Hi Richard,
Thanks for sharing the link to the report and also for documenting it publicly. It's great to see the result of this study out. :)
I added a pointer to it from the study behind Why We Read Wikipedia [1]. I also went over your report and it was especially interesting for me to see the notes on cultural variations. We are going to repeat the study behind Why We Read Wikipedia in the coming week or so in more languages (the list of languages are listed all over the place. [2]) and we can add more to your findings in a couple of months. :)
Best, Leila
[1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?title=Research%3ACharacterizing_Wikip... [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research_talk:Characterizing_Wikipedia_Reade...
-- Leila Zia Senior Research Scientist Wikimedia Foundation
On Sat, Jun 17, 2017 at 9:25 AM, Amir E. Aharoni < amir.aharoni@mail.huji.ac.il> wrote:
These are valid questions, and I am curious about them as well.
The suggested reasons for choosing Welsh over English are valid as well, and I would add a couple more:
- They study in a Welsh school and had to research the topic for a
homework assignment, which they have to write in Welsh.
- They heard about this topic in a Welsh radio or TV program, or read
about it in a Welsh book, newspaper, or website. They wanted to know more, and it made more sense to continue in Welsh.
בתאריך 17 ביוני 2017 03:30 AM, "Kerry Raymond" kerry.raymond@gmail.com כתב:
Now this question may reveal my ignorance about the Welsh language and/or the Welsh Wikipedia and/or my own monolingualism (I don't read any other language well enough to attempt to read it in a non-English Wikiepdia),
but
English Wikipedia says that "Most Welsh-speaking people in Wales also
speak
English" and Welsh Wikipedia has 91K articles to English Wikipedia's 5M+.
Given the above, I am somewhat curious why the survey did not ask about the ability to speak English and the extent of usage of English Wikipedia and what factors made them choose to read one or the other. Given that
most
of the respondents are probably bi-lingual (to some degree) as readers,
it
would seem that they are probably reading English Wikipedia to some
extent
given its far wider coverage. So when and why do they choose to read
Welsh
Wikipedia? My guess is that it may be for reasons related to the Welsh language itself:
- as first preference because their Welsh reading is better than their
English reading (preferable)
- as first preference because despite being equally or more fluent in
English because they want to support the Welsh language (patriotism)
- as first preference because despite being equally or more fluent in
English they want to maintain or improve their Welsh language skills by reading in that language (learning)
or because of the content:
- because the topic of interest is only on Welsh Wikipedia (necessity)
- because the topic of interest is on both Welsh and English Wikipedia
and
so reading both is likely to provide more information than reading just
one
(comprehensive)
- as a second preference because the topic was not adequately covered on
English Wikipedia and it is hoped it is better covered in Welsh Wikipedia (unsatisfied)
Are there other reasons?
Off-hand, does anyone have a sense of the coverage of Welsh Wikipedia? To what extent is it providing articles on topics not on English Wikipedia
or
much better covered than on English Wikipedia, vs providing articles on similar topics to English Wikipedia (possibly shorter) but in Welsh? That is, what do the goals of the writers of Welsh Wikipedia appear to be?
Does
it lean towards providing specific Welsh content or providing generic content in Welsh?
I realise you can ask the same questions about any other language Wikipedia vs English Wikipedia, but for many other languages, there will
be
many people who speak the other language far more fluently than English
(or
may not speak English at all). But this seems to be less likely to be the case for Welsh-vs-English.
Kerry
-----Original Message----- From: Wiki-research-l [mailto:wiki-research-l-
bounces@lists.wikimedia.org]
On Behalf Of Richard Nevell Sent: Friday, 16 June 2017 11:40 PM To: wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [Wiki-research-l] Survey of Welsh Wicipedia's readership
Hello,
Earlier this year Wikimedia UK conducted a survey of Welch Wicipedia's readers. We wanted to learn more about their demographics and why they chose to read c. 1001 people filled in the survey and the results are available on meta-wiki in English https://meta.wikimedia.org/ wiki/Research:Readership_of_Welsh_Wicipedia and Welsh https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Canlyniadau_ arolwg_o_ddarllenwyr_Wicipedia_Cymraeg .
Richard Nevell
Richard Nevell Project Coordinator Wikimedia UK - sign up to our newsletter http://eepurl.com/cnYOw5 +44 (0) 20 7065 0921 <020%207065%200921>
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