[WikiEN-l] Where the information comes from?

[Isto Huvila]

> On 3/17/08, Brian <Brian.Mingus at colorado.edu> wrote:
>> Complete anonymity is a very high standard. This is honor system anonymity.
>>  He told you it's anonymous because he's going to protect your anonymity in
>>  the data analysis.
> 
> Hmm, maybe. I distinguish between:
> 
> 1) We will attempt not to collect personally identifying information about you
> 
> and
> 
> 2) We will collect personally identifying information, but attempt to
> protect it.
> 
> If it's 1), I simply need to trust that the information gatherer is
> not malicious. If it's 2) I need to trust that they are competent.
> 
> Not that it's really important - my editing record is public, my user
> name is not a secret, etc. It just gave me pause...long enough to lose
> interest.

Sorry to hear that you lost your interest, Steve, but I do understand 
your concern for sure.

My first and foremost concern to keep you all anonymous from all third 
parties both when it comes to the data I collect and how I report it. A 
total anonymity is rather problematic as I know that I might be 
collecting personally identifying information in the open ended 
questions with information sources in them. On specific topics the 
information someone is using can easily reveal the article and same time 
the contributor.

I am going to use the information on information sources and article 
together (to understand better your answers) and separately (from this 
survey) profile Wikipedia on the basis of their public profiles, but I 
am not going to actually track down any individual respondents. I could 
have skipped the question about naming the articles in question, but 
then I would have needed to ask you to describe the article 
(anonymously) in detail. I chose however not to make any question 
compulsory, so you do not have to tell me the name of the article you 
are describing, if you absolutely don't like to do that. I can use that 
data too, even if it is a lot less informative.

The bottomline is still that I sincerely hope that you can think that 
you can trust me and my ethical integrity.

The survey can be found still at 
http://survey-3.istohuvila.fi/index.php?sid=62924&lang=en

Best Wishes,


Isto Huvila


-- 

Ph.D., research fellow, lecturer
Information Studies :: Åbo Akademi University
(w) +358-2-2153467 (m) +358-40-5726259
(e) isto.huvila at abo.fi (w3) www.istohuvila.fi