And to add, we are not alone in using a definition that requires repeated
actions within a month for a user to be counted as active - just happened
to see this:

http://blog.stackoverflow.com/2015/09/were-changing-our-name-back-to-stack-overflow/
"The [Stack Exchange] network as a whole has more monthly 5-time posters
than English Wikipedia has 5-time monthly editors." (ouch!)

On Sat, Sep 12, 2015 at 4:25 PM, Erik Zachte <[email protected]> wrote:

> Hi Pine,
>
>
>
> > I think that the definition on Special:Statistics makes more sense for
> "active editors" than the >=5 definition than is commonly used in
> discussions on mailing lists.
>
>
>
> tl;dr 'active editor'  is a term with a long history. If we recoin that
> term and keep informing the public how many active editors we counted we
> will make our public stats more vain and empty.
>
>
>
> Long version:
>
>
>
> This is a recurring discussion, with minor variations.
>
>
>
> In my personal opinion our movement has a tendency to publish too extreme
> numbers already, however bloated, as if our more substantial achievements
> aren't awe-inspiring enough.
>
> (examples are 'Wikipedias in 280 languages', '800 wikis', not to mention
> our extreme 'article' counts)
>
> As long as we keep these extreme counts with little substance for
> ourselves I wouldn't care much about terminology, but we tend not to keep
> these for ourselves.
>
>
>
> Can I illustrate my point by reductio ad absurdum (sort of)?
>
> Would you call a person who jots his name on a paycheck once a month and
> writes nothing else a writer?
>
> Would you call a person who climbs three steps to enter a bus a climber?
>
> Are you a reader if you glance at a glossy's cover once at your local
> barber?
>
>
>
> A person with one edit in one particular month and maybe none in the rest
> of the year to me is not much of an editor really.
>
> It's one more person who knows of Wikipedia (we have 500+ million of
> those) and found the edit and submit buttons and tried those, to see what
> happens.
>
> Now if that person likes what happened and wants to do it again we are on
> to something.
>
> The threshold of edits a person should reach before we can infer intention
> and motivation is of course arbitrary, but clearly more than one in my view.
>
>
>
> I'm not saying we shouldn’t count one-off's. If people get deterred by one
> problematic edit that is hugely relevant. And the enormous gap between 1+
> and 3+ edits is of course a major concern.
>
> I would just prefer a different term rather than 'active editor', which is
> what you suggest to adopt.
>
>
>
> Cheers,
>
>
>
> Erik
>
>
>
> *From:* [email protected] [mailto:
> [email protected]] *On Behalf Of *Pine W
> *Sent:* Saturday, September 12, 2015 23:29
> *To:* A mailing list for the Analytics Team at WMF and everybody who has
> an interest in Wikipedia and analytics.
> *Subject:* Re: [Analytics] User statistics for video marking ENWP 5m
> article milestone
>
>
>
> Aha, I just figured it out. The two pages are using very different
> definitions for "active editors".
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics refers to anyone who has
> made a *single* edit in the last 30 days as an "active editor", while
> https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm refers to edits that
> have made *5 or more* edits in the past month as active. This mix of
> terminology is confusing. I think that the definition on Special:Statistics
> makes more sense for "active editors" than the >=5 definition than is
> commonly used in discussions on mailing lists. Can anyone suggest a better
> set of terminology to distinguish the >=1 "active editors" from the >=5
> "active editors"?
>
>
> Pine
>
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 12, 2015 at 2:21 PM, Pine W <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Next question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics shows
> that ENWP alone has had 123,512 active editors (5 or more actions) in the
> last 30 days. But https://reportcard.wmflabs.org/ shows that for June
> 2015 (the latest data available there), there were only 31k active editors
> on ENWP and 77k active editors for all projects combined. 
> https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm
> seems consistent with the latter, showing that for August 2015 there were
> 30,789 active editors. Is there an explanation for the large difference
> between the 123,512 active editors shown on
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics, and the 30,789 active
> editors shown on https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm?
>
>
>
> Thanks,
>
>
> Pine
>
>
>
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 11, 2015 at 11:29 AM, Pine W <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Thanks!
> Pine
>
> On Sep 11, 2015 11:20 AM, "James Forrester" <[email protected]>
> wrote:
>
> On 11 September 2015 at 11:13, Pine W <[email protected]> wrote:
>
> Hi Analytics,
>
> On ENWP, does the number of 26,163,773 users
>
> ​You mean https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics "Registered
> users"? Assuming yes…​
>
> include IPs who have made edits?
>
> ​No.
>
> Does it include editors on all Wikimedia projects
>
> ​No.​
>
>
>
> or just those who have registered and/or edited on ENWP?
>
> ​Registered, regardless of having edited.
>
>
>
> J.
>
> --
>
> James D. Forrester
> Lead Product Manager, Editing
> Wikimedia Foundation, Inc.
>
> [email protected] | @jdforrester
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Analytics mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>
>
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Analytics mailing list
> [email protected]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>
>


-- 
Tilman Bayer
Senior Analyst
Wikimedia Foundation
IRC (Freenode): HaeB
_______________________________________________
Analytics mailing list
[email protected]
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics

Reply via email to