[Foundation-l] Is random article truly random

[Bjoern Hoehrmann]

* Andreas K. wrote:
>Sounds good. I was going by last year's United Nations University survey,
>
>http://www.wikipediasurvey.org/docs/Wikipedia_Overview_15March2010-FINAL.pdf
>
>which is older, but had a much larger sample size (176,000 vs. 5,300,
>comprising both readers and editors).

I think the earlier study concluded some time in November 2008 while the
more recent one concluded in April 2011, so there are about 2 1/2 years
between them. Unfortunately the earlier study, at least in the report a-
bove, only has average age for contributors, no median or quartiles or
other groups that would allow for a meaningful comparison to the current
study. It's normal and expected that younger people are more likely to
make extensive use of an encyclopedia as they study the most. With only
7.42% regular contributors in the 2008 study, the age distribution does
not tell us much about possible bias due to age in editorial judgement.
There may be more detailed results but I could not immediately find any.
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