to the survey. The survey will not done on a wiki, so CheckUsers do not have access to the information. In addition, transsexual and transgender aren't actually synonyms, neither in English nor in your native Dutch (, ). The point is for them to pick the one that's closest to their gender identity, so we give a few possible answers. Cbrown1023 talk 19:31, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Checking our memory?

The introduction to the survey says "The survey is being conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation, the nonprofit that runs Wikipedia and its sister projects". Is it a good idea to have later on the q:"D14. Do you know whether the Wikimedia Foundation that runs Wikipedia is a nonprofit or for-profit organization? Please choose one." ? best Matanya 10:41, 15 March 2011 (UTC)[reply]
There's a similar question above: #General questions and comments. Nemo 08:35, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sister projects

Now that the survey is a permanent project («plan to conduct it a similar survey twice a year»), I don't understand why you don't plan any survey for sisterprojects editors. We've already had several surveys on Wikipedia editors and absolutely nothing about sister projects, it doesn't seem wise to continue like this. Nemo 08:35, 19 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

"None of the Above"

On the question about types of interactions with other editors, there should be a "none of the above" option. Bk314159 18:57, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I'm unable to complete the survey because of this. It won't let me move on to the next page. I haven't had any of those interactions - the question even acknowledges this by saying "may have had". The next question is also broken ("Below is a shorter list of interactions you have had within Wikipedia community...") There's nothing listed, but it's tagged as mandatory. Could this be fixed ASAP? --87.194.252.236 14:35, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Errors in German version

The language selector only has "Deutsch (Sie-Form") for German, i.e. that would be German with the formal "Sie" form of addressing; however, in fact the survey uses the informal "du".
The first question is "Wie viele Bearbeitungen hast du schätzungsweise seitdem insgesamt getätigt?" - this is somewhat broken; "seitdem" means "since then" or "since that time", but we're not told when "then" is supposed to be. Just without "seitdem" it would better, I think.
The country selection dropdown box is sorted by TLD which can be counterintuitive - I didn't see Switzerland (German: Schweiz) immediately, as I naturally looked under S, but it's sorted between Canada and Chile, as Switzerland's TLD is ch.

I didn't continue filling out the survey after that point because I think it's a potentially privacy-threatening thing. Too many questions which, when combined, can make an individual quite identifiable aren't optional. The FAQ says "Individual responses will not be associated with any user" - however, I suppose that it's recorded which answers belong to one set. As it is, for example, not optional to state your level of permissions, e.g. someone who is the only admin in a small language Wikipedia would be immediately identified. Gestumblindi 19:17, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Confirmed. The survey starts with question D1b instead of D1a (en: Thanks for agreeing to participate in the editor survey. To begin, we are going to ask some questions about you. What was the year when you first started contributing to Wikipedia? (Please provide the year in the following format: 2009, 2010 etc); de: Danke, dass du eingewilligt hast, an dieser Umfrage teilzunehmen. Zu Anfang werden wir dir einige Fragen zu dir selbst stellen. Wann hast du begonnen, bei Wikipedia mitzuarbeiten?). Since I had no idea what was asked in D1a, I simply couldn't answer D1b... BTW, I closed the form 'cause I could answer D1b – where can I access it anew? Alfie ↑↓© 22:52, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The translation in German for the first question was not exactly the same in English. The original question in English was: "Since you started editing Wikipedia, how many edits have you made in total (Please don't include any edits by bots)?" We got the question in German translated and revised yesterday to "Wie viele Bearbeitungen hast Du mit deinem Wikipedia-Benutzeraccount schätzungsweise insgesamt getätigt? (ohne Bearbeitungen, die Du mit Hilfe von Bots getätigt hast)"Mani Futures 16:51, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

This translation is somewhat broken. First, it mixes Du (uppercase) with deinem (lowercase), the translation uses lowercase only. Second, it just asks about a single account, whereas this was meant in total (all Wikipedias, all accounts?) (which gives a totally different meaning). Better would be: „Wie viele Bearbeitungen hast du in Wikipedia insgesamt getätigt? (ohne Botbearbeitungen)“ (this is additionally shortened). – Giftpflanze 21:37, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Strange questions in German version

Ich kann die Umfrage nicht beenden, da einige Fragen leider völlig unklar formuliert sind, aber nicht ausgelassen werden können.

Wie viele Bearbeitungen hast du schätzungsweise seitdem insgesamt getätigt? Seit wann? Worauf bezieht sich das?
Gibt es in dem Land, in dem du lebst, ein lokales Wikimedia-Chapter? Was ist ein Wikimedia-Chapter?
Bitte sage uns bei jedem Benutzerwerkzeug, ob es die Arbeit an der Wikipedia verändert. Verändert im Vergleich zu was oder zu wann?
Falls du in den nächsten sechs Monaten weniger aktiv werden würdest, was wäre deiner Meinung nach die wahrscheinlichste Ursache? Wieso "würdest"? Wieso ist das als Frage über die Zukunft formuliert? Wieso wird nicht die Gegenwart erfragt?
Welche dieser Geräte benutzt du, um Wikipedia zu bearbeiten? Ein digitales Musikabspielgerät Ist das ein Scherz?
Kannst du dich daran erinnern, dass in den letzten sechs Monaten andere Benutzer wegen einem der folgenden Dinge auf dich herabgeschaut haben? Die Frage ist doppelt.

Jetzt habe ich, um einmal alle Fragen zu sehen, irgendwelchen Unsinn eingegeben, der leider gespeichert wurde, weil am Ende kein explizites Absenden stattfindet. Und nun? Fließt mein Test (sid=52769) jetzt mit in die Auswertung ein?

English:

How many edits do you did since then? Since when?
What is a Wikimedia Chapter? Some questions are about this. Not all can be skipped.
Tell us for every tool how it changed working on Wikipedia. Changed compared to what or when?
Editing Wikipedia with an music player? Are you joking?
There is a duplicate question. Maybe it's a copy & paste error, I don't know.

Please delete my answers (sid=52769)! I entered crap that should not be saved but it was saved without asking me. --TMg 22:15, 20 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

First question is reworded now.
For the first question (Is there a local Wikimedia Chapter in the country where you live?) there is the possibility to answer “I am not sure”. There is no need to know what a chapter is. Possible translations include Landesorganisation, Landesverein, Landesverband. At translation time I decided to leave it untranslated, because it is also used this way. Other questions can be answered neutrally, as I see.
Compared to if the tool would not exist. Are you better with or without it. The column heads should give sufficient hints. – Giftpflanze 18:42, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

As I said I entered crap because of the strange questions I could not answer. Could you please delete my answers so I can try again? Maybe the questions do make more sense now. --TMg 14:06, 5 June 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I screwed up, plus a comment

I took the survey.
1. I screwed up. It asked how many edits I had done. I had no idea so I looked it up, but I read the results too quickly and thought it said 2500, which seemed low. After submitting the survey, I went back and noticed it was actually more like 18,000. I apologize for this. I'm sure it skewed your results at least a little.
2. The survey asked a lot of questions about my race, gender, sexual orientation, etc. and how, if at all, I had been treated based on this. Wouldn't it have made more sense to ask first if I had revealed any of that demographic information on Wikipedia? I hope you find this useful. --Crunch 04:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Bad typo

I'm guessing that "I conduct quality review and asses articles for featured-article selection" on the second page of the English version (under "Below is a similar list of activities...") should be "assess"... BryanG 05:17, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for pointing out the typo. Mani Futures 16:52, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Some privacy related issues

I got the invitation to this survey via de-wp.

I wondered which organization named 'wikimedia' conducts this survey? wm-de? Foundation? No hint in the invitation banner, no hint on the survey start page, no link to an imprint. Not good.
Is it conducted by some employees of wm-foundation? Or by an external service provider? No hint anywhere.
Why isn't there any link to the wm privacy policy?
"This survey is anonymous. The record kept of your survey responses does not contain any identifying information about you unless a specific question in the survey has asked for this." This made me laugh: The 2nd question is about my age and a red asterisk indicates that this is a mandatory answer (at least i assume that it is mandatory, since there is no explanation anywhere on this page). It sounds like 'We won't ask you for personal data unless we ask you for it.' I cancelled the survey at that point.

--Gnu1742 07:20, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Anonymizing problem

This survey has a problem with anonymity. It asks about the main language in which the responder writes and about his type of user - regular, sysop, bureaucrat etc. In small wikis there are very few bureaucrats, so even though the username doesn't have to be supplied, it will still be easily guessed.

I suppose that it's hard to escape this question completely without hurting the efficiency of the survey, but I would nevertheless like to know: are the answers saved in a way that allows anyone to cross-check the above data and identify the responder? Who can access this data? For how long will it be retained?

Thank you. --Amir E. Aharoni 07:29, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree and have already pointed this out above (see Errors in German version): if you're e.g. the only admin in a small language edition of Wikipedia, you're immediately identified. So, I think these questions (and not only these) should be optional for privacy reasons. Gestumblindi 21:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Sitenotice seen twice

Despite Editor_survey_FAQ#Why_will_a_user_see_the_link_to_the_survey_only_once.3F_How.3F, I've seen the centralnotice (in Italian) on de.wiki and then (in English) on en.wiki, where it didn't disappear when I clicked the cross but wasn't shown again afterwards. Nemo 09:41, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Questions I didn't understand

(And where I gave random answers because of Editor_survey_FAQ#Can_the_respondent_.22skip.22_questions.3F. Nemo 09:41, 21 April 2011 (UTC))[reply]

Performance

D20a-d: what does «performance of ... in contributing to the Wikimedia movement» mean? "Performance" is difficult to translate and perhaps as a non English native speaker I have some additional difficulties, but beside that, I didn't know how to respond: not only it's very difficult to judge, but what should I consider? How "good" one is? How "important"? How big its actual positive/negative impact is? And should that be with regard to what we've achieved, or should it include an assessment about the overall current achievements (which can be considered good or bad themselves)? Nemo 09:41, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Reputation

What does this question mean: «From your perspective, what is the best way to gain reputation in the Wikipedia community?»? Reputation in my eyes (things I consider important when I "assess" a user) or in the eyes of the community (things I see the community consider important), or rather with regard to what I'm actually doing (things I did and on which I feel my personal reputation depends on)? For instance (random examples following), one could think that vandal fighting is the most important thing hence vandal fighters should be highly considered, and that despite this the community actually cares only about how many articles you wrote (or viceversa), and still think that the best way for him to gain reputation is to work on requests for deletion because that's the only thing which he's able to do and is well considered. Nemo 09:41, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree that query was badly worded - I answered the 'From your perspective, what is the best way to gain reputation in the Wikipedia community?' question as if the question had said "From your perspective, what has the biggest impact on your reputation in the Wikipedia community?" when I did consider for a long time aswering it as if the question had said "From your perspective, what should members of the Wikipedia community work on to give Wikipedia a good reputation?" 81.105.52.155 09:15, 26 April 2011 (UTC) looks like I don't have a 'wikimedia' account but my Wikipedia account is [EdwardLane][reply]

Bad survey, launched before it was finished

This is a good example of a bad survey: questions most Wikipedians cannot answer immediately ("how many edits did you make so far?"), privacy related questions that cannot be skipped, an, above all, a link you only see once, and in my case, didn't work at the time. I got another link to see what this survey was about, and I am not happy with it. Please stop this thing, do your homework, and don't put up another survey before you've done your homework properly! - Quistnix 10:57, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I suppose that that's the reason it's called a "pilot survey". It does have issues, but it's not bad enough to scrap. Contrariwise, it should be tested by more people so that the feedback would improve the next survey.

I do agree that showing the banner only once is quite weird. --Amir E. Aharoni 11:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The dutch translation is wrong and confusing in a big percentage of the questions, words which do not even exist, english questions, questions which are mixed english and dutch, questions which have an answer which is 100% the same text as the question. Etc. etc. Mvg, 212.123.136.181 11:11, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Agreed with above: I did most of the Dutch translation, but apparently this hasn't been used, as the raw text on Meta is mostly right, while there are mistakes in the real survey which are correct in the raw text. I propose to stop this survey immediately and review it, let the community decide if it's ok, and not only the translators, so that this never occurs again. - Kthoelen 11:16, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The survey is currently disabled on the Dutch Wikipedia, by community consensus, due to very bad translations and severe privacy concerns. TheDJ 07:51, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Why should I even start the survey?

Given the "Achtung: Javascript ist in Ihrem Browser deaktiviert. Es kann sein, dass sie daher die Umfrage nicht abschließen werden können. Bitte überprüfen Sie ihre Browser-Einstellungen." message at the top of the page, I'm not even going to bother starting this thing. Too chancy that it doesn't even work and would just be a waste of time. ... And indeed it doesn't work, because the thing apparently doesn't only want Javascript it also wants Cookies. No dice. Btw, one of the "Sie" isn't capitalised as it should be. --94.134.220.68 11:24, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Most or all questions should be optional.

I started doing the survey, as I am keen to help the Wikimedia foundation. (My main point of contact is English Wikipedia.) However I stopped when I got to questions like "gender" with radio-button answers and no option to give no information. ("Age" was also a compulsory question, but the form accepts the obviously "non of your business" value of zero.)

Every question about personal information should be optional. If you want to guard against accidentally missing a question, then include an explicit "no answer" option on every question. I refuse outright to provide some information "on demand", and will not participate in a survey if I cannot withhold the answers that I choose to be optional. Even some information that I would disclose in discussions on public forums (eg Talk pages) I will refuse on principle to provide to a survey.

I do not believe that my opinions are any less relevant or helpful just because my gender or other personal details are unknown to you. If they are, then perhaps you need better statisticians. I could simply lie about some or all of those personal details, but I strongly believe that constructors of surveys need to be told in no uncertain terms that some of this stuff is none of their business. Mitch Ames 12:28, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You should check out the FAQ section of the survey. One of the big objectives of the survey is to gather baseline data on demographics of Wikipedia editors. Based on the feedback of the community, we made some of the questions optional. Mani Futures 16:59, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

In some countries, surveys with questions like the ones I've seen, are subject to privacy laws. Who are you thinking you can override these laws? - Quistnix 20:54, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mani Futures, the survey will only gather "baseline data on demographics of Wikipedia editors" who aren't particularly concerned regarding their privacy, i.e. the result will probably not reflect the demographics of European Wikipedia editors well, particularly, as privacy issues tend to be a bigger thing here than in the U.S. (see several controversies between the EU and U.S. regarding privacy laws). Gestumblindi 21:09, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Mani, I did check out the FAQ, and I see that the objectives include three objectives (bullet points under first question) other than "baseline data". I couldn't find these questions or the answers:

Why does knowledge of my gender etc matter to my "technology ecology", "motivations behind contributing to Wikipedia", or "interactions editors have with others"?
Why do you need to know my gender etc to "provide a better experience for [editors]".

You might seriously consider the possibility that some people will deliberately lie or provide random information for personal questions, so your statistics may be inaccurate. It might be better to know that X% choose not disclose their gender, rather than wondering how accurate your gender percentages are. I believe that one of the advantages of online communities in general is that participants can choose what they reveal about themselves. I would have thought that "forcing" online people to reveal personal information about themselves is just asking for:

Heavily biased results - especially about interactions with others online! - as some types of people will not participate.
Inaccurate demographic data, as some participants will lie or enter random data for things that they do not want to disclose (while still giving accurate answers about things that we think you should know about).

Mitch Ames 02:03, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I agree all questions should be optional since some people are apparently... fussy, for lack of a better word, and would be tempted to skew the results otherwise. That being said, I cannot understand why anyone would withhold their gender, of all things, from a survey. What exactly are you afraid of? What's the downside of giving that information? It may well be relevant. In my experience, male and female users do tend to behave differently on Wikipedia and have notably different responses to some things. I may or may not be right, but this is what these surveys are for - and if everyone refuses to answer "personal" questions, we will never know. --Urzică 15:56, 28 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Is there a way to resume the survey?

I saw a link to the survey on a wikipedia.org page. I did may be 10% of the survey and then saved it. Is there a way to resume it? Or restart it? 128.197.60.65 15:55, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

If you decide to save the survey, there is an option to email it to yourself the link to take the survey at your convenience. Mani Futures 17:06, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I never got that email, may be because I mangled the address.128.197.60.65 17:14, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I am in a similar position; I never received an e-mail to continue. I actually ran into page errors that did not allow me to continue the survey, and of course, pressing back on the browser ruined everything. I find it furstrating that I cannot even start over to correct the problems and complete the survey. Lhynard 18:46, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Terrible from a scientific viewpoint

As a scientist I'm interested in the research questions behind this survey. The FAQ says:

Gather some baseline data about Wikipedia editors.
Shed some light on the technology ecology of the editors, especially understand what their online experiences are outside of Wikipedia.
Understand the motivations behind contributing to Wikipedia.
Understand what kinds of interactions editors have with others within the community.

Well, maybe a first year student could affort to come up with such a research proposal, but nevertheless I wouldn't accept it whatsoever. To start, the simple fact that you use twice the word some ("some baseline data", "some light") is a very clear indicator that you have no clue what you are going to look into. Anyway, what is meant with

baseline data?
technology ecology?
online experiences?
motivations?
interactions?

These are all vague to outright nonsensical concepts.

There seem to be 50 questions. Thus at least 1225 correlations can be made between 2 questions. Combined with correlations between 3 and more questions and "basic information from your user profile" this already huge number of correlations increases dramatically. Which of these correlations are actually going to be used? For example, which questions are going to be compared with the age of the user?

Given the absurd length of the survey it is of course very improbable that you will get enough participants to draw statistically sound results. Moreover, you'll create an extreme bias for patient people. Impatient people - maybe 80% of our contributors? - will not manage to finish the survey.

But suppose in the end it has all worked and you have gathered the whole terrible amount of data. You even managed to find a classroom full of lonely nerds to analyze the data within a few months, so you have your answers. Then what are you going to do with this data? For example, it turns out that 0,27% is a bureaucrat and of them 93% has ever been harassed, in contrast to 36% of normal users. How can this information ever be used to solve the problem of harassment? Or any other problem?

Er... do you even have a clue which problems you want to know about? 132.229.117.120 15:57, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Most of your comments have no scientific or statistical validity. Firstly, correlations are not the only way of conducting scientific analysis. There are several other useful techniques of conducting analysis or presenting data. The survey is not an absurd length. It takes about 15 mins to finish the survey. If you would like to have a serious discussion about statistics, please write directly to me via email. Mani Futures 17:04, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I doubt whether you did understand the main message of my comments.

The problem is: there is absolutely no clarity about which questions and problems you are going to investigate. The goals formulated in the FAQ are far to general and vague. Talking about statistics or about the general set-up of the survey only makes sense if you have detailed research questions and proper hypotheses. If you have them, please provide them, to make a rational discussion possible. If you don't have them, there is no hope. 213.247.64.12 09:16, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Just one comment: it took me far longer than fifteen minutes to complete, especially puzzling over what exactly I was supposed to do with the discrimination questions; by nature I would never think of attributing any negative responses to my being female/non-white/bisexual unless this was painfully obvious. sonia 03:25, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Cannot get to the survey

As expected, I got an invitation to the survey via my dewiki watchlist. But the link to the survey only refers to the same page again (it is circular), so that I cannot get to the actual survey.
That the translation and assembly of the survey was not optimal was to be expected after all. Is the right way to improve the next and further surveys to further translate e.g. meta:Wikipedia_Editors_Survey_2011/Translation/de? – Giftpflanze 16:02, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I would advise against working on the translation right now. When we relaunch the survey later this year, you should participate in the translation process, and we are hoping that the next version of the survey will be far improved Mani Futures 16:56, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

On the English Wiki I see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page# which of course goes straight back to the main page. I imagine there's some Javascript in there, but it's not working for me. Looking at the page's source code in my browser and searching for "survey" for some reason doesn't show it. I've searched through en.wikipedia.org and meta.wikimedia.org, and can't find this survey, so I'm unable to complete it. Isidore 09:52, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Frustrating invitation

The survey invite flashed once for me as I was quickly moving between pages and I missed the chance to click on it. Going back didn't bring it back so there wasn't an immediately obvious way to get back to it. Even ignoring all effects on sample bias and survey participation rates, this is simply frustrating. --Gmaxwell 17:12, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I tend to agree- I've seen it thrice in several hundred page loads, the last two after I already had filled it out. Courcelles 22:58, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, for your feedback, I informed the engineering team that set up the notice. Mani Futures 23:18, 21 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Where's the survey?

I clicked the banner off and now can't find a direct link to the survey? Jtneill 00:52, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Seeing Banner Multiple Times

I completed the survey on my home wiki, but every time I go to a different language wikipedia it pops up again. Minor technical point and definitely not a priority. --Banana04131 06:49, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

You are right. The notice to the survey can be seen once in each language projects. Mani Futures 18:10, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I've had an option to fill out the survey 3 or 4 times just from the English Wikipedia (all since I filled it out) - so clearly the cookie is not working properly - I'm pretty sure I've not deleted it. [EdwardLane]

Invitation at all

I feel, that the invitation is keep as secret as possible. I have not yet seen one. Any many users may not realize that there is only one chance.

Once you log in to your account, the notification will show up in 2 page views. The notification does say that you will see it once, please click on it now. But you can save the survey and take it later. 99.113.32.44 22:03, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Can one resubmit his answers?

Hi,
This evening I took the survey and in one point I had to stop and save the answers till I would get back to it. Then I went back to it and finished answering the rest of the questions, till getting the message declaring that I finished it and that it was successfully submitted. I then opened my mailbox and found a message sent to me when earlier I had to leave the computer. In that message there was a link I could use for getting back to the survey. Well, just out of curiosity I clicked on the link (even though I had already submitted my answers) - guess what: I got back to the last page of my survey (with my answers marked already) and then I was able to (surprisingly) re-submit my answers! Again I got a message thanking me for filling the survey saying that it was successfully submitted. I now ask: is it possible that my answers where written to the database twice? On the other hand, it took me quite a while to finish it, so I hope that by doing it I didn't delete my answers from the database altogether. Either way, this is a bug that in my opinion should be fixed. Thanks, Ldorfman 22:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Two observations on the questions

Questions about harassment were framed in terms of being harassed because of one's gender (and other personal characteristics). I have certainly been subjected to harassment of a sexual nature (and other personal characteristics), but I answered "no" because the harassers acted without regard to my actual gender (and other personal characteristics). E.g., trolls who call everyone a faggot are equal opportunity jerks. Other survey respondents probably interpreted the questions in a variety of ways, so it is not clear what the results will actually measure. The twin problems of discrimination and of indiscriminate harassment are correlated but distinct issues. I don't think the survey's attempt to distinguish types of harassment will shed much light on what is happening.
My principal activity is at a sister project (95%) rather than at Wikipedia (5%). I answered questions specifically about Wikipedia in terms of my experience there, but answered questions about the "community" in terms of my experience in all Wikimedia activities. It was only after completing the survey that I read the FAQ and learned the survey was intended to be about Wikipedia only. This might make my response a statistical outlier, but it is consistent with my understanding of what "the community" is. I understand that some people define the community more narrowly, but I believe it does the community a disservice.

~ Ningauble 15:52, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

harassment questions

I felt these questions were all very poorly worded I wasn't sure whether to answer 'have I ever felt harrassed' or 'have I ever seen instances where I have felt other people were being harrassed' and I don't think I've ever see it get to a personal level in regard to me or anyone else - but yes of course you see the odd troll, but that's not related to the people's personal profiles. [EdwardLane]

Strange german translation

I started to answer the questions but stopped with that on the first page. The german translation has too much unclear and strange answers with some mistakes. What is a "Lokales Wikipedia-Chapter"? Never heard about that in the last six years in the de-Wikipedia. Comparing german "Diplom" and "Bachelor" ist the next problem. And so on... so I decided to break off the survey. --79.240.253.38 17:34, 23 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

UPPLhatedadisabld!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

+DUNXPEKTEVRYthinANSWERD,DISRESPCTFLtimethiefs!!!!!!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.184.194.62 (talk • contribs) 05:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I have RSI, just the same as you do.

If you feel that Wikipedia has "stolen your time", well, no one's forcing you to linger around.
The lack of comprehension of your shorthand (which is incredibly difficult to read, as well as looking a lot like test-vandalism on first glance) can't be attributed to bigotry; it's one of many coping mechanisms RSI sufferers can use and perhaps not the most productive one.
More importantly, you were blocked not because of being disabled, but because you were incivil and hostile.

That is all. sonia 00:39, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think this translates as "You people hate the disabled, don't expect everything answered, disrespectful time thieves." [EdwardLane]

n=usrHOSTIL,asevrythere!!!!!!!!!!

endlesklikin,4gotanswer-play'genamadeus,f.idjets!!!!!!!—Preceding unsigned comment added by 111.184.194.62 (talk • contribs) 05:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Could you, please, be more clear on your next coments? They don't appear to make sense until now. Thanks.” T_eleS (T _{M @ C G}) 05:50, 24 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think this translates as "Hostile as ever their endless clicking, forgot to answer plagueing Amadeus fidgets" but I'm not sure - can anyone else make out what the chap is saying ? it's not seeming terribly constructive anyway [EdwardLane]

monthly income pointless details

The survey asks about "approximate monthly gross income (i.e. the total income per month, including benefits but before taxes)". That's a really, pointlessly hard question for those of us in jurisdictions where this kind of calculation is so intricate that it is simply not talked about outside the realm of accounting departments. (This looks really US-centric, or wherever.) How about you simply ask for net pay or something similarly simple? --Joy 19:30, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Q4a

For each activity, please indicate how often you have participated in the following activities in the last 30 days. ...

I organize or help events, workshops, meet-ups or annual Wikimania conferences

Not at all
Seldom
Sometimes
Often
Very Often

Ekhm. 1 big event only... ? How often? Sometimes? maybe better - how many hours in last 30 days...? Przykuta 21:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Q5a/b

Very good and useful question, but it will be more useful with option "other..." Przykuta 21:19, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Q5b - wikipedioholism... + quality Przykuta 21:22, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Q6

Below is a list of tools that are available for editors. For each one, please tell us whether it makes any difference when editing Wikipedia.

Help pages
Content and policy pages

I am not aware of this feature
It makes it easier to edit Wikipedia
It makes no difference to my editing experience
It makes it harder to edit Wikipedia

It makes difference, but... 50%/50% (easier/harder) Przykuta 21:33, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Q7a/b

Don't exist in pl version :/ Przykuta 21:38, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Q9 (pl version)

I don’t do this online activity

translation on meta: Nie poświęcam czasu na tę aktywność

used in survey: Nie używam komputera codziennie (I don't use computer every day). Przykuta 21:44, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

d19

Have you ever run or wanted to run in the Wikimedia Foundation board of trustee elections?

error - i can't choose yes and no (run/wanted) Przykuta 22:13, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

It's a binary question- either you have ran, or you have not. You cannot have both ran and not ran. Being able to select both of those options, "yes" and "no, but I wanted to" is a logical impossibility. Courcelles 23:32, 25 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Nope - look

Have you ever run... "No"
Have you ever wanted to run... "Yes" (this year) Przykuta 09:54, 26 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

related issue

I had never heard about the wikimedia trustees - so I got a question saying something along the lines of 'now that you've heard about them would you be interested in standing/voting in the trustee elections' but I had no way of finding out what that entailed - I think I answered 'no' to avoid any obligation without at least being able to assess the situation first. [EdwardLane]

Things change over time

There are (irrc) two questions one about why I Started editting wikipedia and a second about why I continue editting wikipedia

That probably means my answers for 'why I started editting wikipedia' will be correlated with my current age, salary, technical expertise etc (which would be flawed unless how long have you been involved with wikipedia is factored in).

While my answers for 'why I continue editting wikipedia' will be correlated (more) correctly with my current info. [EdwardLane]

Mean, Median or Mode ?

I think the survey asks "On an average day" how much time do I spend doing various things - contibuting to wikipedia for instance.

But does the question intend to ask about the mean, mode or median number of hours I do these things for? I presumed you wanted mean values, but I wasn't sure if that was what you meant, it certainly didn't make it easy to answer.

I edit infrequestly for fairly long stints. So over the last 3 months I might have contributed a mean 1 hour a day to wikipedia, but it's probably slightly less. the mode is probably 0 hours a day, and my median might be 2 hours a day. [EdwardLane]

Difficult to feedback

It would be much easier for respondents if there was a section at the end of the survey saying 'any other feedback' it took me maybe 30 minutes of searching to find this page to comment.

I answered all the questions as I went through the survey with what I thought were correct answers, but I was intent on going back through the survey once I had completed it (using the previous button) to check that I had read all the questions correctly,and amend things, I was expecting an 'any additional comments' section - which was not there. On what turned out to be the last page clicking the 'next button' submitted the survey before I had a chance to review it.

I wanted to feedback attached to the actual responses So that where I had answered ambiguous questions, I could clarify which meaning of the question I had answered, so the answers could be discounted if I'd answered the wrong question.

Because I've been offered the survey again - I can at least review the front page of questions but I can't look beyond the front page - without filling in mandatory answers that will presumably be stored (and therefore further skew the data). So I'm giving my feedback from memory here. [EdwardLane]

Mandatory questions

This question is mandatory "What is the highest level of education you have completed?"

but the possible responses are flawed

Primary education (elementary, primary, middle school or junior high school, etc.)
Secondary education (high school, A-levels, apprenticeship, etc.)
Tertiary education undergraduate (diploma, associate’s degree, bachelor’s degree)
Graduate education (master’s)
Graduate education (doctorate)

For example: I failed a bsc after completing 2 years at university - have I 'completed' that level of education, probably not. It might be that someone who had never had formal education would be responding to the survey - so the question should probably say 'if you had to pick one of these which would be closest to your own level of education' [EdwardLane]

Well, that would actually add ambiguity to the question. A lot of questions designed to measure this have another option for people who attended college but did not finish their degrees. That would be more useful here than a reorganisation of the question from fact to people's perceptions. Courcelles 23:06, 27 April 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Once

"Every registered user (editor) will see a notification once to participate in the survey. Anyone may click on this link and participate in the survey." - as I am adding multiple interwiki links I probably missed this message - making it appear once is not the best idea. Bulwersator 09:51, 9 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Problems with December 2011 survey

(Am I on the right page?) A number of editors are reporting problems with the December 2011 survey; see en:Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)#Second 2011 editors survey. -- John of Reading 08:26, 17 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

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