Mailing List Archive

Hello Chitu,

Just in case... do you by any chance speak french ?

Otherwise, I noted your proposition. Jimbo, Angela and I will answer you
as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I hope that some editors will comment on
your proposition :-)

anthere


Chitu Okoli wrote:
> Dear Wikimedia Foundation,
>
> My name is Chitu Okoli. I am a professor in information systems (MIS) at
> Concordia University in Montréal, and I've been very interested in Wikipedia
> for a while. (I am also a light Wikipedian, User:cokoli, since March this
> year. In addtion, I've been listening in on foundation-l for a little while
> now.)
>
> I am currently working on a couple of research projects involving Wikipedia.
> Two specific projects involve:
> 1. Obtaining a scholarly evaluation of the quality of its articles by
> comparing Wikipedia articles with those of other encyclopedias; and
> 2. Mapping the sociological networks of Wikipedians among each other in
> their wiki activities, and the effects of these networks on their individual
> and group performance in Wikipedia.
>
> I want to apply for grant funding to support my research, and I would love
> to arrange this in a way that would translate into free computer equipment
> for Wikipedia. For this, I would only need the Wikimedia Foundation's
> organizational support and some technical cooperation. I hope it could be a
> win-win situation where I could receive assistance for my research (and the
> satisfaction of contributing tangibly to what I believe is a worthy cause),
> and the Foundation could hopefully get some valuable resources.
>
> I'd like to work together with you to see what options could work best for
> mutual benefit. Specifically, let me quote my faculty's grant coordinator,
> as he explains quite well the boundaries of what mind be possible:
>
> <<
> Also, with regards to buying and sending equipment to Wikipedia, you
> should be okay doing that. However, the university may request that the
> equipment be returned to the university at the end of the research project
> i.e. 3 years from the starting date. So, Wikipedia could use the server
> for 3 years, which would obviously help them by saving them the money in
> the short term to purchase the equipment and in 3 years from now you may
> request from the university that the equipment be donated, sold at a
> discount, returned, etc. This would have to be negotiated between
> yourself and the Associate Dean and Dean of the business school.
> I would suggest first that you contact Wikipedia to ask them to give you a
> list of the server equipment that they need to buy, but tell them that the
> value cannot exceed say $6000 CDN for example. I say $6,000 because you
> may get a maximum of $15,000/yr for 3 years, which you would need to hire
> RAs, buy yourself a laptop to travel with, etc. In return, they would
> have to send you a letter of support indicating that they will be helping
> you to collect the data you need via surveys, etc.
>
>
>
> How I would like the Wikimedia foundation to assist me is in two main ways:
>
> 1. If my research program seems interesting to you, and/or if you believe
> the Foundation could benefit from the equipment that the grant(s) could
> provide, please write me an official letter of support indicating that you
> are willing to offer me necessary assistance in carrying out my research. I
> am certainly NOT asking for financial assistance--rather, I'm trying to help
> provide some. (Besides, after listening in on the fundraising banner
> discussion, Wikimedia Foundation is the last place I'd go asking for money
> :-) Such a letter of support in and of itself would be a great act of
> "support" for me--it would be very helpful in helping me obtain a research
> grant to continue my research.
>
> 2. As far as what actual "support" I would need, for much of my research, I
> don't need anyone from the Wikipedia Foundation to actually do anything for
> me--I am already working off the Wikipedia database dumps, and the
> Wikitech-l provides pretty good technical support. (Thanks Timwi and Brion
> Vibber for helping my research assistant, Claudio.)
>
> However, some of the further research I might need to do could need
> substantial help from the Wikimedia Foundation. One particular idea I have
> in mind would be to conduct a survey of Wikipedians to figure out who they
> are, and why they do what they do. I have in mind something very much along
> the lines of the "Hacker Survey" that Boston Consulting Group conducted on
> SourceForge developers, through the support of the Open Source Developers
> Network. (The results are available in PDF at
> http://www.bcg.com/opensource/BCGHACKERSURVEY.pdf.) I think the Foundation
> could benefit from a similar survey, to better understand who Wikipedians
> are. However, if I were to help conduct this survey (I am a social scientist
> with special training in conducting accurate surveys), I would need special
> access to Wikipedians beyond what a database dump could provide. This is
> just an example to show the kind of "support" I would need that could be
> mutually beneficial. And of course, I'm trying to get funds from outside to
> sponsor this (e.g. I apply for a grant to pay the Foundation for developer
> time to help create the surveys).
>
>
> To be explicit, what I hope to offer the Wikimedia Foundation (subject to
> grant award) would be:
> 1. Free hardware for about three years or so (depending on the grant terms).
> 2. Consulting/developer fees for specific projects that might require more
> time by board members and developers.
>
>
> Please post your thoughts and comments on this. I'd like you to help make
> this a proposal that could help both me and the Wikimedia Foundation.
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Chitu Okoli, PhD
> Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems
> John Molson School of Business
> Concordia University, Montréal, Canada
>
> Phone: +1 (514) 848-2424 x2967
> cokoli@jmsb.concordia.ca
> http://chitu.okoli.org/mis

On Thu, 29 Jul 2004 21:03:56 -0400, Chitu Okoli
<cokoli@jmsb.concordia.ca> wrote:

> I am currently working on a couple of research projects involving Wikipedia.
> Two specific projects involve:
> 1. Obtaining a scholarly evaluation of the quality of its articles by
> comparing Wikipedia articles with those of other encyclopedias; and

This part sounds great.

> 2. Mapping the sociological networks of Wikipedians among each other in
> their wiki activities, and the effects of these networks on their individual
> and group performance in Wikipedia.

This part concerns me slightly. Could you explain what you mean by
this please? What would you be doing other than surveying people? Will
it cause any disruption to Wikipedia? Will the users be aware they are
being studied? Will they be able to opt out?

> In return, they would
> have to send you a letter of support indicating that they will be helping
> you to collect the data you need via surveys, etc.

We might be able to help, but we can't guarantee any particular
response rate since completion of the surveys would obviously have to
remain completely optional to the users.

> However, some of the further research I might need to do could need
> substantial help from the Wikimedia Foundation. One particular idea I have
> in mind would be to conduct a survey of Wikipedians to figure out who they
> are, and why they do what they do.

What sort of support were you expecting from us here? Do you want us
to host the surveys? Do you want us to create the database where the
responses will be stored? Or would simply advertising them and linking
to them on an external site be enough? Is there any reason the surveys
would need to be on Wikipedia itself?

The research sounds really interesting and I'd like to know a bit more
about how you intend to conduct it and what effect, if any, you think
it will have on our users.

Angela.

Bonjour Anthere,

> Just in case... do you by any chance speak french ?

Oui, j'en parle, mais comme une langue sécondaire (je viens du Nigéria), et
pourtant la variété québécoise. Peut-être il serait mieux dire que je parle
[[franglais]] :-)

~ Chitu

-----Original Message-----
From: anthere9@yahoo.com [mailto:anthere9@yahoo.com]
Sent: July 29, 2004 9:40 PM
To: foundation-l@wikimedia.org
Subject: [Foundation-l] Re: Personal research grant collaboration request
Importance: Low


Hello Chitu,

Just in case... do you by any chance speak french ?

Otherwise, I noted your proposition. Jimbo, Angela and I will answer you
as soon as possible. Meanwhile, I hope that some editors will comment on
your proposition :-)

anthere


Chitu Okoli wrote:
>> Dear Wikimedia Foundation,
>>
>> My name is Chitu Okoli. I am a professor in information systems (MIS) at
>> Concordia University in Montréal, and I've been very interested in
>Wikipedia
>> for a while. (I am also a light Wikipedian, User:cokoli, since March
>this
>> year. In addtion, I've been listening in on foundation-l for a little
>while
>> now.)

Hi Angela,

Thanks for your responses. Here are my comments:

>> I am currently working on a couple of research projects involving
>Wikipedia.
>> Two specific projects involve:
>> 1. Obtaining a scholarly evaluation of the quality of its articles by
>> comparing Wikipedia articles with those of other encyclopedias; and
>
and also for my research program, so that I can "prove" to other scholars
the legitimacy of researching Wikipedia. You know the usual reactions: "You
mean ANYONE can write whatever they like? How do they control this?" ... and
so on. "Scholarly types" are even more uncomfortable than average with these
ideas. I believe such a study would help provide verification in terms they
understand of what I already believe (but am trying to prove with scholastic
rigour): that Wikipedia is CURRENTLY a top-notch encyclopedia, and its only
uphill from here.

>> 2. Mapping the sociological networks of Wikipedians among each other in
>> their wiki activities, and the effects of these networks on their
>individual
>> and group performance in Wikipedia.
>
Will
are

(which I am currently working on as we speak) doesn't involve any
involvement at all by Wikipedians or the Wikimedia Foundation. I've
replicated the English Wikipedia using a database dump, and I'm analyzing
the historical entries directly via SQL queries and special social
networking software to observe these relationships. No problemo. As much as
possible of my research will work directly from my replicated Wikipedia
installations and will involve no direct interaction with Wikipedia or
Wikipedians.


>> In return, they would
>> have to send you a letter of support indicating that they will be
>helping
>> you to collect the data you need via surveys, etc.
>
to

Which is why I LOVE the database dumps--the data is all right there! But for
this kind of investigation, we would have to beg the users to respond as
usual. For the SourceForge hacker survey
(http://www.bcg.com/opensource/BCGHACKERSURVEY.pdf), they got 526 responses
out of 1,648 developers contacted--an awesome response rate of 34.2%. On the
other hand, when they surveyed the Linux Kernel group, they got 134 out of
around 4000--a measly 2.4%.

>> However, some of the further research I might need to do could need
>> substantial help from the Wikimedia Foundation. One particular idea I
>have
>> in mind would be to conduct a survey of Wikipedians to figure out who
>they
>> are, and why they do what they do.
>
ANGELA> What sort of support were you expecting from us here? Do you want us
ANGELA> to host the surveys? Do you want us to create the database where the
ANGELA> responses will be stored? Or would simply advertising them and
linking
ANGELA> to them on an external site be enough? Is there any reason the
surveys
ANGELA> would need to be on Wikipedia itself?

CHITU> I was thinking of something like a temporary link (perhaps for a week
or two) on all pages (kind of like the fundraising banner) asking for
participation in the survey. This link could link to an external Web survey
host that I would manage directly, so that it would not need to expend any
further Wikipedia/Wikimedia resources other than the links. Of course, the
survey questionnaire itself would have to be fully approved by the Wikimedia
Foundation. I was thinking of at least two different surveys--one for
Wikipedia readers, available for every article page, and a second one for
Wikipedia contributors, available only when they click "Edit this page".
Just thoughts out load. Either way, I would only do what was approved by the
Wikimedia Foundation.

Chitu Okoli wrote:
>
> CHITU> I was thinking of something like a temporary link (perhaps for a week
> or two) on all pages (kind of like the fundraising banner) asking for
> participation in the survey. This link could link to an external Web survey
> host that I would manage directly, so that it would not need to expend any
> further Wikipedia/Wikimedia resources other than the links. Of course, the
> survey questionnaire itself would have to be fully approved by the Wikimedia
> Foundation. I was thinking of at least two different surveys--one for
> Wikipedia readers, available for every article page, and a second one for
> Wikipedia contributors, available only when they click "Edit this page".
> Just thoughts out load. Either way, I would only do what was approved by the
> Wikimedia Foundation.

Whould this be a study of only the English Wikipedia or also others?
Maybe it is also interesting to find out of there are real differences
between the Wikipedias besides the language.

--
[[wikipedia:nl:gebruiker:walter]]

>> Referring to demographic survey of Wikipedians

> Would this be a study of only the English Wikipedia or also others?
> Maybe it is also interesting to find out of there are real differences
> between the Wikipedias besides the language.
> [[wikipedia:nl:gebruiker:walter]]

I see no reason why such a survey should be restricted to any one language
wikipedia, other than the practical issue of translation. And I don't think
it would be too hard to get collaborative translation projects going of the
master survey version, on a wikipedia-by-wikipedia basis.


By the way, off topic grammatical note on "Wikipedia" (capitalized) vs.
"wikipedia" (small letters): I understand that the standard English rule for
capitalizing things like this (I don't know how this works in other
languages) is that when you are referring to something of which there are
many instances, you should use small letters. However, if there is only one
such sample in the whole world/universe, you should capitalize it. For
instance, website uses small letters because there are millions of them, but
the Web is capitalized because there's only one World Wide Web. The Sun
should be capitalized (though it often is not, in practice) when referring
to [[Sol]], the star of the Solar System, but sun should be left in small
letters when referring to any generic star in any generic solar system.

By this rule, I would think that "wikipedia" (small letters) should refer to
any of various language wikipedias (e.g. de.wikipedia.org and
zh.wikipedia.org), whereas "Wikipedia" (capitalized) should refer to the big
mama that comprises all the daughter wikipedias (the Wikipedia should be
www.wikipedia.org, though that link automatically points to the wikipedia at
en.wikipedia.org, I guess because that one was the first, and is the largest
and the most visited).

Good observation. I've been using Wikipedia and Wikipedias. The
reasoning for this is because Wikipedia is a brand, rather than a
concept (that is, the name is more similar to "Yahoo" than it is to
"weblog").

One problem with using lower case "wikipedia" is that people tend to
think of it as a generic concept, such that we have seen folks
erroneously use the term "wikipedia" or "Wikipedia." For an example,
see:

http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2004-May/000213.html

-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)

On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 23:58:21 -0400, Chitu Okoli
<cokoli@jmsb.concordia.ca> wrote:
> By the way, off topic grammatical note on "Wikipedia" (capitalized) vs.
> "wikipedia" (small letters): I understand that the standard English rule for
> capitalizing things like this (I don't know how this works in other
> languages) is that when you are referring to something of which there are
> many instances, you should use small letters. However, if there is only one
> such sample in the whole world/universe, you should capitalize it. For
> instance, website uses small letters because there are millions of them, but
> the Web is capitalized because there's only one World Wide Web. The Sun
> should be capitalized (though it often is not, in practice) when referring
> to [[Sol]], the star of the Solar System, but sun should be left in small
> letters when referring to any generic star in any generic solar system.
>
> By this rule, I would think that "wikipedia" (small letters) should refer to
> any of various language wikipedias (e.g. de.wikipedia.org and
> zh.wikipedia.org), whereas "Wikipedia" (capitalized) should refer to the big
> mama that comprises all the daughter wikipedias (the Wikipedia should be
> www.wikipedia.org, though that link automatically points to the wikipedia at
> en.wikipedia.org, I guess because that one was the first, and is the largest
> and the most visited).
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> foundation-l mailing list
> foundation-l@wikimedia.org
> http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
>


--
Andrew Lih
andrew.lih@gmail.com

Chitu Okoli wrote:
> By this rule, I would think that "wikipedia" (small letters) should refer to
> any of various language wikipedias (e.g. de.wikipedia.org and
> zh.wikipedia.org), whereas "Wikipedia" (capitalized) should refer to the big
> mama that comprises all the daughter wikipedias (the Wikipedia should be
> www.wikipedia.org, though that link automatically points to the wikipedia at
> en.wikipedia.org, I guess because that one was the first, and is the largest
> and the most visited).

Wikipedia is a multilingual project which comprises *all* Wikipedias. If
you speak of "the" Wikipedia, you are including all language subprojects.

-- brion vibber (brion @ pobox.com)

Chitu Okoli wrote:

>By the way, off topic grammatical note on "Wikipedia" (capitalized) vs.
>"wikipedia" (small letters): I understand that the standard English rule for
>capitalizing things like this (I don't know how this works in other
>languages) is that when you are referring to something of which there are
>many instances, you should use small letters. However, if there is only one
>such sample in the whole world/universe, you should capitalize it. For
>instance, website uses small letters because there are millions of them, but
>the Web is capitalized because there's only one World Wide Web. The Sun
>should be capitalized (though it often is not, in practice) when referring
>to [[Sol]], the star of the Solar System, but sun should be left in small
>letters when referring to any generic star in any generic solar system.
>
>
That's generally only the case with generic names like "website", not
with brand names. For example, the Coca Cola company makes many
products which one would collectively refer to as "lots of different
types of Cokes", not as "lots of different types of cokes".

For what it's worth, I don't think it's necessary to capitalize
single-instance things either if they're fairly common and not proper
names. I certainly rarely see "Web" capitalized these days, and doing
so looks a little bit mid-1990s (sort of like hyphenating "e-mail").

(But this is mostly a matter of opinion and taste, really, regardless of
what the style-guide-du-jour tries to claim is "correct".)

-Mark

Hi,

Le Saturday 31 July 2004 05:58, Chitu Okoli a écrit :
> >> Referring to demographic survey of Wikipedians
> >
> > Would this be a study of only the English Wikipedia or also others?
> > Maybe it is also interesting to find out of there are real differences
> > between the Wikipedias besides the language.
> > [[wikipedia:nl:gebruiker:walter]]
>
> I see no reason why such a survey should be restricted to any one language
> wikipedia, other than the practical issue of translation. And I don't think
> it would be too hard to get collaborative translation projects going of the
> master survey version, on a wikipedia-by-wikipedia basis.

I am following this and I think that your study could be very useful to
Wikipedia. And I would like to help with the French version.

Regards,
Yann

--
http://www.non-violence.org/ | Site collaboratif sur la non-violence
http://www.forget-me.net/ | Alternatives sur le Net
http://fr.wikipedia.org/ | Encyclopédie libre
http://www.forget-me.net/pro/ | Formations et services Linux

Chitu Okoli wrote:

> By this rule, I would think that "wikipedia" (small letters) should refer to
> any of various language wikipedias (e.g. de.wikipedia.org and
> zh.wikipedia.org), whereas "Wikipedia" (capitalized) should refer to the big
> mama that comprises all the daughter wikipedias (the Wikipedia should be
> www.wikipedia.org, though that link automatically points to the wikipedia at
> en.wikipedia.org, I guess because that one was the first, and is the largest
> and the most visited).

Wikipedia with a big W is the concept and the entirety of our project.
Not the english wikipedia only (note the small w).

2 years ago, it made sense to talk of the mother (the english) and the
daughters (the other ones). But since some of the other ones are quite
big now (as a reminder, de is now 100 00 pages) and have their own very
well established rules, customs and community, I think that speaking of
the big mother with a big W as being the reference of the concept, with
the other ones being just sprouts is likely to be increasingly wrongly
perceived.

Just a sociological comment :-)

Anthere wrote:
>
>
> Chitu Okoli wrote:
>
>> By this rule, I would think that "wikipedia" (small letters) should
>> refer to
>> any of various language wikipedias (e.g. de.wikipedia.org and
>> zh.wikipedia.org), whereas "Wikipedia" (capitalized) should refer to
>> the big
>> mama that comprises all the daughter wikipedias (the Wikipedia should be
>> www.wikipedia.org, though that link automatically points to the
>> wikipedia at
>> en.wikipedia.org, I guess because that one was the first, and is the
>> largest
>> and the most visited).

Oh and... www.wikipedia.org pointing at en.wikipedia.org is a historical
artifact. An oddity :-)
Certainly because it was the first one. The correct adress was initially
www.wikipedia.com.
There have been many discussions to change that... have a portal page,
or an automatic redirection...but...

Other newer projects are not necessarily so, and the www. adress may
point to a portal page bringing to all languages

> Wikipedia is a multilingual project which comprises *all* Wikipedias. If
> you speak of "the" Wikipedia, you are including all language subprojects.


As long as you don't call it (cough cough :) The W.

And it's definitely not WikiPedia, either.

Delirium wrote:

> Chitu Okoli wrote:
>
>> By the way, off topic grammatical note on "Wikipedia" (capitalized) vs.
>> "wikipedia" (small letters): I understand that the standard English
>> rule for
>> capitalizing things like this (I don't know how this works in other
>> languages) is that when you are referring to something of which there
>> are
>> many instances, you should use small letters. However, if there is
>> only one
>> such sample in the whole world/universe, you should capitalize it. For
>> instance, website uses small letters because there are millions of
>> them, but
>> the Web is capitalized because there's only one World Wide Web. The Sun
>> should be capitalized (though it often is not, in practice) when
>> referring
>> to [[Sol]], the star of the Solar System, but sun should be left in
>> small
>> letters when referring to any generic star in any generic solar system.
>
> That's generally only the case with generic names like "website", not
> with brand names. For example, the Coca Cola company makes many
> products which one would collectively refer to as "lots of different
> types of Cokes", not as "lots of different types of cokes".
>
> For what it's worth, I don't think it's necessary to capitalize
> single-instance things either if they're fairly common and not proper
> names. I certainly rarely see "Web" capitalized these days, and doing
> so looks a little bit mid-1990s (sort of like hyphenating "e-mail").
>
> (But this is mostly a matter of opinion and taste, really, regardless
> of what the style-guide-du-jour tries to claim is "correct".)

The piece of history that is innocently missing from Chitu's comments is
that we have had hot edit wars over capitalization. Some might argue
that "Cokes" should always be capitalized when it refers to drinks so
that the uncapitalized version could continue to refer to coal. Some of
the most heated arguments have been over whether all species names in
English should be capitalized.

Ec

Anthere wrote:

> Chitu Okoli wrote:
>
>> By this rule, I would think that "wikipedia" (small letters) should
>> refer to
>> any of various language wikipedias (e.g. de.wikipedia.org and
>> zh.wikipedia.org), whereas "Wikipedia" (capitalized) should refer to
>> the big
>> mama that comprises all the daughter wikipedias (the Wikipedia should be
>> www.wikipedia.org, though that link automatically points to the
>> wikipedia at
>> en.wikipedia.org, I guess because that one was the first, and is the
>> largest
>> and the most visited).
>
> 2 years ago, it made sense to talk of the mother (the english) and the
> daughters (the other ones). But since some of the other ones are quite
> big now (as a reminder, de is now 100 00 pages) and have their own
> very well established rules, customs and community, I think that
> speaking of the big mother with a big W as being the reference of the
> concept, with the other ones being just sprouts is likely to be
> increasingly wrongly perceived.
>
> Just a sociological comment :-)

As any parent can tell, having children grow up gives us a strange
mixture of relief and regret. :-)

Ec

Hi all,

I was wondering if anyone had further thoughts about this grant support
suggestion. Let me summarize the gist of the responses so far:

1. An number of people seem interested in the idea of surveying wikipedians
to find out more about them, similar to the survey conducted on SourceForge
open source developers. This would probably be a multilingual survey, and
off course, the wikipedians would have the choice whether or not to opt out.
Technically, Wikimedia Foundation's main technical involvement would be to
provide links on the wikipedias to ask for Wikipedians and visitors to
respond. Interested wikipedians on the various language wikipedias could
translate the master version into their respective languages. Note: The
Web-based survey itself could be either onsite or offsite (so that there be
no strain on Wikipedia resources).

2. There were some comments about my current research activities. About the
comparison of encyclopedia quality, comments were positive. About the social
analysis of wikipedian interaction, I clarified that this research is
currently being done 100% on an off-site database dump replication, and does
not directly interfere with wikipedians or Wikimedia Foundation.

3. I made a comment about "Wikipedia" vs. "wikipedia" which seemed to be a
lot more interesting to many people than the grant collaboration :-) Could
we get back on topic, please?


I have some questions that have not been addressed yet:

1. Would Wikimedia Foundation be willing to work with me to conduct such a
survey? I would appreciate a letter of support to that effect, and that
indicates that we could work together on other possible research questions
that WF would be interested in. Again, such a letter would help me acquire
personal grants.

I fully understand WF's financial constraints, so the support I'm asking for
does not involve any financial assistance (rather, I'm trying to help WF
that way--see next comment). I would like to cover any actual expenses
incurred (such as developer/consulting time) as part of my grant. The more
concrete the ideas of future possibilities, the more likely I can make
specific requests in the grant application. So please pour in the ideas!

2. As the note below indicates, I could probably request something like $US
4,500 ($CA 6,000) in hardware to support my research, that would effectively
be fully and directly available for Wikipedia (i.e. I could legitimately
ship it to Florida) for at least three years. What would be the best
expenditure for this possibility and what would be the best way to carry it?

I know that this is a drop in the bucket for Wikipedia's growing needs, but
I sincerely want to help. I also want to be clear that regardless of if WF
feels comfortable about writing me a letter of support, as a Wikipedian I'd
like to do my bit to help out this great project. It's because I believe in
it that I'm committing to it as a major research topic. I'll write a little
bit more on this in a separate posting.

I look forward to hearing more comments.

Regards,
Chitu



-----Original Message-----
From: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List [mailto:foundation-l@wikimedia.org]
Sent: July 29, 2004 9:04 PM
To: <foundation-l@wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Foundation-l] Personal research grant collaboration request
Importance: Low


Dear Wikimedia Foundation,

My name is Chitu Okoli. I am a professor in information systems (MIS) at
Concordia University in Montréal, and I've been very interested in
Wikipedia
for a while. (I am also a light Wikipedian, User:cokoli, since March this
year. In addtion, I've been listening in on foundation-l for a little while
now.)

I am currently working on a couple of research projects involving
Wikipedia.
Two specific projects involve:
1. Obtaining a scholarly evaluation of the quality of its articles by
comparing Wikipedia articles with those of other encyclopedias; and
2. Mapping the sociological networks of Wikipedians among each other in
their wiki activities, and the effects of these networks on their
individual
and group performance in Wikipedia.

I want to apply for grant funding to support my research, and I would love
to arrange this in a way that would translate into free computer equipment
for Wikipedia. For this, I would only need the Wikimedia Foundation's
organizational support and some technical cooperation. I hope it could be a
win-win situation where I could receive assistance for my research (and the
satisfaction of contributing tangibly to what I believe is a worthy cause),
and the Foundation could hopefully get some valuable resources.

I'd like to work together with you to see what options could work best for
mutual benefit. Specifically, let me quote my faculty's grant coordinator,
as he explains quite well the boundaries of what mind be possible:

<<
Also, with regards to buying and sending equipment to Wikipedia, you
should be okay doing that. However, the university may request that the
equipment be returned to the university at the end of the research project
i.e. 3 years from the starting date. So, Wikipedia could use the server
for 3 years, which would obviously help them by saving them the money in
the short term to purchase the equipment and in 3 years from now you may
request from the university that the equipment be donated, sold at a
discount, returned, etc. This would have to be negotiated between
yourself and the Associate Dean and Dean of the business school.
I would suggest first that you contact Wikipedia to ask them to give you a
list of the server equipment that they need to buy, but tell them that the
value cannot exceed say $6000 CDN for example. I say $6,000 because you
may get a maximum of $15,000/yr for 3 years, which you would need to hire
RAs, buy yourself a laptop to travel with, etc. In return, they would
have to send you a letter of support indicating that they will be helping
you to collect the data you need via surveys, etc.
>>>
>
>
How I would like the Wikimedia foundation to assist me is in two main ways:

1. If my research program seems interesting to you, and/or if you believe
the Foundation could benefit from the equipment that the grant(s) could
provide, please write me an official letter of support indicating that you
are willing to offer me necessary assistance in carrying out my research. I
am certainly NOT asking for financial assistance--rather, I'm trying to
help
provide some. (Besides, after listening in on the fundraising banner
discussion, Wikimedia Foundation is the last place I'd go asking for money
>:-) Such a letter of support in and of itself would be a great act of
"support" for me--it would be very helpful in helping me obtain a research
grant to continue my research.

2. As far as what actual "support" I would need, for much of my research, I
don't need anyone from the Wikipedia Foundation to actually do anything for
me--I am already working off the Wikipedia database dumps, and the
Wikitech-l provides pretty good technical support. (Thanks Timwi and Brion
Vibber for helping my research assistant, Claudio.)

However, some of the further research I might need to do could need
substantial help from the Wikimedia Foundation. One particular idea I have
in mind would be to conduct a survey of Wikipedians to figure out who they
are, and why they do what they do. I have in mind something very much along
the lines of the "Hacker Survey" that Boston Consulting Group conducted on
SourceForge developers, through the support of the Open Source Developers
Network. (The results are available in PDF at
http://www.bcg.com/opensource/BCGHACKERSURVEY.pdf.) I think the Foundation
could benefit from a similar survey, to better understand who Wikipedians
are. However, if I were to help conduct this survey (I am a social
scientist
with special training in conducting accurate surveys), I would need special
access to Wikipedians beyond what a database dump could provide. This is
just an example to show the kind of "support" I would need that could be
mutually beneficial. And of course, I'm trying to get funds from outside to
sponsor this (e.g. I apply for a grant to pay the Foundation for developer
time to help create the surveys).


To be explicit, what I hope to offer the Wikimedia Foundation (subject to
grant award) would be:
1. Free hardware for about three years or so (depending on the grant
terms).
2. Consulting/developer fees for specific projects that might require more
time by board members and developers.


Please post your thoughts and comments on this. I'd like you to help make
this a proposal that could help both me and the Wikimedia Foundation.

Sincerely,

Chitu Okoli, PhD
Assistant Professor in Management Information Systems
John Molson School of Business
Concordia University, Montréal, Canada

Phone: +1 (514) 848-2424 x2967
cokoli@jmsb.concordia.ca
http://chitu.okoli.org/mis



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