User talk:Hickerca

Survey

G'day Corey,

I have answered your survey questions. I found that they were not very appropriate for WP, as many editors here write for altruistic reasons and NOT to find out about health problems of their own. For example, I write about pregnancy and childbirth (mostly) and I'm a bloke. Further, given that WP is an international collaboration your survey seems needlessly US centric. I think a few more not applicable categories would have been useful and a few more free hand boxes would give better explanation. My two cents worth. Good luck with the research. Maustrauser 21:10, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

I just wanted to add that if you are still posting this on peoples' talk pages, a link to something showing where it was approved by the Wikimedia Foundation would be helpful for me to more quickly determine its non-spam nature. At any rate, I just filled it out. Interesting survey, as it made me think about my reasons for contributing to and using WP, and though they are almost completely different, they are also clearly intertwined, mostly in how I view Wikipedia as a reliable resource. I want to point out that I view common criticisms of Wikipedia's reliability in a somewhat different light after I learned of the project's goal to be a tertiary source only. The idea is that if you are ever relying on information in WP for critical decisions, you should (theoretically) always be able to find the original, peer-reviewed source for any assertion. Will the results of the survey be available publicly, or do we need to email you as participants to get a copy? Thanks! —Trevyn 19:46, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

Unclear on question

What does this question mean? During an average week, how much time do your spend on this wiki? Which wiki? on wikipedia in general? Taco325i 16:01, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the survey. Sorry for the confusion; it is referring to Wikipedia in general. Thanks again.Corey 16:18, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Difficult items

Hi! I had difficulty answering some of the questions.

• "This website offers everything you need to know on the topic." No. I can't imagine a website that would.
• "I am more educated about my health than most U.S. citizens." What do I know about U.S. citizens? It would be difficult enough to compare myself against other Swedes.
• "I have full knowledge of the health problems of people like myself." I have no idea what this means. Who are "people like myself"? Other Wikipedians? Well, there's the Wikipedians by condition category, otherwise I don't know much...
• The whole of "Use the non-wiki health website you provided above to answer the following questions." was impossible to answer since there is no one single non-wiki health website I use a lot; mainly I search with google...
• "I rely on a number of sources for health information besides..." Besides what? (Assuming Wikipedia.)

I know it's hard to design a questionnaire. Hope you appreciate my feedback. Good luck with the research! /skagedal^... 19:12, 8 December 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for your feedback. I appreciate all your comments. All were very valid. I have passed those on to my fellow researcher. Thanks again for taking the survey and then taking the time to give us feedback.Corey 17:01, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

"Health Wiki Research"

Hi. For your information, spamming a large number of user discussion pages with identical messages is widely discouraged, especially when the content is unrelated to the encyclopedia. I don't appreciate it, and it is unlikely to be well-recieved by the project in general. I am not a "frequent contributor to Wikipedia on health topics", in fact I am not a frequent contributor on any topic. While I daresay I have fixed vandalism and corrected spelling errors on a good many health-related articles, I certainly have no interest in your survey. Please find a more specific group of users, or better still, please stop using user discussion pages for a purpose for which they are not intended. Thank you – Gurch 15:56, 16 December 2006 (UTC)