User talk:Cormaggio

About m:Research/Cormac Lawler questionnaire

See Francis Schonken's outline of Cormac's research. You can contact me at cormaggio[at]yahoo.co.uk or cormaggio(at)gmail.com. Cormac; Cormaggio

You wrote:

PS - if you hate questionnaires so much, what made you agree to this one? Just because it was about Wikipedia?

Well, erm, yes, I admit, that was the main reason.

about attracting attention to your questionnaire

• on English Wikipedia I was thinking about RfC. Attracting attention to external research is however not the main purpose of that page, so people might oppose to it being posted there - I want to give it at try, if this doesn't cause disappointment on your side when effect would be different from expectation.
• on Dutch Wikipedia I would post on the Dutch equivalent of Village pump, i.e. nl:wikipedia:de kroeg. Note however that Dutch wikipedians have proven to be difficult to seduce into clicking towards meta.

I am open to however people find my questionnaire and how many would like to contribute to my studies. However I deliberately avoided asking people to send it on to friends or colleagues, because I wanted a sense of the variety anmd geographical spread of Wikipedians (although this is obviously limited by language - there are many who flick between languages, and many who will stay in their community). Cormaggio

about the topic of your dissertation

• I understand you primarily aim at the educational aspects of Wikipedia-like endeavours. Just wanted to tell you that in that respect I have this naive idea that if I were a teacher that instead of giving homework I'd ask my pupils to write an encyclopedia article in Wikipedia, that is: choose themself a topic that has no or a deficient wikipedia article, and show what they can make out of that (wikipedia history list is very easy to check what contribution exactly they made). For me as a teacher my work would be made easier, as other wikipedians might work on the same articles too, so I'd not be the only one giving feedback to my pupils. Well, somebody helping to answer the question whether this is indeed only naive or nonetheless workable as an educational scheme, would make me very happy.
• What I'd be interested in too (even more than in the previous), is somebody studying the specific sociology of the Wikipedia endeavour, which is somehow something of a different order, when comparing e.g. to slashdot, etc... even at meta it often appears that wikipedians are still unable to clarify to themselves how the whole thing works sociologically. Surely this would be an interesting field to explore for a social scientist? Now, I'm dreaming: that would probably be too large a field for your M.Ed dissertation...
• How's your German? I mean, reading the summary of Ingo Beyerlein's dissertation mentioned at m:Research, this is probably very close to what you're working on...

Lots of success!

--Francis Schonken 08:46, 6 Dec 2004 (UTC)

German was a long time ago for me, hence I probably wouldn't be able to tackle a dissertation. I do however have a few friends who are either native or fluent German, and if possible might help out in this. (Or any other suggestions?)

I really appreciate your time and effort in taking this research forward, Francis. It has added a whole new dynamic to the way I was considering distributing the questionnaire, which has been fairly limited so far. As for the educational aspect of Wikipedia, your idea is pretty much exactly what I was thinking of doing myself or proposing to other educators. My view of education is pretty broad anyway (I'm not even a teacher as such), and i consider Wikipedia to be a learning community, not just about collecting information but learning collaboration. But I think this is the way that so-called E-learning is going, with teachers/educators using collaborative projects like Wikipedia, Moodle-based applications, or internal forums like WebCT, to get students to do their own research and feedback in whatever arena they choose as their learning environment/platform. I've got loads of links to elearning resources, which I hoep to post up to maybe my User page, as I get the hang of this whole thing. So more to follow.. Cormaggio

Questionnaire

Hey Cormac,

I'd like to fill in your questionairre, but I would prefer to do it by e-mail. The page on meta claims this is also an option, but I cannot find a mail link on your user page. If you don't want to reveal your e-mail publically, maybe you can go to my user page on the dutch wikipedia and send me an e-mail via that form, in which you mention your correct e-mail address.

Sander Spek

Got it. With some help from user:Francis Schonken I found your e-mail address in the text. Sander Spek

Thanks a million to you Sander, and I'll be emailing you as well - Cormac. (I really like Francis' approach - but am still trying to figure out what's the best way of arranging it, since I am pretty new to the editing and structuring of wikipedia)

Hi Cormaggio. I made sectioned copy of the questionaire and put it on the discussion page of the article. I figured that folks that don't mind their answers being made public could copy it to their user space and maybe post links to their filled out copies at the bottom of the talk page - m:Talk:Research/Wikipedia_as_a_learning_community. I dunno if that fits what you want to do or not. Let me know. Oh by the way Thanks for joining the WikiProject_Community! Feel free to change anything you like. I know it's a bit of a mess currently ;) Quinobi 13:13, 30 July 2005 (UTC)

The Ginormous Survey Merger

See m:Wikicensus for details on the different surveys already out there, and the different efforts underway.

I'm thinking there could be a single database with survey data and user information; perhaps with different surveys of different sizes, or some surveys sent out in multiple segments, or sectioned surveys... +sj + 19:50, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

My research page

I've set up a page at meta, m:Research/Wikipedia_as_a_learning_community where I hope to promote discussion on the experience of Wikipedians, related to interpersonal dynamics and the creation of community. If there are any comments, you could leave them here or on that page's talk page. Cormaggio 17:40, 20 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Call for papers for Wikimania.

Wikimania workshops, lectures, short lectures, posters, and tutorials; in case you missed it. — Jeandré, 2005-03-18t14:21z

South Slavic NPOV page

(Answer to your request on my discussion page on metaWiki)

It's true that I'm enlisted as a participant in the South Slavic NPOV page, but I’m not a leading person there, moreover I’m Bulgarian, not from ex-Yugo states:) Unfortunately, the project is hibernated - many months there is no activity related to it. The very first issue discussed was one on language of communication (English, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian or, possibly, Bulgarian in Latin script). Another issue is why this page should exist. One of the answers was, that on this page we could discuss all the controversial articles (related to South Slavic subjects). A preliminary list of such articles was created. The last issue on the list is one on the system of making proposals for NPOV articles. Unfortunately, such a system is far from invention :). Howsoever, an article is quoted as one on which some people from Serbian and Croatian Wikipedias have been worked. The subject of the article is Ideology of linguistic controversies between Croatians and Serbs. I’m not sure my summary is thorough enough, but if you have some additional questions concerning details, you’re welcome! (My discussion page on bg.wikipedia) --Harry 13:45, 25 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your study published on Wikisource

Hi Cormac,

Thanks for the notification, had a diagonal reading or your 24/1/05 paper on Wikisource, and looks very much Ok to me (apart that I discovered a typo in my answers to your questionnaire, which you copied in the appendixes).

Question: Do you want to "freeze" the content of that contribution, or leave it open to others to modify it and/or do you still want to modify it yourself? In the first case I'd ask a Wikisource sysop to block it (On wikisource there is less restraint on blocking pages permanently). Alternatively, put a notice on top asking others not to modify, and/or point to a place where there is a modifiable copy of the text.

I understand this was not yet the final paper, and that your research continues, for example with the second list of questions you published on meta. Although I put myself on the list I admit not having been too involved in Wikidemia (yet!).

I launched a difficult discussion re. verifiability vs. falsifiability some time ago, at wikipedia talk:verifiability, but haven't been there since several weeks as it was going nowhere (the discussion, that is). I mention this because in that context (but I don't know any more exactly where - wikipedia talk:no original research?) I encountered a comment, if I remember well from a wikisource sysop, that also Wikisource is not meant for anything near to publication of original research (contrary to my assertions). I did not go into researching whether that was a minority view, or a new, generally accepted rule. Just to let you know. Also from this angle, however, maybe not a bad idea to ask a Wikisource sysop to block the page with your study in the form it was submitted 24/1/05 to your teachers.

--Francis Schonken 15:59, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Quarto by email

Thank you very much. I'll do my best, at the moment I don't have much time to spare, but... BW

Thanks for the update Brookie 07:12, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Quarto translations

Hi, thank you for your note on my wikipedia talkpage. Of course, when I can I will help with the translations - it always depends on my available time. I already did some into Italian last time - and those then needed proof-reading, since I am not Italian mother tognue, but German. But it seems as there are more people at disposal for translations into German than into Italian.
If you need to contact me urgently, please use my e-mail address s.cretella <at> wordsandmore.it. I don't go too often to my wikipedia account since I am ore active on Wiktionary. Ciao! --SabineCretella 07:13, 3 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Also writing about Wikipedia, have found your user page very useful

HI, thanks for creating such a useful collection of links on your user page. I'm also writing about the Wikipedia, although from a slightly different angle as I'm doing Media and Cultural Studies. I don't want to clutter up your talk page with my ramblings, but please take a look at my user page; hopefully you will find my ideas interesting. I'm also about to send you an email regarding your questionnaire. Thanks illWill 23:04, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

�T� eres irland�s?

Te acabo de escribir en la Wikipedia en espa�ol para darte la bienvenida. No sab�a que eras de Irlanda. �C�mo has aprendido a hablar castellano? Soy Gabri, de Granada (Espa�a). Cont�stame.

Hola, si, he viajado en Mexico y Centroamerica por un ano y tambien vivía en Barcelona el ano pasado. Visité a Granada, que es una de las ciudades mas bonitas que he visto en mi vida. Tienes suerte vivir alli! Cormaggio 22:39, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

JAWPVP

Hi, Cormaggio, I read your message. But your link to "research" page is broken. You would like to fix it, perhaps. Cheers, --Aphaea* 07:12, 1 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Greetings

Hey, Cormac. I just thought I'd drop you a note to ask how your research was going. I finally updated my research page [User:Will Lakeman/Wikipedia research|here] and sorted out an essay plan. I think I'm going to work by using case studies of specific pages/talk/disagreements to illustrate aspects of the Wikipedia, based a lot on the book I've been reading called Virtual Ethnography by Christine Hine. I decided to go this way because I want to concentrate on the structure of the site, and its immediate content, without doing a full ethnography. Sadly, I won't make it to the Wikimania conference because I'm broke and don't have enough time, but I hope there will be something similar next year. Anyway, hope the research is going well, drop me a note on my talk page when you've got a minute. illWill 7 July 2005 18:32 (UTC)

Thanks for the link to the research team, I would say I'd participate on Sunday but I never bothered learning how to use IRC. If I can find a cheap, easy to use Mac-based client by Sunday afternoon then I'll certainly join in. Also, whereabouts is your paper on Wikibooks? I wouldn't mind having a look through it - I'm interested to see how you'vre handled citation. Thanks illWill 9 July 2005 00:15 (UTC)

Klingon activity

The about 70 figure is more correct. When Wiktionaries were started in languages other than English it was decided that the potential should be there for any language that had a Wikipedia. Klingon was no exception. For myself my time is full enough with work on the en:Wiktionary without wandering off to check these other projects. Nobody pays much attention to these minor Wiktionaries, so they can easily become magnets for the silly pictures and music files that you found there. By all means feel free to bring this to the attention of the stewards on Meta. --Eclecticology 19:30, July 25, 2005 (UTC)

Wikimania/German research project

Alas no, I probably won't be at Wikimania (practical issues)... I'd like to be there, and hear your talk, and meet...

Did you know this one (link to an on-going research project conducted from Germany, with an on-line survey in English, anounced at Wimedia I-Tech mailing list)?

--Francis Schonken 13:19, 26 July 2005 (UTC)