This page is an archive of a community-wide discussion. This page is no longer live. Further comments should be made in the Senate Hall or new Consensus Track pages rather than here so that this page is preserved as a historic record. Greyman(Paratus) 17:58, 22 February 2008 (UTC) Final Update - January 17, 2008
Great news! I got the study back from my professor, and she believes this is definitely worth publishing. I need to work on it some more, but this part of the study is finished. If these threads need to be closed, feel free to do so. Now that I'm back from winter vacation, I'll be more in contact as I prepare the study for publication. Thank you all again.
Update: Tuesday 12:46pm
Again, thanks to all who have responded. I've received many more responses, which has helped tremendously. Ideally, this study will create an awareness in the academic community of the unique place Wookieepedia holds in fan fiction scholarship. More responses are welcome, though I am wrapping up this portion of the study. (Read, the sooner the better).
Update: Friday 12:48am
Many thanks to those who have responded so far. If you have not sent a response, please do so! This study hinges on Wookieepedians sharing their knowledge and experiences.
Original Message:
Hello Administrators of Wookieepedia,
My name is Ernest Alba. I am an undergraduate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), and I am doing an ethnographic study on the Wookieepedia community. In order to develop a prospectus on this study, I sent a preliminary questionnaire to Administrator Greyman a couple of weeks ago. Now that the project has been approved, I would now like to beg all of your indulgences in answering the expanded questionnaire about your experiences as writers for Wookieepedia. Honest and detailed answers would help tremendously (any answers would help tremendously!). If you have any more questions for me, feel free to email me at ealba(at)mit(dot)edu or look me up on my user page. You may send your responses privately to my email address or post them here or on my user page, if you'd like.
I apologize for any inconvenience if this was an inappropriate place to submit this request and thank you in advance for your responses.
Sincerely,
Ernest Alba
Survey Questions for Wookieepedia Administrators
General Questions
1. Who writes Wookieepedia? Is it evenly split between a small band of users who make a lot of edits and a large number of users who each make small contributions?
2. What type of editing is an administrator or an "elite" user likely to do versus a common user (e.g. reverting, polishing, revising vs. creation of new content)?
3. Is vandalism a large problem?
4. Wookieepedia is the largest Wikia site with over 54,000 articles. To what standards does Wookieepedia hold itself up to? Encyclopedia Britannica? Wikipedia? Memory Alpha? In other
words, is this a professional or an amateur site?
Personal Questions
5. Why are you a Wookieepedia user? What are the incentives of contributing?
6. Is there a community identity? How do you see yourself as fitting into the community? Are you a spectator? Minor player? Integral cog?
7. How important are user pages? What are their purpose?
8. What is your view of fan fiction and fanon?
9. Do you feel as if writing for Wookieepedia places you inside the Star Wars universe? Or do your contributions represent a sacrifice (writing "boring" history instead of fan fiction)
for the good of the Star Wars community - participating in a nobler cause?
10. Is there anything else you would like to say about your experience as a writer for Wookieepedia?