On 3 October 2011 volunteers were solicited from the /r/wikipedia forum on the social media website reddit to take a survey primarily about their relationship with Wikipedia.[1] More than two thousand responses to the short questionnaire were received in a single day; the below analysis is for the first 2235 responses received.
Results
editAnswer distribution for all questions
editFrequency of article usage
editRespondents were asked "How often do you use Wikipedia?".
Feelings about Wikipedia
editRespondents were asked "What is you impression of Wikipedia overall?".
Perceived reliability
editRespondents were asked "How accurate is Wikipedia?".
Wikipedia edit count of respondents
editRespondents were asked "How many edits have you made to Wikipedia yourself?".
reddit karma of respondents
editRespondents were asked "What is your reddit karma? (comment and link combined)".
Specific behaviors
editRespondents were asked "Have you ever....." and then given a list of actions.
Myers-Briggs personality indicators of respondents
editRespondents were encouraged to give their Myers-Briggs Type Indicator if they knew it. About half reported a type.
Ratings of Wikipedia editors intelligence
editRespondents were asked to give their assessments of the intelligence of Wikipedia editors on a scale from 1 (extremely dumb) to 10 (very smart).
Ratings of Wikipedia editors personality
editRespondents were asked to give their opinions of the personality of Wikipedia editors on a scale from 1 (extremely dislikable) to 10 (very likable).
Random word associations with Wikipedia
editRespondents were asked to provide the first word they could think of that they associated with Wikipedia.
| word | times |
|---|---|
| Limitless | 2 |
| Omnipotent | 3 |
| Knowledge | 4 |
| Crowdsourcing | 2 |
| Springboard | 2 |
| Foundation | 5 |
| Anything | 2 |
| Accessable | 2 |
| Informative | 23 |
| Truthiness | 7 |
| Reference | 4 |
| Global | 4 |
| Vast | 10 |
| Innovative | 2 |
| Fast | 6 |
| Awesomeness | 2 |
| Robust | 2 |
| Easy | 10 |
| Progress | 7 |
| Available | 4 |
| Collaboration | 3 |
| Game | 2 |
| Godsend | 2 |
| Impressive | 4 |
| Brilliant | 5 |
| Freedom | 9 |
| Wonder | 3 |
| Distributed | 2 |
| Genius | 2 |
| Book | 3 |
| Accessible | 3 |
| Tits | 3 |
| Nice | 5 |
| Endless | 6 |
| Necessary | 3 |
| Words | 7 |
| Summary | 2 |
| Encyclopedia | 34 |
| Encyclopedic | 2 |
| Time | 4 |
| Better | 2 |
| Crowd | 3 |
| Library | 3 |
| Hitler | 2 |
| Omniscient | 3 |
| Invaluable | 3 |
| Wiki | 9 |
| Bananas | 2 |
| Encompassing | 2 |
| Sweet | 2 |
| Community | 6 |
| Sources | 4 |
| Stuff | 5 |
| Blue | 2 |
| Interesting | 23 |
| Easy! | 2 |
| White | 12 |
| Encyclopedia | 2 |
| World | 2 |
| All-knowing | 4 |
| Rad | 2 |
| Whales | 2 |
| Reading | 2 |
| Editable | 2 |
| Cool | 16 |
| Reliable | 16 |
| Starting-point | 2 |
| Fantastic | 3 |
| Jesus | 2 |
| Human | 4 |
| Facts | 9 |
| Huge | 13 |
| Educational | 2 |
| Start | 3 |
| Know-it-all | 2 |
| Dictionary | 2 |
| Reference | 2 |
| Encyclopaedia | 3 |
| Helpful | 31 |
| Database | 2 |
| Beautiful | 4 |
| Love | 3 |
| Dichotomy | 2 |
| Diverse | 2 |
| Underappreciated | 2 |
| Information | 122 |
| Hivemind | 4 |
| Power | 2 |
| Food | 2 |
| Important | 2 |
| Revolutionary | 4 |
| Collective | 5 |
| Depth | 2 |
| 3 | |
| Incredible | 2 |
| Thorough | 2 |
| Research | 3 |
| Fun | 12 |
| Math | 2 |
| Pedantic | 2 |
| Sharing | 3 |
| Big | 12 |
| Free | 22 |
| Large | 3 |
| Quick | 12 |
| Help | 2 |
| Fascinating | 5 |
| Overview | 2 |
| Random | 4 |
| Education | 2 |
| Useful | 4 |
| Wikipedia | 5 |
| Chaos | 2 |
| Source | 5 |
| Extensive | 7 |
| Homework | 2 |
| Worldwide | 2 |
| Good | 6 |
| Collaborative | 6 |
| Comprehensive | 15 |
| Godly | 2 |
| Wisdom | 2 |
| Info | 13 |
| All-encompassing | 2 |
| Occupied | 2 |
| Finally | 2 |
| Addicting | 3 |
| Factual | 2 |
| Smart | 7 |
| God | 4 |
| Penis | 3 |
| Learn | 4 |
| Entertaining | 3 |
| Essential | 4 |
| Fact | 3 |
| Current | 2 |
| Useful | 45 |
| Inclusive | 2 |
| Intelligence | 2 |
| Open | 22 |
| Citation | 3 |
| Til | 2 |
| Complete | 6 |
| Resource | 4 |
| Utility | 2 |
| Lots | 2 |
| Convenient | 20 |
| Internet | 4 |
| Awesome | 2 |
| Unbelievable | 2 |
| Handy | 10 |
| Truth | 4 |
| Classy | 2 |
| Text | 3 |
| Learning | 4 |
| Democracy | 2 |
| Broad | 8 |
| Amazing | 23 |
| Expansive | 5 |
| Answers | 5 |
| Unreliable | 2 |
| Overwhelming | 2 |
| School | 2 |
| Neat | 5 |
| First | 2 |
| Jimmy | 5 |
| Cheap | 2 |
| Knowledge | 200 |
| Everything | 45 |
| Bureaucracy | 4 |
| Addictive | 6 |
| Awesome | 64 |
| Books | 2 |
| Perspective | 2 |
| Dynamic | 4 |
| Potential | 3 |
| Memory | 2 |
| Whoa | 3 |
| Know | 2 |
| Discovery | 3 |
| Great | 6 |
| Fingertips | 2 |
| Practical | 5 |
| Future | 7 |
| Massive | 6 |
| Modern | 2 |
Bias
editThis question was a free paragraph response which was answered by 772 persons.
The full list of answers has been dumped at User:Jorgenev/research/Wikipedia subreddit user survey/full list of bias answers.
The only widely cited bias was a liberal one.
Correlations
editPersonality vs intelligence ratings
edit
Notice that while some gave high ratings for intelligence while giving terrible ratings for personality almost no one rated editor intelligence lower than personality. If you like a guy you have to respect him I guess.
Personality rating by edit count
edit
Perceptions of editors personality seem to decrease as people get more involved to with the community, up to a point, then start increasing.
Percent donated to foundation by usage and approval
edit
The first point of data for usage is non-significant.
Editcount versus karma
editFor this association each interval increase was assigned a value of one.
It does appear that whatever predisposes a person to be an active Wikipedia editor also predisposes them to be an active redditor.
Edit count versus donation percentage
edit
Donation percentage of vandals and non-vandals
edit| Vandals | 14% |
| Non-vandals | 15.9% |
Vandalism by personality type
edit
| Type | Non-vandals | Vandals | Percent vandals |
|---|---|---|---|
| ENFJ | 14 | 6 | 0.3 |
| ESFP | 6 | 1 | 0.14 |
| INFJ | 38 | 5 | 0.12 |
| ESTJ | 7 | 3 | 0.3 |
| ISTJ | 32 | 12 | 0.27 |
| ENTJ | 49 | 9 | 0.16 |
| ISFP | 10 | 1 | 0.09 |
| INTJ | 221 | 40 | 0.15 |
| ISTP | 27 | 8 | 0.23 |
| ENTP | 50 | 19 | 0.28 |
| ESTP | 11 | 2 | 0.15 |
| INTP | 149 | 47 | 0.24 |
| ESFJ | 10 | 1 | 0.09 |
| ISFJ | 14 | 0 | 0 |
| ENFP | 33 | 3 | 0.08 |
| INFP | 53 | 11 | 0.17 |
Perhaps the only statistically significant difference was between INTP and INTJ.
Have vandalized by edit count
edit| Edits | Non vandals | Vandals | Percent vandals |
|---|---|---|---|
| “1” | 122 | 39 | 0.24 |
| “2-10” | 102 | 30 | 0.23 |
| “10-25” | 517 | 82 | 0.14 |
| “25-100” | 102 | 30 | 0.23 |
| “100-300” | 31 | 12 | 0.28 |
| “300-1000” | 26 | 7 | 0.21 |
| “1000-3000” | 14 | 8 | 0.36 |
| “3000-10000” | 23 | 4 | 0.15 |
| “10000+” | 15 | 4 | 0.21 |
All correlations between activities
edit| activity | VAA | PAA | UWFW | DWMF | EAE | BSOAFFW | SVOAA | WAAYWRWS | UAAFPSG | BABAFFW | UWFS | WAAYWRWL |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| vandalized an article (428) | 100% | 016% | 061% | 014% | 087%[2] | 076% | 089% | 060% | 025% | 094% | 089% | 091% |
| plagiarized an article (205) | 035% | 100% | 056% | 011% | 064% | 071% | 079% | 060% | 030% | 095% | 093% | 089% |
| used Wikipedia for work (1463) | 017% | 007% | 100% | 019% | 065% | 072% | 074% | 051% | 014% | 094% | 078% | 089% |
| donated to the Wikimedia Foundation (347) | 017% | 006% | 081% | 100% | 078% | 074% | 079% | 048% | 014% | 095% | 076% | 090% |
| edited an article (1364) | 027% | 009% | 069% | 019% | 100% | 073% | 081% | 053% | 017% | 093% | 082% | 091% |
| been suspicious of a fact from Wikipedia (1565) | 020% | 009% | 067% | 016% | 064% | 100% | 077% | 056% | 016% | 095% | 078% | 091% |
| seen vandalism on an article (1626) | 023% | 009% | 066% | 016% | 068% | 074% | 100% | 054% | 016% | 094% | 080% | 091% |
| wished an article you were reading was shorter (1112) | 023% | 011% | 068% | 015% | 066% | 079% | 079% | 100% | 018% | 096% | 082% | 095% |
| used an article for personal sexual gratification (327) | 032% | 018% | 065% | 014% | 071% | 079% | 081% | 061% | 100% | 098% | 088% | 092% |
| been amazed by a fact from Wikipedia (2073) | 019% | 009% | 066% | 015% | 061% | 071% | 074% | 051% | 015% | 100% | 078% | 090% |
| used Wikipedia for school (1725) | 022% | 011% | 066% | 015% | 064% | 071% | 075% | 053% | 016% | 094% | 0100% | 090% |
| wished an article you were reading was longer (1957) | 020% | 009% | 066% | 016% | 063% | 073% | 076% | 054% | 015% | 095% | 079% | 100% |
Comments
editGeneral comments were also collected which have been dumped out (with personal information, attacks on individuals and valueless offensive content removed) at User:Jorgenev/research/Wikipedia subreddit user survey/edited list of comments.
Notes
edit- ^ Two minute survey. I'm doing a little research into the reddit-Wikipedia relationship.
- ^ There may have been some confusion as to if vandalizing an article counted as editing it