academic inquiry msg - Wikipedia-l

19 Mar 2006

I received the following email today:

----

Hello:

I am writing to you to ask you about your objectives as a Wikipedia
contributor.

My name is Mai Pattarawan.  I am an academic at the City University of Hong
Kong, researching Wikipedia.  Specifically I am interested in the objectives
and motivation of Wikipedians who take the time and make the effort to
contribute.

I would like to ask you just three questions and hope you will be able to
answer:

1. Why do you contribute to Wikipedia? Would you say it is a personal
matter, where you enjoy the opportunity to reveal your knowledge on a
subject, or a collaborative goal where you enjoy sharing knowledge with
others?

2. In what ways do you find your contributing to Wikipedia beneficial? (E.g.,
satisfaction of building the world's largest encyclopedia). Would you say
these benefits (personal or for the entire community) are felt right away,
or do you expect the benefits to arise as time goes by?

3. Do you expect that your contributing more to Wikipedia will lead to
others to contribute more?

Please just type your answers right behind the questions, or below, if you
like.

I am sending this email only to about 100 Wikipedians, so I very much hope
you will answer me and allow me to gain some insights.  I found you via
Google, by searching for Wikipedians who post their email address in
Wikipedia.

If you like to receive feedback about the results of this inquiry, please
let me know and I will email it to you.  Of course, yours and everyone
else's personal information will not be disclosed.  I will only share
non-personalized and summary information.

Thank you very much.

Regards,

Pattarawan (Mai) Prasarnphanich, PhD

Assistant Professor, Department of Information Systems
City University of Hong Kong

----

The IP address of the sender
(219.79.22.41<http://www.dnsstuff.com/tools/whois.ch?ip=219.79.22.41>)
is from Hong Kong, and AFAIK, China blocks wikimedia projects. So, how can a
person from Hong Kong possibly access wikipedia extensively so as to analyse
the contributions and nature of wikipedia? and moreover, he says that he is
sending it to only 100 wikipedians. This can make the result very different
from the actual fact.

should i participate in the enquiry?

i am also posting the msg. header as it may interest you:

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Message-ID: <008801c64b1c$0e8ac220$6501a8c0@Mai>
From: "Pattarawan (Mai) Prasarnphanich" &lt;pprasarn(a)cityu.edu.hk&gt;
To: &lt;vedant.lath(a)gmail.com&gt;
Subject: Academic inquiry on your objectives and motivation as Wikipedian
Date: Sun, 19 Mar 2006 14:12:09 +0800
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Vedant Lath
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Vedant_lath
http://vedant.lath.in/icse/User:Vedanta