Dear all,
some of you might remember our survey of contributors to Wikipedia last
year. First of all, thanks to everyone who participated in the survey!
Taking both the German and the international surveys together, we have a
total sample of N=525 contributors, which would have been impossible without
support from so many people. Thank you!
Although I'm still knee-deep in analyzing the data, we already have a good
idea what keeps people motivated once they are involved in the project.
We also see a characteristic pattern in the reasons to join the project, but
we could make an even stronger point if we had a suitable reference group to
compare contributors and non-contributors.
The best reference group I can think of would be Wikipedia users. Ideally,
the best and cleanest way to get that sample is to publish the link on
Wikipedia itself (e.g. on every 10'000th page or so). Do you see any chance
to make that happen?
Of course, we can also include additional questions in the survey that might
be useful for the project.
Thanks a lot in advance for your ideas, and best wishes from Würzburg,
Joachim Schroer