世論 What Japan Thinks

The last time I looked at Wikipedia (just two days ago it was), it was wrong, and in addition the official building name is actually HEP FIVE, all in capitals, I believe. To see how the Japanese react to Wikipedia, japan.internet.com reported on the third regular monthly survey on Wikipedia conducted by goo Research.

Demographics

Between the 3rd and 7th of September 2007 1,078 members of goo Research’s online monitor pool completed a private internet-based questionnaire. 52.4% of the sample was male, 16.4% in their teens, 17.9% in their twenties, 21.7% in their thirties, 16.0% in their forties, and 28.0% aged fifty or older.

Just to stand on my soapbox for a minute, I think bloggers who link to Wikipedia are just being lazy. One gets no brownie points for linking to it, and in fact you are perhaps weakening your own article and strengthening Wikipedia in the search engine rankings. Conversely, if one links to another blogger who appears more knowledgeble on the subject, you are making contact with someone human, leaving a trackback in their blog that might result in a couple of new visitors to your site, and you may find the blogger will link back to you at a later date to return the favour.

In Q1SQ2, I think “other” is the correct answer! Wikipedia is by design unverified and unverifiable, so to ask the question implies a misunderstanding of the concept behind it.

Research results

Q1: Do you know of the online encyclopedia Wikipedia? (Sample size=1,078)

Yes (to SQs)	79.7%
No	20.3%

This awareness is up a mere 0.9 percentage points from last month’s survey.

Q1SQ1: Do you think you can trust the articles in Wikipedia? (Sample size=818)

Trust them sufficiently	12.0%
Trust them a little	79.6%
Don’t really trust them	8.1%
Don’t trust them at all	0.4%

Q1SQ2: Do you think the articles in Wikipedia need specialist verification? (Sample size=818)

Is needed	35.2%
Needed for some parts	54.4%
Don’t think it is needed	9.7%
Other	0.7%