Sometimes things happen in the world that researchers could never make happen on there own, but when it does happen, much can be learned. For example, in Group Size And Incentives To Contribute: A Natural Experiment At Chinese Wikipedia Zhang and Zhu analyzed the effect of China blocking access to the Chinese Wikipedia on non-mainland (non-blocked) contributors (e.g., those in Taiwan and Hong Kong). They found that after a block, non-blocked contributors decreased their contributions by 42.8% on average; decreases in contributions were further associated with those who had user/talk pages and for those whose collaborators were blocked. So losing one’s collaborators apparently lessens motivation.

The SOPA/PIPA protests of January 18 were a natural experiment as well. Some things I’m wondering (feel free to add any of your own):

• What is an cumulative total amount of ad revenue lost by participating sites ? In lobbying terms, was this a good value?
• Did Digg (or others) get more traffic given Reddit’s participation in the “blackout”? (Hence, non-participating sites were “free-riders” benefiting from participating sites?)
• Was overall Internet traffic higher or lower that day?
• Did Google queries increase since Wikipedia was largely unavailable?
• Was Wikipedia busier the following day than typical?

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Sometimes things happen in the world that researchers could never make happen on there own, but when it does happen, much can be learned. For example, in Group Size And Incentives To Contribute: A Natural Experiment At Chinese Wikipedia Zhang and Zhu analyzed the effect of China blocking access to the Chinese Wikipedia on non-mainland (non-blocked) contributors (e.g., those in Taiwan and Hong Kong). They found that after a block, non-blocked contributors decreased their contributions by 42.8% on average; decreases in contributions were further associated with those who had user/talk pages and for those whose collaborators were blocked. So losing one’s collaborators apparently lessens motivation.

The SOPA/PIPA protests of January 18 were a natural experiment as well. Some things I’m wondering (feel free to add any of your own):

• What is an cumulative total amount of ad revenue lost by participating sites ? In lobbying terms, was this a good value?
• Did Digg (or others) get more traffic given Reddit’s participation in the “blackout”? (Hence, non-participating sites were “free-riders” benefiting from participating sites?)
• Was overall Internet traffic higher or lower that day?
• Did Google queries increase since Wikipedia was largely unavailable?
• Was Wikipedia busier the following day than typical?

this entry posted to technology ;
comments (2)

Sometimes things happen in the world that researchers could never make happen on there own, but when it does happen, much can be learned. For example, in Group Size And Incentives To Contribute: A Natural Experiment At Chinese Wikipedia Zhang and Zhu analyzed the effect of China blocking access to the Chinese Wikipedia on non-mainland (non-blocked) contributors (e.g., those in Taiwan and Hong Kong). They found that after a block, non-blocked contributors decreased their contributions by 42.8% on average; decreases in contributions were further associated with those who had user/talk pages and for those whose collaborators were blocked. So losing one’s collaborators apparently lessens motivation.

The SOPA/PIPA protests of January 18 were a natural experiment as well. Some things I’m wondering (feel free to add any of your own):

• What is an cumulative total amount of ad revenue lost by participating sites ? In lobbying terms, was this a good value?
• Did Digg (or others) get more traffic given Reddit’s participation in the “blackout”? (Hence, non-participating sites were “free-riders” benefiting from participating sites?)
• Was overall Internet traffic higher or lower that day?
• Did Google queries increase since Wikipedia was largely unavailable?
• Was Wikipedia busier the following day than typical?

this entry posted to technology ;
comments (2)

Sometimes things happen in the world that researchers could never make happen on there own, but when it does happen, much can be learned. For example, in Group Size And Incentives To Contribute: A Natural Experiment At Chinese Wikipedia Zhang and Zhu analyzed the effect of China blocking access to the Chinese Wikipedia on non-mainland (non-blocked) contributors (e.g., those in Taiwan and Hong Kong). They found that after a block, non-blocked contributors decreased their contributions by 42.8% on average; decreases in contributions were further associated with those who had user/talk pages and for those whose collaborators were blocked. So losing one’s collaborators apparently lessens motivation.

The SOPA/PIPA protests of January 18 were a natural experiment as well. Some things I’m wondering (feel free to add any of your own):

• What is an cumulative total amount of ad revenue lost by participating sites ? In lobbying terms, was this a good value?
• Did Digg (or others) get more traffic given Reddit’s participation in the “blackout”? (Hence, non-participating sites were “free-riders” benefiting from participating sites?)
• Was overall Internet traffic higher or lower that day?
• Did Google queries increase since Wikipedia was largely unavailable?
• Was Wikipedia busier the following day than typical?

this entry posted to technology ;
comments (2)