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