Fun with statistics

A form of advertising not likely
to be directly seen on WMF!
Image via Wikimedia CommonsAdvertising as a funding source for Wikimedia Foundation projects is a fairly controversial topic, and there has been much discussion in the past. Opinions on the matter are held quite strongly by some folk.

Apparently Jimmy Wales ran a poll on advertising via a facility on Facebook that lets you poll things. Some analysis of this poll was carried out and posted on Meta (and, to my chagrin, although I'm active on Meta, I didn't find out about it that way).

The analysis is quite interesting, if only to show what sort of fun can be had with statistics.

Facebook: Image via Wikipedia
(fair use claimed)According to Techcrunch, Facebook demographics are somewhat skewed. this is not surprising when you think about it, but I did not realise it was apparently 2/3 female in make up. Lonely male geeks, take note!

So clearly the demographic of these polls is not necessarily representative of the entire population. That's OK and not necessarily a drawback if one is just trying to get some preliminary sense of matters and doesn't plan to use the findings for actual decision making, absent more study.

Personally, I think the thing I found most amusing, and significant, was the large number of people that were not sure what the project's current structure actually is, and were not aware that the project does not currently have ads on it.

This is something to remember... it's true that the english wikipedia is the 7th most visited site on the internet, but it's also true that many people don't know much at all about its project structure or funding sources. Or care, presumably.

What do you think?

Giano stands up for Jimbo

Many of you know who Giano is, but for those of you that don't, he is one of the English Wikipedia's more prolific writers, with many Featured Articles to his credit. Giano has always been unafraid to speak his mind.

Giano stood for ArbCom in the 2007 elections and I was a strong supporter. Although he garnered a lot of votes, he was not among the candidates selected by Jimbo.

Concurrently with the election, the ArbCom IRC case came up and Giano found himself sanctioned by ArbCom, placed on a civility parole for a year, and Giano said he would not be back.

Recently, Giano returned. What brought him back? The current (ongoing?) scandal involving Jimbo, Rachael Marsden, and allegations of impropriety. So did Giano take some potshots at Jimbo in retaliation for Jimbo's chiding him? No. Instead Giano posted a long and heartfelt defense of Jimbo.

What happened next is probably predictable... there was a lot of back and forth, someone tried to take it off the page before discussion finished, harsh words were exchanged, and so forth. But that's not the point.

The point is that Giano, the candidate who detractors said held grudges, acted like a child, would be a bad influence on the project, and on and on... that candidate had the strength of character to stand up on behalf of what he believed right. Not on behalf of a friend, which is admirable, but on behalf of someone who had done him few favours.

That's the sort of person ArbCom needs. That we did not choose him is our loss.