On 07/19/2013 05:11 PM, Ryan Kaldari wrote:
It seems that none of our editor surveys have asked about race, although we've asked almost every other demographic question imaginable.
Does anyone know of any research or statistics related to the racial demographics of Wikipedia editors?
If not, should we consider doing a micro-survey as was done for gender recently? (http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Gender_micro-survey)
I definitely don't think it should be asked with the same prominence as the gender survey. Although that is/was (it was removed from English Wikipedia, but is now on other Wikipedias) optional (there was an opt-out button), it was still a question that prominently met people immediately on signup.
Moreover, gender questions are fairly common online (as part of signup forms), much more so than racial surveys in my opinion. Although people may not want to share gender info with strangers, most people accept gender as a real concept.
A race question *might* fit in a broader editor survey, that people explicitly choose to take. In that case, it wouldn't be the only thing we're asking, nor would people feel pressured to even take the survey.
Matt Flaschen