2009/10/26 Guillaume Paumier <gpaumier(a)wikimedia.org>rg>: Did you not test the survey? That should have been caught by a fairly small test run (a few dozen people).

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 1:53 PM, Guillaume Paumier <gpaumier(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: I got an error during the survey: Warning: unlink(/srv/org/wikimedia/survey/tmp/template_temp_090626181630.html) [function.unlink]: Permission denied in /srv/org/wikimedia/survey/common.php on line 6221 Didn't seem to affect the function, though. Cheers, Magnus

Hoi, Ehm, the statistics that we have are compiled by Erik Zachte.. qualifying our staff and implicitly Erik as lacking the experience is .... a bit off. It is not only the Commons project but also the Usability Initiative and the Strategy project that will rely largely on these numbers.. Having spend a considerable amount of time getting to grips with our statistics I can tell you that the beauty of Erik's presentations is that they help you approach them in different ways. As for instance the traffic statistics change daily and consequently you see the order of the different wikipedias in this chart in time.. but you have to get a feel for these dynamics... One nice touch is that the article statistics are in the same order. This gives a feel for the relation traffic and article numbers... this is less obvious then I thought at first... Anyway.. I am sure that with Erik involved in statistics for Commons, we will get not only numbers but also a presentations that is thought provoking. Thanks, GerardM 2009/10/26 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>

Hoi, Assume - ass u me ... When you look at the presentation of the statistics, when you consider the "score card" that were recently announced. I am happy to agree with you that it does not say on Erik's user page on en.wp that he had any formal statistics training.. Erik for your information is Dutch and I think you assume that the en.wp is Erik's main project. That is fine and hardly relevant. The WMF staff has someone who I appreciate for his statistics work and I expect that Erik will continue to be involved in any statistics work on any project. I assume this to be the case because new statistical data has to become integrated in one way or another in order to ensure that we continue to record, report and anaylse data even after the end of a time boxed project. Thanks, GerardM 2009/10/26 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com>

I regard Erik highly for his skills in analyzing data which is already present. I am completely confident he can do some thought provoking analysis. Unfortunately, the skills required for putting a good questionare together are different from those on analyzing the data. The remarks I have seen so far are about the technical features of the questionaire, lack of testing, and the contents of the questions. Bad questions generate bad responss, and bad responses mean bad data. No doubt Erik will be able to make some use of these data, but would his talents not have been much more usefull if the proper amount of thinking and testing had gone into this questionaire? The results of the usability project have disappointed many, see earlier discussions on this list. Will there be more to come from the useability project? What actions can be taken to correct the currrent questionaire? Can it be stopped and replaced by a better set of questions later? What has suggested the need for a commons questionaire in the first place? What analysis has already been done on this topic? What gave rise to the current set of questions? teun On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 6:36 PM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote:

As an example, let's have a look at the first two questions: 1) Do you use Wikimedia Commons at all? Choose one of the following answers * Yes, regularly * Yes, sometimes * No Criticism: not exact. What is "regularly"? Once a day? Once a week? Once a month? 5% of all wiki edits? 25% of all wikiedits? 2) What is your main goal when you look for free media files on Commons? Choose one of the following answers * I look for media files to illustrate Wikipedia or another Wikimedia project. * I look for media files to use online on another website. * I look for media files to use offline (reports, presentations, homework). * Other: Criticism: Many wikipedians may choose 1), look for media files, as there is no option "upload media files". teun

2009/10/26 Casey Brown <lists(a)caseybrown.org>rg>: I disagree. If you want opinions you have to ask for opinions. Asking vague questions just annoys people because they don't know what they are supposed to answer.

2009/10/26 Robert Rohde <rarohde(a)gmail.com>om>: If you do that, you need to ask something like "How would describe the frequency of your Commons use?" rather than "How often do you use Commons?". It needs to be made clear that you are asking for their opinion rather than a particular answer otherwise people will be concerned that they don't know how you are defining the terms and therefore will think they can't answer the question. I would be interested to know what proportion of people that click the link to the survey actually complete it.

On Mon, Oct 26, 2009 at 12:41 PM, Guillaume Paumier <gpaumier(a)wikimedia.org> wrote: Because I support free content projects [and because I am a Wikimedian]. (My visual and sound production is miserable, but I am actively supporting it by asking those with relevant production to free their work.) I understand the reason for mutually exclusive answers. They help in making survey shorter. And I understand what you are asking a participant in survey: to try to be as constructive as it is possible. However, there is significant number of questions to which I can't give a honest answer if I want to be constructive. Giving "other" answer is not a constructive behavior and I contribute with music and photos rarely, but not with video, which means that I can't make distinction between those types of my behavior. The survey software has a good option to fork survey paths. If someone answered that they've made more than, let's say 1000 edits all over Wikimedia projects, then such person is probably willing to give more detailed answers. For a lot of us spending 30 minutes on helping to improve some Wikimedia project is not a lot. And with good questions and more possibilities (as you said, instead of radio buttons, check boxes; as well as more options), you will have much better data. For example, the first question may be with check boxes ("what are the main reasons?") and the next one may be with radio buttons ("which one of [your] main reasons is the most important?") or, better, one with a scale ("put numbers between one and x to describe importance of the reason"). Wikimedia community is very complex and it is probably impossible to make useful simple survey. And there is a lot of space for fine tuning of surveys: you may drive a user with simple set of questions and contributor with more complex one. There is a small number of communities which may give relevant input in making research about themselves and Wikimedian community is one of them. So, it is helpful to ask it for input. Because of that I didn't ask who made that survey privately and raised that question here. (And, I know that my tone wasn't very nice, but, as I said, I was very frustrated with the survey.) I'll contact you in the next couple of days privately about one research project which seems to fit more into Usability project than to Strategy TFs.