Legality of Cannabis by U.S. Jurisdiction

Page 1

Wikipedia Survey – Overview of Results

Authors:

Ruediger Glott (UNU-MERIT), glott@merit.unu.edu

Philipp Schmidt (UNU-MERIT), schmidt@merit.unu.edu

Rishab Ghosh (UNU-MERIT), ghosh@merit.unu.edu

March 2010

Page 2

Table of Contents

Data Overview.........................................................................................................................................3

Wikipedia Language Versions........................................................................................................3

Countries........................................................................................................................................ 4

Activity Types................................................................................................................................ 5

Demographics..........................................................................................................................................7

Age.................................................................................................................................................7

Gender............................................................................................................................................7

Education....................................................................................................................................... 7

Relationship Status.........................................................................................................................8

Motivations and Incentives..................................................................................................................... 9

Motivation to contribute................................................................................................................ 9

Reasons for not contributing..........................................................................................................9

Motivation to donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.................................................................... 10

Index of Tables

Table 1: Respondents by Wikipedia language version............................................................................3

Table 2: Countries................................................................................................................................... 4

Table 3: Detailed categories of respondents............................................................................................5

Table 4: Main categories......................................................................................................................... 6

Table 5: Gender composition of Wikipedia activity groups....................................................................7

Table 6: Highest educational degree by Wikipedia activity groups ....................................................... 7

Table 7: Reasons why people contribute to Wikipedia .......................................................................... 9

Table 8: Reasons of non-contributors for not contributing to Wikipedia..............................................10

Table 9: Factors that would make contribution more likely..................................................................10

Table 10: Reasons not to donate money to Wikimedia......................................................................... 11

Table 11: Reasons not to donate money to Wikimedia (by activity type)............................................. 11

Page 3

Data Overview

The following sections present an overview of results of the first global Wikipedia Survey. The

dataset that has been used for this overview report contains 176,192 cases.

Wikipedia Language Versions

Table 1 shows the relative shares of the different language versions in the total response. The largest

share of responses was provided by users who accessed the survey via the Russian or English

Wikipedia versions, followed by users of the German and Spanish versions.

+----------+------------------+--------------+

| Total | Lang

| %

+----------+------------------+--------------+

| 45616 | ru russian | 26.0663 |

| 43912 | en english | 25.0926 |

| 22989 | de german

| 13.1366 |

| 20144 | es spanish | 11.5109 |

| 8706 | nl dutch

| 4.9749 |

| 6155 | pt portuguese | 3.5171 |

| 5082 | ja japanese | 2.9040 |

| 3613 | zhhans chin trad | 2.0646 |

| 3569 | fre french | 2.0394 |

| 3516 | it italian | 2.0091 |

| 3427 | zhhant chin simp | 1.9583 |

| 2907 | pl polish

| 1.6611 |

| 2319 | cs czech

| 1.3251 |

| 1567 | ar arabic

| 0.8954 |

| 969 | th thai

| 0.5537 |

| 598 | vi vietnamese | 0.3417 |

| 562 | ca catalan | 0.3211 |

| 213 | id indonesian | 0.1217 |

| 154 | ta tamil

| 0.0880 |

| 113 | el greek

| 0.0646 |

| 47 | eo esperanto | 0.0269 |

| 14 | af afrikaans | 0.0080 |

+----------+------------------+--------------+

N=176,192

Table 1: Respondents by Wikipedia language version

Page 4

Countries

Table 2 provides an overview of the countries where the respondents live, illustrating that Wikipedia

is used in at least 231 countries in the world.1

|-------------------------|

| Total | Country | % |

|-------------------------|

| 32156 | RU | 18.34 |

| 20450 | DE | 11.66 |

| 18644 | US | 10.63 |

| 7793 | UA | 4.44 |

| 6863 | NL | 3.91 |

| 6039 | ES | 3.44 |

| 6011 | BR | 3.43 |

| 5506 | GB | 3.14 |

| 5157 | JP | 2.94 |

| 4951 | MX | 2.82 |

| 3733 | IT | 2.13 |

| 3533 | CA | 2.01 |

| 3483 | FR | 1.99 |

| 3180 | AR | 1.81 |

| 2983 | PL | 1.70 |

| 2848 | PG | 1.62 |

| 2546 | AU | 1.45 |

| 2506 | CZ | 1.43 |

| 2421 | BE | 1.38 |

| 2256 | TW | 1.29 |

| 2032 | AT | 1.16 |

| 1998 | IN | 1.14 |

| 1828 | CL | 1.04 |

| 1690 | CO | <1 |

| 1499 | SE | |

| 1480 | BY | |

| 1445 | CH | |

| 1048 | VE | |

| 995 | TH | |

| 980 | HK | |

| 954 | IL | |

| 879 | PE | |

| 782 | KZ | |

| 656 | CN | |

| 650 | NZ | |

| 576 | VN | |

| 562 | EG | |

| 541 | IE | |

| 493 | PT | |

| 489 | LV | |

| 481 | FI | |

| 441 | SA | |

| 389 | RO | |

| 384 | NO | |

| 349 | GR | |

| 346 | SG | |

| 313 | UY | |

| 306 | EE | |

| 306 | MD | |

| 304 | DK | |

| 284 | ID | |

| 276 | CR | |

| 265 | ZA | |

| 261 | PH | |

| 258 | MY | |

| 223 | LT | |

| 222 | EC | |

| 211 | DO | |

| 206 | HU | |

| 203 | AE | |

|-------------------------|

| N: 51 - 200

|-------------------------|

| TR, SV, GT, RS, BG, SK, |

| PK, HR, PR, BO, DZ, UZ, |

| PA, AZ, JO, GE, MA, PY, |

| KW, SI, HN, LU, KR, BA, |

| LK, AM, IR, IS, NI, PS, |

| MG, BH

|-------------------------|

| N: 11 - 50

|-------------------------|

| CI, KG, MO, SY, TN, LB, |

| IQ, BD, AD, QA, MT, OM, |

| TT, CY, LY, CU, AL, MK, |

| NG, UM, MU, NP, JM, KE, |

| SD, ZW, IM, AN, AQ, AW, |

| YE, RE, LI, TJ, UG, AX, |

| MC, AO, BM, BZ, FJ |

|-------------------------|

| N: <= 10

|-------------------------|

| AS, TM, MN, AF, BB, BS, |

| BN, VI, MV, GH, SN, CD, |

| JE, BF, CG, DM, GP, NC, |

| BT, GI, GL, EH, BW, ME, |

| VG, KH, BI, CV, ET, ZM, |

| PF, DJ, KN, MQ, VA, CX, |

| GQ, RW, KY, CM, BJ, AG, |

| SR, GG, CC, CF, MZ, MM, |

| KP, SJ, WS, PN, ML, GU, |

| AI, FO, LC, FK, BL, TZ, |

| SZ, LA, MP, MW, TL, GF, |

| NE, CK, KI, TO, TC, AC, |

| VC, SO, MR, GS, IO, NA, |

| PW, TG, MS, WF, SH, GD, |

| ER, MF, SM, TK, SB, BV, |

| NF, SL, LR, GA, SC, NU, |

| TD, LS

+-------------------------+

N=176,192

Table 2: Countries

1 Refer to ISO 3166 for country codes http://www.iso.org/iso/english_country_names_and_code_elements

Page 5

Activity Types

Since Wikipedia can be used in many different ways, the key feature to differentiate respondents –

besides language and demographic characteristics – is provided by the activities the respondents

perform. The first question of the questionnaire was mandatory, and differentiates respondents

between users and different types of contributors.

Type

Reader

116,139

65.92

Occasional Contributor

40,961

23.25

Regular Contributor

13,073

7.42

Author [9,398]

Editor [8,255]

Administrator [1,377]

Ex-contributor

4,405

2.50

No more activity at all [1,920)]

Other

1,614

0.92

Total 176,192

100.00%

Table 3: Detailed categories of respondents

Not surprisingly, readers provide the majority of respondents (65.92%). However, a considerable

share of respondents (almost 31%) contribute actively to Wikipedia. Since it is impossible to quantify

the universe of people using Wikipedia and how many of them are contributors it will be hard to

evaluate whether the shares we found in our survey are representative. We assume that the share of

contributors is over-represented in our dataset, as contributors (and more regular readers) are likely to

be more motivated than the general population to respond to such a survey.

The largest share of contributors (23.25%) is provided by respondents that consider themselves as

readers but occasionally contribute as editors or authors. Occasional contributions are the typical way

Wikipedia content is created. However, this does not imply that most of the content is created this

way. This question will be examined in later parts of the analysis.

Regular contributors (authors, editors, and administrators – overlap possible) represent about 7.42%

of the respondents. Approximately 0.75% of the respondents are administrators.

Among the respondents there are more than 4,400 persons that contributed to Wikipedia in the past

but have stopped participating. Since this group has a unique insight and relationship to Wikipedia, it

is analyzed separately. A remarkable share of this group (43.56%) said they engage in no other

activity in relation to Wikipedia, which would imply that these ex-contributors do not even consider

themselves as readers of Wikipedia anymore (though this raises the question how this group has heard

of the survey). Our profile of Wikipedia activity groups takes into account of a group that claims to

pursue no activity at all (share in overall response: 1.09%).

The “other” category combines respondents who specified they were either “Other non-contributors”

or “Other contributors”, but who did not check any of the other options. Further analysis of the

explanation text that these respondents submitted is required to either group them within existing

categories or analyze them separately.

Page 6

It is evident that such a detailed and uneven break-down of activities is not useful for the further

analysis of demographics and other characteristics that are presented in the following sections.

Therefore, for the following parts of the analysis we will use a break-down that subsumes these

activities in only two categories, readers (68.25%) and contributors (31.75%) excluding ex-

contributors and others.

Type

Reader

116,139

68.25

Contributor

54,034

31.75

170,173

100.00

Table 4: Main categories

Page 7

Demographics

Age

Valid responses were received from respondents between 10 – 85 years. Overall, the average age of

the Wikipedians that participated in the survey is 25.22 years. Half of the respondents are younger

than 22 years. The most frequent age that can be observed within the respondents is 18 years.

Splitting the respondents in four equally large age groups shows that 25% are younger than 18 years

old, 25% are between 18 and 22, a further 25% are between 22 and 30 (e.g. half of the respondents

are between 18 and 30 years) and the remaining 25% are between 30 and 85 years old. .

There is a slight age difference between readers and contributors - readers are, on average, 24.79

years old while contributors show an average age of 26.14 years. Finally, female respondents are

younger (23.79 years) than male ones (25.69 years).

Gender

Though both groups are dominated by men, there are significant differences in the gender

composition of readers and contributors of Wikipedia. Contributors show a substantially larger share

of males than readers. Among respondents only 12.64% of contributors are female.

Gender

Reader

Contributor

Total

Male

79,965 (63.11%)

46,736 (36.89%) 126,701

(68.99%)

(86.73%)

Female

35,377 (83.85%)

6,814 (16.15%) 42,191

(30.52%)

(12.64%)

Other

566

(0.49%)

338

(0.63%)

904

Total

115,908

53,888

N=169,796

Table 5: Gender composition of Wikipedia activity groups

Education

Given the young age of Wikipedians it is natural that secondary and undergraduate tertiary education

are the highest educational degrees among most respondents. Contributors show slightly but

significantly higher education levels than readers.

Education Level

Reader (%)

Contributor (%)

Total (%)

Primary education

12.08

11.05

11.75

Secondary education

37.25

33.66

36.11

Tertiary education/Undergraduate

25.23

25.99

25.47

Tertiary education/Masters

17.24

18.61

17.68

Tertiary education/PhD

2.26

4.43

2.95

Other

5.93

6.25

6.03

N=124,752

100%

Table 6: Highest educational degree by Wikipedia activity groups

Page 8

Relationship Status

The status of the respondents regarding relationships also corresponds to the age structure of the

Wikipedia community, as only 33.29% of the respondents say they have a partner. Correspondingly,

the share of respondents with children is only 14.72%. The difference between readers and

contributors in this regard is negligible.

Page 9

Motivations and Incentives

Motivation to contribute

In this section we examine some incentives and disincentives to contribute to Wikipedia.

On average, contributors spend under four hours per week contributing to Wikipedia. There is a wide

range of motivations for participants' active engagement in Wikipedia, but two motivations stand out

clearly: the wish to share knowledge and the desire to fix errors. On the other hand, the desire to earn

money, or advance one's career through participation only motivated a very small share of

respondents. Few respondents said they contributed because their friends did or because they wanted

to gain a reputation in the community.

Motivation

max 4 answers, ranked by importance

1 = most important and 4 = least important

Mean

Priority

Selected by

% of N

I do it for professional reasons (it belongs to my professional tasks)

2.32

8.47

I like the idea of sharing knowledge and want to contribute to it

1.69

72.91

I saw an error I wanted to fix

1.92

68.78

I saw a red link so I wrote a new article

2.88

9.98

I want to learn new skills / acquire new knowledge

2.45

25.05

I think the Internet provides a better medium for encyclopediae than

traditional media

2.84

27.86

Just to see if it is really open for anyone to edit

3.20

5.25

I want to demonstrate my knowledge to a wider public / community

2.86

10.55

I want to make topics more popular that are not widely known yet

2.79

17.44

To improve my job / career opportunities

2.95

1.71

Because I like Wikipedia’s philosophy of openness and collaboration

2.88

30.07

Because I think information should be freely available to everyone

2.73

37.86

Because I like mass collaboration/cooperation

3.15

8.56

To gain a reputation in the Wikipedia community

3.29

2.16

Because friends of mine are doing it and motivated me to join

3.12

1.02

To make the world a better place

2.97

19.77

To earn money

3.03

0.43

Don't know/can't remember/no real reason

2.75

7.32

N=51,074 (contributors who selected at least one motivation)

Table 7: Reasons why people contribute to Wikipedia

Reasons for not contributing

A large share of readers who have never contributed to Wikipedia, have at least considered doing so.

This indicates a large community of potential future contributors. Two thirds (65.27%) of the

respondents that do not contribute to Wikipedia have at least considered to contribute. About one

quarter (24.88%) said they had not considered contributing (9.04% replied that they didn't know).

The reasons given by those who never considered to contribute (considering the aggregate data) show

two main factors and four less important factors. Not having enough information to contribute or

being happy to just read Wikipedia are the two options that have been checked by roughly half of the

respondents. Four other options were selected by about a quarter of the respondents respectively.

Page 10

Reasons for not contributing

I don't know how

23.77

I am not sufficiently comfortable with the technology

16.22

I would never interact on the internet

4.99

Others are already doing it, there is no need for me

19.08

I don't have time

31.31

I don't feel comfortable editing other peoples' work

23.68

I don't think I have enough information to contribute

53.06

I am afraid of making a mistake and getting “in trouble” for it

23.15

It's a waste of time: my edits would be reverted or overwritten

6.15

I am happy just to read it; I don't need to write it

45.49

Other

3.58

Don't know

3.82

Respondents who checked none of the options

1.23

N=28,897 (readers, who had never considered contributing)

Table 8: Reasons of non-contributors for not contributing to Wikipedia

The most frequently selected options that would make non-contributors more likely to contribute are

related to a lack of information. Potential contributors do not know which content areas might benefit

from their input, and they don't understand how their contributions might benefit others. Difficulty to

use the technology was not mentioned as a crucial impediment to contribution. Only 16.22% of

respondents stated they were “not sufficiently comfortable with the technology” and only 8.80% (the

lowest share of all options) said that they would be more likely to contribute if the “technology was

easier to use”. Further detail on non-contributors from different sub-groups, and recommendations for

increasing contribution, are provided in a separate report on non-contributors.

Answer Option

Someone would show me how to do it

19.77

The technology was easier to use

8.80

I knew that other contributors would be welcoming and encouraging

14.40

I knew there were specific topic areas that needed my help

39.63

I was confident my contributions would be valued and kept

24.58

It was clear to me that other people would benefit from my efforts

34.89

Other / don't know / don't want to say

30.68

Respondents who checked none of the options

3.95

N=28,897 (readers, who had never considered contributing)

Table 9: Factors that would make contribution more likely

Motivation to donate to the Wikimedia Foundation

In this section we examine some incentives and disincentives to donate to the Wikimedia Foundation.

We only include readers and contributors, because ex-contributors and others can reasonably be

expected to have very different motivations

Regarding the reasons why members of the Wikipedia community do not donate money to the

Wikimedia foundation more than 40% overall said they could not afford to donate – hardly surprising

given the young average age and high percentage of students -- and more than 20% said they had

never been asked to donate or did not know how to donate.

Page 11

Answer Option

% of

respondents

I did not know it is supported by a non-profit organisation

18.59

I never donate to charities

14.55

I can't afford to make a donation

44.89

I donate my time instead of money

18.34

Donations to the Wikipemedia Foundation are not tax-deductible

where I live

4.25

I was never asked to/ wouldn't know how

23.00

I disagree with Wikipedia's policies and practices

1.51

I don't know how to do that

22.01

I do not trust that my donation will be used wisely

14.80

It seems that enough of the other people are making donations

to keep the project running

16.44

Don't know

10.01

N=156,818

Table 10: Reasons not to donate money to Wikimedia

Another barrier to donate money to Wikipedia results from a lack of knowledge that this opportunity

exists or how to donate money. The least important reason for not donating money to Wikipedia is

disagreement with Wikipedia's policies and practices.

Lack of knowledge about the legal status of Wikipedia and how to make donations is more

pronounced among the readers than the contributors. There is a large difference between shares of

respondents who do not donate money, because they already donate their time (higher for

contributors) or who are unaware of the fact that a non-profit organisation supporting Wikipedia

exists (higher for readers).

Reason (multiple responses)

Readers

Contributors

Readers &

Contributors

I did not know it is supported by a non-

profit organisation

23.16

8.24

18.59

I never donate to charities

14.74

14.12

14.55

I can't afford to make a donation

43.50

48.02

44.89

I donate my time instead of money

10.20

36.74

18.34

Donations to the Wikipemedia Foundation are

not tax-deductible where I live

3.96

4.91

4.25

I was never asked to/ wouldn't know how

26.12

15.95

23.00

I disagree with Wikipedia's policies and

practices

1.05

2.54

1.51

I don't know how to do that

23.68

18.23

22.01

I do not trust that my donation will be

used wisely

15.65

12.86

14.80

It seems that enough of the other people

are making donations to keep the project

running

15.01

19.68

16.44

Don't know

10.59

8.69

10.01

N=108,731

N=48,087

N=156,818

Table 11: Reasons not to donate money to Wikimedia (by activity type)

THC Science

Bringing Science to the Cannabis Conversation!

Legality of Cannabis by U.S. Jurisdiction