2008/11/1 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>om>:
Well, you may end up with a disproportionate
representation of people
speaking languages near the beginning of the alphabet.
Putting some countries first protects against such selection bias in
common cases, though it could potentially introduce other biases
(countries not in the top list may be underrepresented). The only way
to truly protect against selection biases of any kind is to randomize
the list, which obviously is much more cumbersome.
We'll have to see the actual data to assess how large these potential
distortions might be. For example, if 95% of respondents completed the
country/languages questions, then the selection bias of not finding
your country is probably relatively small.
--
Erik Möller
Deputy Director, Wikimedia Foundation
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