Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Wikidemia

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[edit] Old talk

I don't think I have the time to help with this, but I'll be very interested in whatever you find out. Maurreen 06:05, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I should clarify that I'm not an academic. I just have general and other semi-professional interest (as a journalist). Maurreen 08:35, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I see that you are calling this a WikiProject, but I don't see any indication of a way to sign up as a member. -- Jmabel | Talk 23:27, Dec 6, 2004 (UTC)

I'm somewhat intrigued, but still not sure I understand what this project is supposed to be about. How does this square with the "no original research" policy? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:21, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

Let me try to explain and reply. The first two comments below might be enough.
  1. This project can organize the discussion of hypotheses about Wikipedia and methods for testing them. Then the "final products" of the project on this site, as I imagine it, will be analogous to existing pages describing summarized facts about Wikipedia. For example, the results of some studies may resemble our prominently-displayed Wikipedia statistics. (Am I right to assume there's no concern about those pages violating the "no original research" policy?)
  2. In addition, I expect the project will lead to some research papers that could be submitted to peer-reviewed journals. It would be natural to link to those external articles, like we link to other peer-reviewed articles about Wikipedia, but I agree that the original content probably won't belong here.
  3. Third, it seems that the "no original research" policy is primarily intended to discourage theorizing (though I do see that hypothesis testing is also explicitly excluded). If data collection and (relatively theory-free) empirical work results from aspects of this project, it seems natural to make it accessible to everyone.
  4. Fourth, and sufficiently controversially I probably don't believe it myself, I could imagine someone arguing that original research projects undertaken from start to finish in full view of the Wikipedia community ought to be provisionally exempt from the "no original research" policy. If everyone had an opportunity to contribute to the design, implementation, and analysis from the start, the results should be mutually agreeable.
  5. Lastly, and also perhaps controversially though this I really believe, Wikipedia has a compelling interest in understanding itself. Tobacman 08:30, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sounds intriguing, and I will definitely keep an eye on it, but for now I think I will not actually sign on as a participant. -- Jmabel | Talk 18:01, Dec 7, 2004 (UTC)

1) Perhaps this should be on Meta? 2) Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is a project to study Wikipedia itself as an object of research? I think this is a good idea. 3) I think the intro sentence is confusing: "This project, Wikidemia, is intended to organize linkages between Wikipedia and academia... — Matt 10:30, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

  1. Yes, I considered putting it on Meta, and perhaps that would still be a better home. In the end I decided to put it on the English Wikipedia instead because it didn't seem to fit cleanly among the roles described on the Meta:About page; and I thought it would be easiest (less coordinating) and most interesting (biggest numbers) to focus initially on research about the English version. It would also be very nice to have a project on Meta (a parent to this one) that would link to research projects on each language's site and organize research on meta-issues like interlanguage cooperation.
  2. Yes, this is a project on research about Wikipedia... and thanks!
  3. Great, I'll revise... Tobacman 18:20, 7 Dec 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Original research

Re: the comments above: So, maybe i misuderstand what this is about, but i dont think that it would be publishing anything in the main article space, and so is completely exempt from the "no original research" rule. Best of luck, i think its a great idea. The bellman 09:52, 2004 Dec 11 (UTC)

I've just stumbled across this project and realise that it's exactly what I'm doing for my Master's degree. You can see more info on my user page or see what another wikipedian has posted onto meta with my pilot questionnaire and some suggestions for research here. However, I am also wary of this no original research caveat, and in no way want to violate this, though I think that this should be a part of wikipedia (ie. the community) and accessible to it throughout. One suggestion I got was to have this as a Wikisource project - any opinions on this? I should make it known that I am still relatively new to Wikipedia (though not as new as my user details suggest) and am not yet fully aware of the intricacies of the Wikimedia structure. Cormaggio 15 Dec 2004

Agree that the English language encyclopedia restriction on publication of original research as articles is inapplicable. That's about getting citable sources and not personal essays or junk science and unsupported UFO stories, not about research about Wikipedia itself. Jamesday 14:05, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Something I'd love to see studied

I'd love to see a study of anonymous contributions to Wikipedia. What percentage are vandalism, what percentage are corrections, what percentage in correct English. Does this vary on new vs. existing articles? How does the percentage of new anonymous article VfD'd or speedy-deleted compare to logged-in users, etc. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:18, Dec 15, 2004 (UTC)

My background is in psychology, so I'm very interested in any research into those aspects of Wikipedia. I don't think the No original research policy is an issue at all since this is research into Wikipedia which would presumably be published elsewhere, or placed in the Wikipedia namespace, on Meta, or in publications such as Quarto, rather than being about adding articles to the main namespace of the encyclopedia. The research could have implications for the wider project, not just the English Wikipedia, even if it is only the English Wikipedia that is studied at first, so Meta might seem a more appropriate venue, although will potentially draw less traffic than the page would here. It would be good to have the research projects known by the wider community so similar studies can be done on the other languages and sister projects. However, perhaps that can be achieved by having an introduction at Meta with the actual project being placed on each different wiki and linked to from there. Angela. 09:18, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

[edit] A self-documenting research population?

While being involved in the dispute over the inclusion in the Charles Darwin article of a bit of trivia about Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin having the same date of birth, I realized that social scientists might find the Wikipedia interesting source material for their research. Before sociologists and others start digging through page histories, etc. and begin to analyze the interactions of various individuals and groups involved in the Wikipedia, I think that it might be appropriate to develop some guidlines and policies that would cover such research. gK ¿? 19:59, 3 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I've been dabbling in computational sociology and UML interaction diagrams for a while now mostly on semi-professional IRC networks, but I've never see anything like #wikipedia on freenode. I've started a topic below to develop some research methods on the live network. I have noticed some patterns of behavior that are quite astounding and worthy of documentation, at least. I really don't know if there is any science to it, but it sure is fun. Quinobi 15:04, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)
I think it's inevitable that people will start using the page histories and talk pages to do sociological research, but I also think it's a practice most users engage in anyway. I've always found it useful (long before deciding to research Wikipedia) to find details out about editors, and the thing that interests me is that you can only extrapolate from what a user allows you to know about them. I found that when I first started using the site, I made a lot of assumptions about people based on fitting them into categories that I'd already determined, and I'm of the opinion that this is very dangerous, and also quite tempting for lazy researchers.
Hopefully researchers will perceive the potential in the Wikipedia for a different type of group interaction. I mean that there is always the danger that a project such as Wikipedia will fragment into subcultures, interest groups and political lobbies/parties - each with their own specialised, and perhaps incompatible, epistemologies. Conversely, the strength of the project might lie in contributors who feel released from the obligation to constantly work towards one point of view. I think it would be best if researchers don't attempt to slot the Wikipedia users into the same pre-existing social categories which already promote disputes on certain topics. illWill 7 July 2005 17:05 (UTC)

[edit] Outcome variables

Variables worth watching, as measures of the effects of one or another study or change (randomized or not). Variance could be observed by week, across the discontinuity of a new popular article, a new software upgrade, a new Main Page template, etc; across groups of users or the lifecycle of a particular user (cross-referenced with some distinct measure of lifecycle or group affiliation).

[edit] Overall averages

  •  % of contribs by anons, by top-1000 users; for FAs, for stubs...
  •  % of articles at FA status

[edit] Article detail

  • Article quality : depth, accuracy, breadth of 2dary/1ary resources | both abslolute and compared to other reference works
  • Article use : # of reads, # of reads by distinct IPs
  • Article edits : # of distinct contributors, # of edits (on diefferent days?), length, persistence of content over time (use h-flow diffs?)
  • Per-article authorship : % of article contributed by top (1, 2, 3) contrib(s) [via h-flow], % contirbuted in past week/month

[edit] Users

  • per-author authorship: h-flow % authorship for current v. of an article, max % over history, time since significant contribution
  • Amt of time spent on the site (# of distinct hours with views, with edits)
  • Amt of content contributed (by namespace, by day/week/month)
  • Amt of content still in use (above, piped through h-flow)
  • # of posts to user's talk page | by user to others' talk pages
  • # of articles on user's watchlist | # of articles primarily edited by user
    • data on these pages ; # of edits to those pages, to their talk pages
    • # of intrawiki links *to* these articles | from them to other articles
  • distribution of user's edits over previously-edited articles, prmary articles, new articles, creating new aricles

[edit] Citable papers?

If people working on this are aware of citable papers about Wikipedia, especially with reference to the demographics of the contributors, could you drop a note on Talk:Wikipedia about what is out there? Thanks. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:56, Apr 4, 2005 (UTC)


[edit] To Secure Accreditation

Academia strives to maintain an accredited status, so academia requires resources of knowledge that can fit that goal. We can provide articles that acheieve the standards required under an accreditation process.

Most of this wikidemia project includes statistics, so far. To secure accreditation, we could study methodology that improves quality of articles, also. Perhaps, a certification that an article meets a certain standard can be given.

  • What elements do accreditation boards look at when they consider the resources of knowlegde that a particular college uses?
  • What are the different kinds of certifications an article can acheieve to meet a required standard on a resource?
  • Does the certification process help or hinder an open contribution environment like wikipedia?
  • What is needed, like a statistic enumeration of certified articles over uncertifiable, to justify wikipedia, or a subset or it, as a viable resource in accreditation standards?

It seems very unlikely that any wiki can qualify under some types of accreditation. How do you accredit an article about god which can be changed to contain only the text "42" at any time? The bad side of academic standards was seen in the project which preceded Wikipedia and failed after a very large investment, with less than one hundred articles. Jamesday 14:05, 7 Apr 2005 (UTC)

In a two step suggestion, allow the history to show what versions are certified, and allow users an option to only display the most recently certified version (instead of the most recent) on normal article view. Have a dialog or icon display on article view if the article was ever certified and note if it is the most recent version, like a grayed icon versus a vivid icon. I wouldn't suggest a strict policy to make every article conform. Perhaps, some articles could be voted on to allow certificates. Mr. Ballard 00:34, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Writing an MA dissertation (Media & Cultural Studies) on Wikipedia

I'm really glad I discovered this page, as I'm writing my MA dissertation on the Wikipedia, and am very concerned that my research should reflect the spirit of the wiki itself. For this reason, I've provided a short summary of my research on my user page, and hope to get into contact with like-minded people (both academics and otherwise) to discuss the ideas that I have about the Wikipedia.

I won't write much about my ideas here (as they are outlined on my user page illWill) but will say that I am addressing the Wikipedia as a democratic structure. I don't mean in the sense of a parliamentary democracy, but rather in terms of a collaborative project which encourages people to work together for a common good.

I aim to show that teh strength of the Wikipedia lies in an attribute most commonly cited as a weakness: its unreliability. I want to show that the constantly-changing nature of the Wikipedia should demonstrate that knowledge is seldom fixed, and also to demonstrate how the discussion pages, history and user talk pages demonsrate the path of any item of knowledge into the Wikipedia, and the state of the debates surrounding any issue. I'm sorry if this is a bit vague and maybe a little pretencious at the moment, I'm just starting on my research, and decided that it would be in the spirit of the wiki to start posting it as soon as I could, even if my ideas were a bit half-baked.

Please get in touch at my talk page illWill 22:34, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Right...

I joined ages ago, and here's my contribution.

A solution to edit wars would be to allow users to edit a page a maximum of two times a month. This would stop edit wars. Personal pages and talk pages should be excluded. (User:Computerjoe 28 May 2005)

Terrible idea, in my view, on several counts:
  1. Totally screws people with a slow connection who can only edit a section at a time.
  2. Makes in-place translation work almost impossible: almost no one does a translation at one shot, they do it piece-by-piece over the course of days.
  3. Means that if someone notices they typo'd during an edit, they are discouraged from fixing it.
  4. Means that someone actively researching a topic essentially has to do their writing elsewhere, then only upload the article when it is completed. Especially so for those who have only minutes a day to work on this.
  5. Makes it almost impossible to protect an article from vandalism
  6. Discourages the desirable practice of separating copy editing, content changes, and restructuring into separate edits.

I could go on at more than triple this length, but I think this is enough. -- Jmabel | Talk 05:29, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

Edit wars, or discussion about the contents of Wiki articles, are not a problem for the Wiki - they are what is is all about; the very reason that the Wiki is interesting at all is that it provides a framework in which we are forced to find common ground in our beliefs. Computerjoe's idea would simply kill the Wikipedia, overnight. Banno 06:30, Jun 5, 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Yes!

This is what I like! I want as much in-depth comprehensive information about the how and the why and who and the what behind wikipedia. I'm not an academic. My only background is in surfing the internet, sleeping, and eating, and I am well versed in these practices. Jaberwocky6669 June 28, 2005 08:25 (UTC)

[edit] Spiral reasoning

The Article Wikidemia is (will be) about Academic use of Wiki-styled web technologies. It goes back to Ward Cunningham and forward. Wikipedia is mentioned as "a popular wiki encyclopedia" I put a draft of it /Wikidemia here to keep it out of deletionist hands till it's done enough for the main namespace. Quinobi 8 July 2005 23:55 (UTC)

[edit] managing WikiProjects quazi-centrist style

from User_talk:Radiant!#Wikipedia:WikiProject_Templates, User_talk:Tobacman#WikiProject_Automatic_Archival_Notification and other places.

Can we get some clarity here? I'm overwhelmed. Quinobi 23:22, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] WikipediaIRC

I personally think it's ridiculous to have such a large channel. It can be fun, comical and interesting as a social gathering place, but from what I can tell, there is not much productive administration going on there - usually just mass confusion. Quinobi 04:08, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

That's a fair comment, but what is its exact relevance to the Wikidemia project? Are you suggesting another channel? For what? I think you'll find, if you're looking for "productive administration" on IRC, you won't find much support there; instead comments like: "IRC_is_not_Wikipedia". I think people find it nice to be able to just shoot the breeze without the constraints of Wikipedia's policies - excepting reasonable civility, of course. Cormaggio 10:48, 27 July 2005 (UTC)
Hmm - maybe I didn't understand what you were driving at - and I hadn't seen the mention of IRC on the main project page - but I'd still welcome any thoughts or clarifications you had on this point. Cormaggio 14:23, 27 July 2005 (UTC)

[edit] New member -- possible project

I've known about this page for a long time but decided not to sign up until I had something to contribute. I have recently endeavered to undertake a massive project. Other Wikipedians and I are going through every third month of the RfA candidacies and taking note of certain phrases and reasonings behind successful and unsuccessful adminships. We are doing this in order to gain an understanding of WP's adminship ideaology as it stands now and how it has changed over time. This information may have myriad uses as well such as influencing policy. If you would like to contribute in anyway whatsoever and that includes gathering information or deciding what kind of information should be gathered then you may do so here: RfA Idealogy Analysis. Soon I would like to move this into the wikipedia namespace and out of my userspace. Thank you and have a good day (or night). Jaberwocky6669 | ☎ 03:34, 13 October 2005 (UTC)

Does "idealogy" mean something distinct from "ideology"? It's not in my dictionary, so I'm guessing that it is a misspelling; I don't see how that word "ideology" is appropriate to this context. Am I missing something here? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:41, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

It was a misspelling. I mean to use it by the definition that yourdictionary.com gives: "A set of doctrines or beliefs that form the basis of a political, economic, or other system." I know it's a little over the top but let's have some fun here too ya know? Jaberwocky6669 | ☎ 01:54, 15 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Impact

This projects has a lots of potential, but it also needs major help. For over a month now I have been gathering information on 'Wikipedia as a research tool' and 'Wikipedia as a teaching tool', and I just stumbled now on this project by accident (redirect from Wikipedia:Research). It is not linked from almost any important pages, most places that link here are user pages, talk pages or other projects. Especially such important page as Wikipedia:Researching with Wikipedia did not even mention this project (and vice versa)! The bottom line is that majority of academics/researchers/scientists have no idea how to correctly use Wiki, and even researchers familiar with it (and registered as Wikipedians) are very unlikely to find it. My solution: I would like to make a more user friendly portal, linking pages from Category:Wikipedia resources for researchers and then link it from various important pages (preferably via nice template on all related category pages). I even think that this would be worthy of including in MediaWiki software as a possible link from a toolbox. We have a decent help system, but our tools for serious, academic researchers are hard to find - and I do think that one of our goals should be to promote Wiki to the academic community. What do you think? --Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 18:55, 14 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] meta:Research and meta:Wikimedia Research Network

Greets all. I've been looping through all research related pages for quite some time this afternoon and feel the need to distinguish this group from activities on meta. It seems that research ideas and collaboration is best placed on meta:Research. However, this group can certainly accomplish much as a local instance of that movement? There is an irc meeting this Sunday for meta:Wikimedia Research Network, make it if you can. ∴ here…♠ 23:11, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] meta:General User Survey

I stumbled upon this recently, it seems to be dead (no activity for almost a year), but the survey is mostly completed. I think this survey is an excellent idea, and it needs only a little extra effort to be finished. I hope some of you will be interested in carrying this out, I most certainly volunteer to help with this.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 01:10, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bot for researchers

For those interested in some statistical analysis of users behaviour, I have suggested a possible new bot at Wikipedia:Bot_requests#Bot_for_researchers_needed, feel free to add your comments.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 16:14, 13 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Project directory

Hello. The WikiProject Council has recently updated the Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory. This new directory includes a variety of categories and subcategories which will, with luck, potentially draw new members to the projects who are interested in those specific subjects. Please review the directory and make any changes to the entries for your project that you see fit. There is also a directory of portals, at User:B2T2/Portal, listing all the existing portals. Feel free to add any of them to the portals or comments section of your entries in the directory. The three columns regarding assessment, peer review, and collaboration are included in the directory for both the use of the projects themselves and for that of others. Having such departments will allow a project to more quickly and easily identify its most important articles and its articles in greatest need of improvement. If you have not already done so, please consider whether your project would benefit from having departments which deal in these matters. It is my hope that all the changes to the directory can be finished by the first of next month. Please feel free to make any changes you see fit to the entries for your project before then. If you should have any questions regarding this matter, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you. B2T2 14:30, 26 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Contacting WP editors.

Please see Wikipedia talk:Spam#Academic user surveys. -- Jeandré, 2006-12-17t10:32z

[edit] Wikipedia Day Awards

Hello, all. It was initially my hope to try to have this done as part of Esperanza's proposal for an appreciation week to end on Wikipedia Day, January 15. However, several people have once again proposed the entirety of Esperanza for deletion, so that might not work. It was the intention of the Appreciation Week proposal to set aside a given time when the various individuals who have made significant, valuable contributions to the encyclopedia would be recognized and honored. I believe that, with some effort, this could still be done. My proposal is to, with luck, try to organize the various WikiProjects and other entities of wikipedia to take part in a larger celebrartion of its contributors to take place in January, probably beginning January 15, 2007. I have created yet another new subpage for myself (a weakness of mine, I'm afraid) at User talk:Badbilltucker/Appreciation Week where I would greatly appreciate any indications from the members of this project as to whether and how they might be willing and/or able to assist in recognizing the contributions of our editors. Thank you for your attention. Badbilltucker 19:38, 30 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia in amateur studies

I have compiled a list of studies published in Wikipedia space, as well as useful tools published here: see Wikipedia:Researching Wikipedia.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  18:46, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Special priviliges to those w/ doctorate degrees?

A lot of criticisms towards Wikipedia revolve around the criticism that many of the contributions are from non-experts. Would it be possible, (or even desirable), to design a policy that gives special priviliges of some kind to those with degrees such as: PhD, EdD, DEng, EngD, DBA, DD, JCD, SSD, JUD, DSc, DLitt, DA, DMH, MD, DMA, DMus, DCL, ThD, DrPH, DPT, DPhil, PsyD, DSW, LLD, LHD, JSD, SJD, JuDr, STD, DMin? When I say "priviliges", I mean some kind of policy that may help quell some of the criticisms of those with this level of education, and perhaps even attract more people with these sorts of degrees? EPM 19:56, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

I think the admin system needs to be expanded a little to create more than a two step hierarchy. This could be something like 'New editor', 'Experienced editor', 'Expert in X field' etc. Having some official title for non-admins leading certain projects, or experts in certain fields, would give them some authority in their area. As an example, there may be an expert in palaeontology who is given authority over related categories etc, allowing them to, say, ban a crank editor pushing pseudo-scientific claims and generally being a pest. Experts should probably be given higher authority than admins, but only within their field. Richard001 00:26, 20 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] new article about WP

What open access research can do for Wikipedia by John Willinsky http://www.firstmonday.org/issues/issue12_3/willinsky/ too long for a summary right now--I've only just seen it. Basically a discussion of how we could do better sourcing with available Open access sources; some of his specific examples seem a little besides the point, but i have the highest respect for his work in general. (First Monday is an online librarianship journal) DGG 08:56, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Statistics department and Wikidemia

I propose the Wikipedia:Statistics Department and this project merge into one - neither is particularly active and they basically cover similar areas. It would be nice to see some active research, and merging them into one project would at least create a comprehensive project as a starting point. Richard001 02:39, 24 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:WikiProject Classroom coordination

A new project coordinates with professional educators who assign students to edit Wikipedia articles. It links here as a related project. DurovaCharge! 19:28, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Study on welcoming new users

Howdy, I have to start with an apology. I only discovered this project a few minutes ago, so I may be duplicating someone else's effort and/or stepping on some research toes here. Inspired by the recently completed vandalism study, I ran a short randomized experiment on the effect welcoming new users had on their editing behavior. The write up is at User:TeaDrinker/Welcome study (just posted). The primary outcome was that (non-vandalizing) editors who were welcomed were more likely to edit (p=0.059) than those who did not.

I am happy to move the page into a project space if there is a common space, if this is common practice and/or a good idea. I am more than happy to share the data as well, although I am a bit worried about the privacy of the users, since they did not consent (and were probably not even aware) they were in a study (although a bit of sluthing as to who I welcomed could uncover the identities.

If anyone has any feedback I would welcome it, and if anyone sees a way to extend the analysis, that would be fantastic. Criticsm on the writing (which is not my best), or anything else would be very welcome as well. Thanks, and again, my apologies if someone else was looking at this question too. --TeaDrinker 20:37, 18 May 2007 (UTC)

Great idea for a study, and interesting results. The sample size is pretty large and there was random sampling, so it does seem to lend support to the benefits of welcoming new users. A simpler question reading the study raises for me is what fraction of new users are actually welcomed, and after how long, on average? Richard001 08:55, 19 May 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, and I think yours is a good idea for a study. (Thanks also for correcting some typos in the study!) In terms of doing your study, I am not sure the best way to get a random selection of users, but several options occur to me
  1. Condition on recieving a welcome. Put a category for say, one day (or less) in all welcome templates, and see what the distribution of number of edits, time since registration, etc. for those who are welcomed.
  2. Condition on editing. Select a number of individuals who have edited, via recent changes (or other methods), and determine whether or not they have been welcomed, and if so how long ago.
  3. Look at old newuser logs and select a random/systematic sample from them.
  4. Stratify. Find the joint distribution of metrics like number of edits, time since registration, etc. and sample from a variety of locations to ensure there is a representative sample of the community. From this sample, measure the variables related to welcoming which we're interested in.
The first option is somewhat invasive (enough that I think it would require community approval), and it will be a little tricky to back calculate the percent of users welcomed, since we won't see the ones not welcomed. Since community approval would require some level of publicity, I also don't know how well the results could be representative of past behavior.
A variant of number 1 would be to watch RC for welcomes being given. It would be slow to generate data, and probably also be tricky to interpret.
Number 2 is perhaps my favorite. It disproportionately catches those who have made more edits, so some careful thought would have to go into the probability model used to examine it. For instance, if a user makes lots of small edits, they are more likely to show up on RC, but I don't know that they are more likely to be welcomed than a user who makes one subatantive edit. We would also certainly miss all the users who were welcomed and don't edit.
Number 3 would be great, except I don't think the newuser log is accessible for more than a day or two. If there is a technical means of getting around this problem, I think this would be useful.
Number 4 is fairly labor intensive to do background work (although that would be interesting for other studies).
An easier question to answer, who is making current edits? A selection of RC could be analyzed, including with whether the user was welcomed. This is not quite the same question, but would perhaps be interesting. With some additional work, it could also be used to estimate percent of edits by type (minor change, vandalism, major content addition, etc.) and user (IP, new user, established user).
There is probably some other methods I am not thinking of here, but I think it is a great idea to do! Cheers, --TeaDrinker 22:21, 19 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This reminds me of...

...Ben Franklin's various scientific associations, especially the intentioned studies list! 68.39.174.238 15:20, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Research using wikipedia as a corpus

Hey guys, I'm a NLP researcher and I plan to use wikipedia as corpus to do statistical machine learning. As a biproduct of this I intend to produce a plain-text snapshot of wikipedia, suitable for use by other NLPists. Wikipedia is a great body of contemporary English text on a wide variety of subjects and I think it should be used for corpus work more often that it has been. Does anyone know of similar work? Should I add myself to this project? Cmouse 17:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

As a long term goal we are preparing corpus statistics based on Wikipedia snapshots at the University of Leipzig accessible via the web in a way similiar to http://corpora.uni-leipzig.de/. Some time ago I implemented a proof of concept with the German February 2005 snapshot at http://wortschatz.uni-leipzig.de/WP/ . (User:Meep in de.wikipedia) 139.18.2.70 (talk) 11:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Cmouse, please see this. -- Sundar \talk \contribs 11:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] A new study

I've done a quick survey of reference use, available at the subpage Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikidemia/Use of referencing and assessment. The main finding was that 70% of articles cite no references. It isn't intended to be a very serious study in itself, but provides some basic information on reference use and assessment, and provides suggestions for future studies. Richard001 04:42, 9 October 2007 (UTC)