>We found that a subset of users on Wikipedia publicly proclaim their political >affiliation through userboxes, and users who proclaim their affiliation for a >particular party tend to have high numbers of userboxes that are ideologically >aligned with that party. However, these ‘political’ users also had equally >high numbers of Wikipedia userboxes. That is, boxes that espoused an identity >of being a ‘Wikipedian’. The results indicate that the social identities of >being a member of a political party and of being a Wikipedian may be equally >important.
IMHO this is borderline moronic. Analogy: "We found that amongst mechanics who were Republicans, the number of tools carried was similar to the number of political stickers on their vehicles. This indicates that the social identity of being a mechanic was similar to that of being a Republican". Wikipedia isn't some random place that people who like encyclopaedias hang out. It's a workplace for encyclopaedia writers. The authors seem to have completely missed the rules of behaviour that Wikipedians are subject to. Did they even read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:UPYES#What_may_I_have_on_my_user_page.3F ? Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
