"I've just taken a look at the survey and must sadly say that it needs a lot of work done to it in regards to spelling, grammar and questions. For example: ...is a resident of the[sic] Germany. Also: IMHO Wiki's aren't the best way of conducting a survey, sorry. Other options should be thought of here, Wikis aren't supposed to replace everything else on the web (and Wiki!=editable web)."
Well, that's kind of like saying "Wikipedia articles have too many problems with spelling, grammar, and content, so it's not worth bothering with." As a wiki, problems with the survey can be fixed by whomever finds them :). IOW, that's what the edit buttons are for (none of those surveys are protected, as page protection is very much frowned upon at Wikiversity).
I don't think the Wikiversity resource can necessarily replace a "professional" survey, but it can be a place to develop them, much as Wikibooks is used to develop printed and/or pdf books. One thing we all should have learned by now is that user-generated content can be just as good as "professionally" generated content -- in fact it can even be better due to its flexibility and adaptability. The census suffered primarily from a lack of interactivity and a somewhat "top-down" structure, and any survey created by the foundation without user input isn't necessarily going to ask all the right questions. Using the wiki approach (mostly in respect to the wiki "ethic", but also using the wiki software because that's what happens to be available) allows us not only to ask questions, but at the same time we can ask participants what sorts of questions they would like to ask in turn, and that second aspect is exactly what we need when trying to decide what questions would be on an "official survey", if you take my meaning.
-johnny.
____________________________________________________________________________________ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs