It seems somewhat unwikilike to ask people to document their demographic info, but some of this info is readily apparent by interpreting one's wiki use. What follows is a descriptive breakdown of the Wiki's most frequent contributors.

Data

Gender

This analysis was restricted to the 144 users who have made 50 or more changes to the Wiki as of 10-31-05. Gender was gauged by people's user names, pictures, or their use of pronouns to describe themselves. This information was not available for fewer than 5% of the sample, so strong inferences guided how these individuals were coded.

Overall, 39% of Wiki contributors were female, 61% male. The results get more interesting when you break it down by number of contributions. The top 10% of contributors (n=14) are 85% male. If you break the analysis into quarters, the:

see also Wiki Community/Women

Age, Generation, etc.

There are demographics here too.

Ethnicity, Culture and Nationality

I don't think there is any issue with ethnicity on the wiki, but we do support quite a few pages reflecting the ethnic sub communities of davis.

Social Class

Some people don't have computers, some people are rich, some poor, some students, some professors.

Student Status

Here's a gender by student-status breakdown for the top 25% of contributors (n=36) to the wiki. Undergrad status was assesed as of Fall Quarter 2005. An informal analysis of the top 25% reveals there to be 20 undergrads, 7 grad students, 5 non-student Davisites, and 4 people who neither live in Davis nor are currently affiliated with the University. It is unclear whether these numbers generalize beyond the top 25% of contributors.

Another example of wiki introspection is Interpreting User Statistics.

Analysis

Stuff here to take an introspective, a priori look at the data from above.

Is the community accessible?

Is the community fair?

What can be done to promote the community?

Comments:

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What about %undergrad, etc - arlen

2005-10-31 22:14:38   I want to see more data about non-student townies. —KenjiYamada

2005-10-31 22:16:22   If anyone wants my excel worksheet, e-mail me. my e-mail address is cjbroz@uc ... —CraigBrozinsky

2005-10-31 22:24:32   I love the wiki but it's as diverse as an apple pie vs. an apple pie vs. a dutch apple pie —JesseSingh

2005-11-01 02:59:55   Looks pretty good. The male/female ratio could be more balanced, but I'm amazed that non-students contribute so much. Bravo. —JaimeRaba

2005-11-01 15:47:30   what about those wiki-ers who aren't UC affliated? (go walruses!) —MichelleAccurso

2005-11-01 15:50:33   Who are Walruses? —JaimeRaba

  • When I started school at Solano Community College my friends from high school and I decided that since it was community college we were going to make our own mascot. We were the UNS (University Near Scandia) Walruses! Because walruses are simply awesome. —MichelleAccurso

2005-11-01 16:04:19   if anyone wants to take the time to code users in terms of student status, townie status, age, sex, etc., i'd be happy to do a statistical analysis based on the results. i might not be able to carry out the analysis for a couple of weeks though. —CraigBrozinsky

2005-11-01 16:10:44   I just want to point out that the chart displayed above only reflects whether individuals are undergrads, not whether or not they are students. I believe there are a number of grad students contributing to the wiki —MattCzarnowski

2005-11-01 22:30:16   What about people who are not townies or UCD students? I wouldn't consider myself either. —JanelleAlvstadMattson

  • Yeah, I just read the townie page and didn't realize it has such a restrictive connotation. I hadn't contemplated the difference between (1) new non-university davisites, (2) people who are affiliated with the university but in non-academic positions, (3) professors, or (4) the significant others of any the above or students. I've changed the above to "non-student Davisites." At this point, breaking it down further would be silly— there are only 36 people in the sample :-) CraigBrozinsky
  • You can have your own category "Student Affiliate" —KenjiYamada

2005-11-01 23:16:05   I'm actually kinda curious about age ratios, now that more DHS students are getting into the wiki, even though only me and Norris really pay attention to what's goin' on. —JohnDudek

2005-11-01 23:51:20   I would be very interested in finding out how many 19-21 year old townie non-UCD twins use the wiki. —PhilipNeustrom

  • 4 identical, 6 fraternal, and 3 siamese. I'm just as confused about that last one as you ... cjb

2005-11-02 00:19:58   we should make a form or something, and fill it out, example: i am a 20 y/o female, non UCD student, non davis resident, with 300+ edits etc —MichelleAccurso

2005-11-02 00:23:03   An informal analysis of the top 25% reveals there to be 20 undergrads, 7 grad students, 5 non-student Davisites, and 4 people who neither live in Davis nor are currently affiliated with the University. as in user stats page? —MichelleAccurso

2006-04-21 03:06:38   Wait how does the top 25% of 2438 36? (Re: student status) —KrisFricke

2006-04-21 03:51:28   25% of 144, the # of users who had made 50+ edits as of 10-31-05, and so qualified for these stats, is 36 —MaxMikalonis

2010-03-18 11:35:30   I found this information pretty interesting and thought I'd bump it onto recent changes. Has data like this been collected since 2005? If not, it might be interesting to collect it again and see how (if?) things have changed. —TomGarberson

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