Sure, Gerard. =)
I don't think either of us know enough about the study to make long
guesses/judgments about its methods. While I definitely think the
points you make are valid and better than most, whether or not it
applies to this study remains to be seen. While WP-l is a good place
to get into lengthy debates, its all premature.
Until of course we see the study cited in the Washington Post. Then
we'll all get together and talk about what a bunch of lies it is. =)
-Steve
On 3/21/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi,
Steve please tell me /why /I am wrong in stead of resorting to a
personal attack, not nice.
Thanks, for your recommendation to Harvard. However, given that I am of
an age that working is more likely than studying, I hope that your
recommendation is also good for Google.. :)
Thanks,
GerardM
Steve schreef:
By golly I suppose you'd better just call
Michigan State University
and tell them the bad news.
Surely, when they read this INTERNET CONVERSATION they will surely see
their folly in conducting this study. Gerard I think you'd better
contact Harvard, too. Keeping your great wisdom from them is inhumane.
-S
On 3/21/07, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen(a)gmail.com> wrote:
> Hoi,
> Given that the argument why only American people were included was the
> cost of international telephony, your argument sucks. By restricting the
> study to the United States it is explicitly about Wikipedia usage in the
> United States. When you want to come to a conclusion on any subject with
> respect to policies in the English language Wikipedia, the result will
> not reflect how this project works.
>
> When you study left handed people, you will find only what is only true
> to left handed people by comparing the results to right handed people.
> Thanks,
> GerardM
>
> Robert Brockway schreef:
>
>> On Tue, 20 Mar 2007, Gerard Meijssen wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> US Wikipedians will probably all be working on the English language
>>> Wikipedia. It means that all the skills and experience associated with
>>> small communities, working on an encyclopaedia that does not cover all
>>> subject matter. Working on languages where the community it is done for
>>> does not know what Wikipedia is, it is that experience that will be
>>> missing. In that way it will hardly cover the breadth of Wikipedia.
>>>
>>>
>> He doesn't claim to be attempting to cover the breadth of Wikipedia.
>> Implicit in the post is that it concerns Wikipedia usage in the United
>> States.
>>
>> I find it is common for people to mistake limits placed on a study with a
>> bias in the study. Let me give another example that might make this
>> clearer. If a study concerns left handed people (one of the most commonly
>> studied groups) then failing to include non-left handed people is not a
>> bias in the study, it is a function of the limits of a study. Similarly
>> if a study wanted only left handed US residents then the study would be
>> about left handed US residents. This does not imply any bias in the
>> study. Any study worthy of the name will go in to great detail when it
>> comes to methodology of subject selection and any subsequent testing that
>> is done.
>>
>> It will be great when smaller WP communities are studied too but this
>> study clearly isn't doing that.
>>
>> Cheers,
>>
>> Rob
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