Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Felipe Ortega, 25/07/2009 18:06: * The main proportion of Featured Articles in all top-ten language versions needed, at least, more than 1,000 days (3 years) to reach that level. But I often see that even an old, quiescent page is completely re-written or significantly improved by an expert (of the matter and often of wiki too) user (often FA regulars) to reach Featured article status, and it reaches it in some weeks at most. * Most of editors contributing to FAs were high experienced editors, meaning more than 2.5 or 3 years participating in Wikipedia. I read your thesis entirely, and I have a big concern: you consider only number of edits. An admin can edit dozen of thousands of articles reverting vandalisms, and histories are full of huge vandalism-revert series which are history-noise because that's not where the article was improved or acually evolved. You can often see articles created (or significantly expanded) with a single edit followed by dozens or even hunderds of minor edits and vandalism-reverts. Then, we should rather consider, as authors of articles, users who added it more text; or better, users who added more of the text which is still there (like in wikitrust). Moreover, FA are only a minority of articles and do not measure the quality of the wiki. Nemo ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Hoi, When the Wikimedia Foundation is to be the centre of a movement, then it has challenges as an enabler. The first most obvious thing to do is make it visible. This means that we do not only reach out to people but also to organisations. When GLAM (gallereies, libraries, archives and museums) are natural partners, such partnerships need to be recognised. We have to take pride in such partnerships. In a partnership, there is a meeting of equals and as there are so many GLAM and only so few in the Office, it needs to be something self organising, something where the interested members of our community can play a role as well. When an important man like Wayne Macintosh is made an advisory member of our advisory board, it is his educational organisation and project that make him this relevant. They use MediaWiki but they do not take full benefit from what we have to offer in our MediaWiki, our SVN and our translatewiki.net. While they provide a best of breed example of educational use of MediaWiki, they could do better from a best practices point of view. When the WMF is to be this centre, it has to make visible the partnerships it has, it has to work together with the GLAM and the educational organisations. It has to make this visible, it has to make us aware that organisations can be and are part of our movement. Thanks, GerardM 2009/7/30 Samuel Klein meta...@gmail.com When I say world of WP I mean world post-WP -- the world we live in, in which certain businesses are failing now that basic reliable information and data are available freely... It would be healthy to see compatibly-licensed projects that use different sets of core principles; not just wikinfo (for instance) but also POV specialist reference works. There is an audience for that, and they should also be encouraged to contribute to free knowledge. And if someone can find a way to keep professional encyclopedists from dying out as a breed, that would be good. I don't want to see other reference works go out of business; I do want to see them adopt free licenses -- data, overviews, and reference-style knowledge should all be free. SJ On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Kul Takanao Wadhwakwad...@wikimedia.org wrote: - experienced professional reference-work writers (and we should help them find ways to sustain themselves, particularly in niche markets -- one way is by distributing the underlying work needed to find and organize data). there is room in the world-of-WP for effective, sustainable POV and specialist works SJ - Just curious...where in WP do you think POV and specialist works could fit? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
The most enjoyable dialogue this morning. Keep up the good work to both of you! John =D Mark Williamson wrote: Ray, I appreciate your honesty. I'll agree with you that I was not a very pleasant presence on the ML. Reading archives from, say, 2005 makes me cringe. I'm glad that people were not as heavy-handed as they could (should?) have been in dealing with me at the time. I learned a great deal about people from this community although I think the bulk of the growing up I've done (so far!) had to be done In Real Life. I did definitely learn some lasting lessons though and I'm sure I wouldn't be who I am today without WM although I'm not so active anymore. Mark skype: node.ue On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote: Mark Williamson wrote: This is precisely one of the problems that is holding us back. Individual prejudices against younger individuals may have scared younger users away from the project. All in all, I feel that we should basically treat all users the same, regardless of age. If a 15 year old makes good contributions to an article on particle physics but they need a little fixing up, it should be treated the same way as if a 30 year old made the same contribution - fix it. When I first encountered you you showed a great capacity to be a pain in the ass. You shared that ability with a few others who were already well passed their teen years. Your tenacity through all this has been commendable, and your continuing presence has had a mellowing effect on you. At Wikimania-Frankfurt you were one of the two people that I most regretted not having the chance to meet. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 2:45 AM, Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote: Mark Williamson wrote: This is precisely one of the problems that is holding us back. Individual prejudices against younger individuals may have scared younger users away from the project. All in all, I feel that we should basically treat all users the same, regardless of age. If a 15 year old makes good contributions to an article on particle physics but they need a little fixing up, it should be treated the same way as if a 30 year old made the same contribution - fix it. When I first encountered you you showed a great capacity to be a pain in the ass. You shared that ability with a few others who were already well passed their teen years. Your tenacity through all this has been commendable, and your continuing presence has had a mellowing effect on you. +1 :) ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
I'm glad it was enjoyable for you also :-) skype: node.ue On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 12:44 AM, John at Darkstarvac...@jeb.no wrote: The most enjoyable dialogue this morning. Keep up the good work to both of you! John =D Mark Williamson wrote: Ray, I appreciate your honesty. I'll agree with you that I was not a very pleasant presence on the ML. Reading archives from, say, 2005 makes me cringe. I'm glad that people were not as heavy-handed as they could (should?) have been in dealing with me at the time. I learned a great deal about people from this community although I think the bulk of the growing up I've done (so far!) had to be done In Real Life. I did definitely learn some lasting lessons though and I'm sure I wouldn't be who I am today without WM although I'm not so active anymore. Mark skype: node.ue On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote: Mark Williamson wrote: This is precisely one of the problems that is holding us back. Individual prejudices against younger individuals may have scared younger users away from the project. All in all, I feel that we should basically treat all users the same, regardless of age. If a 15 year old makes good contributions to an article on particle physics but they need a little fixing up, it should be treated the same way as if a 30 year old made the same contribution - fix it. When I first encountered you you showed a great capacity to be a pain in the ass. You shared that ability with a few others who were already well passed their teen years. Your tenacity through all this has been commendable, and your continuing presence has had a mellowing effect on you. At Wikimania-Frankfurt you were one of the two people that I most regretted not having the chance to meet. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
The company I work for employs a large number of people with with Doctorates in mathematics and quantum mechanics. Most are opinionated and argumentative but do not read wikipedia in areas that they have expertise in. The last discussion I had with one of them over a wikipedia article went If I don't forget what I read there I'll have to edit it, but I'm not prepared to have argue about it all weekend again. Those with professional expertise are prepared to argue an issue with colleagues, they are unlikely to spend several days over it on a web site, particularly if they have start off by explaining basic concepts. This is exacly my experience as a professional in physics and, in particular, in quantum mechanics. Cheers Yaroslav ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Ray Saintonge wrote: When I first encountered you you showed a great capacity to be a pain in the ass. You shared that ability with a few others who were already well passed their teen years. Your tenacity through all this has been commendable, and your continuing presence has had a mellowing effect on you. At Wikimania-Frankfurt you were one of the two people that I most regretted not having the chance to meet. With the most abject apologies to the general counsel of the Wikimedia Foundation, but this very vividly brings to mind my own recollections of Mike Godwin of Usenet of late 1980's to early 1990's. Conversing with him now, some 20 or so years later, was a revelation on how we each progress. In a more philosophical vein, this to me indicates that no man is immune to the mellowing affects of years, but the pathologically unageable who have fixated onto a certain phase of development. Yours, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Just curious...where in WP do you think POV and specialist works could fit? Well, 1) POV (best of them being articulated properly) are the only possible ingredients (raw materials) for NPOV producing. Are you able to create NPOV from scratch (from nothing)? 2) Specialists will (and they really do) select POVs, pre-process them and do their best in hamming out NPOV On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 1:32 AM, Kul Takanao Wadhwakwad...@wikimedia.org wrote: - experienced professional reference-work writers (and we should help them find ways to sustain themselves, particularly in niche markets -- one way is by distributing the underlying work needed to find and organize data). there is room in the world-of-WP for effective, sustainable POV and specialist works SJ - Just curious...where in WP do you think POV and specialist works could fit? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
- experienced professional reference-work writers (and we should help them find ways to sustain themselves, particularly in niche markets -- one way is by distributing the underlying work needed to find and organize data). there is room in the world-of-WP for effective, sustainable POV and specialist works SJ - Just curious...where in WP do you think POV and specialist works could fit? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
When I say world of WP I mean world post-WP -- the world we live in, in which certain businesses are failing now that basic reliable information and data are available freely... It would be healthy to see compatibly-licensed projects that use different sets of core principles; not just wikinfo (for instance) but also POV specialist reference works. There is an audience for that, and they should also be encouraged to contribute to free knowledge. And if someone can find a way to keep professional encyclopedists from dying out as a breed, that would be good. I don't want to see other reference works go out of business; I do want to see them adopt free licenses -- data, overviews, and reference-style knowledge should all be free. SJ On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Kul Takanao Wadhwakwad...@wikimedia.org wrote: - experienced professional reference-work writers (and we should help them find ways to sustain themselves, particularly in niche markets -- one way is by distributing the underlying work needed to find and organize data). there is room in the world-of-WP for effective, sustainable POV and specialist works SJ - Just curious...where in WP do you think POV and specialist works could fit? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
As specific examples: It would be great if every publisher of any sort that does basic data mining and research into primary sources were to share that work directly on WP and sister projects. Publishers using free media and spending time and effort vetting their licenses should update the license info (with any high-fidelity assurances they tracked down) directly on Commons. Librarians curating an exhibit, even in cases where they are not willing to or cannot make their digital works available under the right license, can share their curatorial comments and bibliographies. As long as professional publishers and curators feel unwelcome on the projects, they won't discover the ways in which they have already-free knowledge to contribute. SJ On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 7:21 PM, Samuel Kleinmeta...@gmail.com wrote: When I say world of WP I mean world post-WP -- the world we live in, in which certain businesses are failing now that basic reliable information and data are available freely... It would be healthy to see compatibly-licensed projects that use different sets of core principles; not just wikinfo (for instance) but also POV specialist reference works. There is an audience for that, and they should also be encouraged to contribute to free knowledge. And if someone can find a way to keep professional encyclopedists from dying out as a breed, that would be good. I don't want to see other reference works go out of business; I do want to see them adopt free licenses -- data, overviews, and reference-style knowledge should all be free. SJ On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Kul Takanao Wadhwakwad...@wikimedia.org wrote: - experienced professional reference-work writers (and we should help them find ways to sustain themselves, particularly in niche markets -- one way is by distributing the underlying work needed to find and organize data). there is room in the world-of-WP for effective, sustainable POV and specialist works SJ - Just curious...where in WP do you think POV and specialist works could fit? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Noted, and added to strategic planning page :) On Jul 29, 2009, at 6:28 PM, Samuel Klein wrote: As specific examples: It would be great if every publisher of any sort that does basic data mining and research into primary sources were to share that work directly on WP and sister projects. Publishers using free media and spending time and effort vetting their licenses should update the license info (with any high-fidelity assurances they tracked down) directly on Commons. Librarians curating an exhibit, even in cases where they are not willing to or cannot make their digital works available under the right license, can share their curatorial comments and bibliographies. As long as professional publishers and curators feel unwelcome on the projects, they won't discover the ways in which they have already-free knowledge to contribute. SJ On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 7:21 PM, Samuel Kleinmeta...@gmail.com wrote: When I say world of WP I mean world post-WP -- the world we live in, in which certain businesses are failing now that basic reliable information and data are available freely... It would be healthy to see compatibly-licensed projects that use different sets of core principles; not just wikinfo (for instance) but also POV specialist reference works. There is an audience for that, and they should also be encouraged to contribute to free knowledge. And if someone can find a way to keep professional encyclopedists from dying out as a breed, that would be good. I don't want to see other reference works go out of business; I do want to see them adopt free licenses -- data, overviews, and reference-style knowledge should all be free. SJ On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Kul Takanao Wadhwakwad...@wikimedia.org wrote: - experienced professional reference-work writers (and we should help them find ways to sustain themselves, particularly in niche markets -- one way is by distributing the underlying work needed to find and organize data). there is room in the world-of-WP for effective, sustainable POV and specialist works SJ - Just curious...where in WP do you think POV and specialist works could fit? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
I mean basic educational information about how things work, and how they relate to one another; data and facts; and maps, statistics, and visualizations of this sort of knowledge. You cannot copyright ideas, nor should one copyright the simplest expression of them. The merger doctrine specifies a narrow subset of knowledge as uncopyrightable [1] -- basic dictionaries, catalogs, laws, manuals, and primers should be free as well. This will be the case within a generation in many parts of the world -- and it will be hard to explain to our children why there used to be twenty different dictionaries and a hundred different language 101 coursebooks for each language, all using the same types of words and vocabulary and images and yet struggling to look as if they were not all using shared source material. SJ [1] see the [[Idea-expression divide]] On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 7:32 PM, Pavlo Shevelopavlo.shev...@gmail.com wrote: licenses -- data, overviews, and reference-style knowledge should all Would you please explain what do you mean as reference-style knowledge? On Thu, Jul 30, 2009 at 2:21 AM, Samuel Kleinmeta...@gmail.com wrote: When I say world of WP I mean world post-WP -- the world we live in, in which certain businesses are failing now that basic reliable information and data are available freely... It would be healthy to see compatibly-licensed projects that use different sets of core principles; not just wikinfo (for instance) but also POV specialist reference works. There is an audience for that, and they should also be encouraged to contribute to free knowledge. And if someone can find a way to keep professional encyclopedists from dying out as a breed, that would be good. I don't want to see other reference works go out of business; I do want to see them adopt free licenses -- data, overviews, and reference-style knowledge should all be free. SJ On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 6:32 PM, Kul Takanao Wadhwakwad...@wikimedia.org wrote: - experienced professional reference-work writers (and we should help them find ways to sustain themselves, particularly in niche markets -- one way is by distributing the underlying work needed to find and organize data). there is room in the world-of-WP for effective, sustainable POV and specialist works SJ - Just curious...where in WP do you think POV and specialist works could fit? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Lars Aronsson wrote: Henning Schlottmann wrote: Who are our actual users? This is a good question, not only with respect to level (youth or academic), but also for topics (academic subjects like medicine, or popular culture). Retired academics might provide useful input on how to treat cancer, but might be out of touch with trends in manga or cooking. If we discourage teenagers from writing about their favorite artists, they will find Wikipedia less useful. Teenagers know nothing about cooking ... Ask their mothers. ;-) Teenagers writing about popular culture have never bothered me. They may seem to carry on ad nauseum on these topics, but so what? These are great opportunities for them to hone their skills that they will need when their interests drift to the real world. If they make outrageous comments in the articles there will be an entire community of other teens to set them straight. It is also a question of what alternatives to Wikipedia our users have. Even if we fail to produce a good encyclopedia (in many smaller languages, it will take a long time to build something useful), we might succeed in killing all competition, especially printed reference works. This is a problem for Wikipedia as well, as we could be running out of sources to cite. Simply put, we need more forks. If you put a big bet on the longshot in a horse race he ceases to be the longshot without the horse having undergone any improvements. Healthy competition is also a guarantee for NPOV. As much as we advocate for NPOV we can only know that we have achieved it by comparison with other sites.. I have written many short articles based on information found in reference works like who's who from earlier decades. But many such titles are no longer produced, because printed reference works are no longer profitable, especially in smaller markets (smaller languages). The Swedish Vem är det was published every 2nd year, but had a 6 year gap from 2001 to 2007, and I don't know if there will ever be another edition. Swedish is not a major international, but it is still a national language with a high degree of literacy, and a significant corpus of extant material For international languages the problem is a bigger one because the material is so abundant. Some libraries just throw the stuff out because they need the space. If the material has been there for more than a century without anyone having asked to use it it is hardly worth their effort to put essential conservation work on books printed on acidic paper or with corrosive gall-inks. Many printed reference works were financially supported by buyers who thought they were necessary to have, but seldom used them. Today the same people still use reference works very seldom. The difference is they now think (wrongly) that everything is online, and they don't need to buy printed reference works anymore. This is a significant observation. For many of these earlier buyers having long sets of uniformly bound books was a matter of pride; their heirs did not share this pride. The Google Books venture largely adds to the confusion. The real value-added comes from knowing how to use the material, and how to find links between them. This is more than a matter of search functions. Search functions are no substitute for the intuitive process of knowing what to look for. Another traditional must have is the daily newspaper, which many young people are now abandoning, resulting in the current crisis. Revenue from ads on newspaper websites isn't covering the loss of subscription revenue from the printed editions. Traditional newspapers are also losing subscribers because of the high proportion of advertising. Environmentally conscious members of the public see no point to receiving stacks of advertising material that goes immediately into the trash. We could be entering a period of scarcity of good reference information, as counterintuitive as that might seem. There is a huge gap for Wikipedia to fill. Yes, the gap is huge, perhaps too big for Wikipedia alone to fill. The attempts by some who possess the information to make it proprietary does not help. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Mark Williamson wrote: This is precisely one of the problems that is holding us back. Individual prejudices against younger individuals may have scared younger users away from the project. All in all, I feel that we should basically treat all users the same, regardless of age. If a 15 year old makes good contributions to an article on particle physics but they need a little fixing up, it should be treated the same way as if a 30 year old made the same contribution - fix it. When I first encountered you you showed a great capacity to be a pain in the ass. You shared that ability with a few others who were already well passed their teen years. Your tenacity through all this has been commendable, and your continuing presence has had a mellowing effect on you. At Wikimania-Frankfurt you were one of the two people that I most regretted not having the chance to meet. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Henning Schlottmann wrote: John Vandenberg wrote: On wikimedia, young people learn how to properly reference an article, which will help them as they progress in their education. Originally Wikipedia was about People, who could already write academic papers and did not need tutoring or learning those abilities on Wikipedia for their future life. When was that ever a requirement? It's about everybody being able to contribute. The kind of elite qualifications that you outline are exactly the kind of things that are the features of the ivory tower that need challenging. Young people have the most to gain from participating, because the skills that they acquire on wikimedia will stay with them, helping them in their many years to come. And what does Wikipedia get from those young people? We don't have the man power to nanny them or teach them academic writing. We all are authors, first and foremost. I'm not going to change the diapers of any promising young people who would like to make their first attempts of focused writing on Wikipedia. Authors, first and foremost is fine. Whining about those who don't meet overblown standards has nothing to do with authorship. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Samuel Klein wrote: I mean basic educational information about how things work, and how they relate to one another; data and facts; and maps, statistics, and visualizations of this sort of knowledge. I vaguely remember some long-ago comments from Jimbo where he foresaw WP as including practical information. Somehow we drifted away from that into more traditional encyclopedia space by the time we started rejecting recipes for cooking. You cannot copyright ideas, nor should one copyright the simplest expression of them. The merger doctrine specifies a narrow subset of knowledge as uncopyrightable [1] -- basic dictionaries, catalogs, laws, manuals, and primers should be free as well. You and I know that, but it gets quite tiring to argue over and over with pusillanimous copyright paranoiacs and their witless desire to be absolutely safe and right about the laws that they never understood in the first place. This will be the case within a generation in many parts of the world -- and it will be hard to explain to our children why there used to be twenty different dictionaries and a hundred different language 101 coursebooks for each language, all using the same types of words and vocabulary and images and yet struggling to look as if they were not all using shared source material. The problem here is one of how to reach teachers many of which, in their pursuit of fitting square-pegged students into round holes, would be quite happy if they could strap those students into a lathe. Language learning and basic mathematics workbooks are two areas where it should be easiest to develop non-proprietary materials. The one advantage for teachers in the developing world is that they can't afford proprietary material. Teachers, especially those in advanced countries need to seize the power that they already have, but this is counterintuitive when their own years of learning were so rooted in deference to textbooks. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Ray, I appreciate your honesty. I'll agree with you that I was not a very pleasant presence on the ML. Reading archives from, say, 2005 makes me cringe. I'm glad that people were not as heavy-handed as they could (should?) have been in dealing with me at the time. I learned a great deal about people from this community although I think the bulk of the growing up I've done (so far!) had to be done In Real Life. I did definitely learn some lasting lessons though and I'm sure I wouldn't be who I am today without WM although I'm not so active anymore. Mark skype: node.ue On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote: Mark Williamson wrote: This is precisely one of the problems that is holding us back. Individual prejudices against younger individuals may have scared younger users away from the project. All in all, I feel that we should basically treat all users the same, regardless of age. If a 15 year old makes good contributions to an article on particle physics but they need a little fixing up, it should be treated the same way as if a 30 year old made the same contribution - fix it. When I first encountered you you showed a great capacity to be a pain in the ass. You shared that ability with a few others who were already well passed their teen years. Your tenacity through all this has been commendable, and your continuing presence has had a mellowing effect on you. At Wikimania-Frankfurt you were one of the two people that I most regretted not having the chance to meet. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Sorry for double-posting but I felt that it was really important to add something. This is a great example of why it is important to keep younger editors around. Promising intelligent young people who are comfortable with and frequent users of Wikipedia now could be leading scientists, artists, and politicians in 10 years and it is in our interests to make sure that they feel at home with us. It's a great long-term investment for us and it could pay off. Mark skype: node.ue On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 9:36 PM, Mark Williamsonnode...@gmail.com wrote: Ray, I appreciate your honesty. I'll agree with you that I was not a very pleasant presence on the ML. Reading archives from, say, 2005 makes me cringe. I'm glad that people were not as heavy-handed as they could (should?) have been in dealing with me at the time. I learned a great deal about people from this community although I think the bulk of the growing up I've done (so far!) had to be done In Real Life. I did definitely learn some lasting lessons though and I'm sure I wouldn't be who I am today without WM although I'm not so active anymore. Mark skype: node.ue On Wed, Jul 29, 2009 at 5:45 PM, Ray Saintongesainto...@telus.net wrote: Mark Williamson wrote: This is precisely one of the problems that is holding us back. Individual prejudices against younger individuals may have scared younger users away from the project. All in all, I feel that we should basically treat all users the same, regardless of age. If a 15 year old makes good contributions to an article on particle physics but they need a little fixing up, it should be treated the same way as if a 30 year old made the same contribution - fix it. When I first encountered you you showed a great capacity to be a pain in the ass. You shared that ability with a few others who were already well passed their teen years. Your tenacity through all this has been commendable, and your continuing presence has had a mellowing effect on you. At Wikimania-Frankfurt you were one of the two people that I most regretted not having the chance to meet. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Henning Schlottmann wrote: John Vandenberg wrote: Young people have the most to gain from participating, because the skills that they acquire on wikimedia will stay with them, helping them in their many years to come. And what does Wikipedia get from those young people? We don't have the Encyclopedic articles? man power to nanny them or teach them academic writing. We all are We actually do - isn't that what most people have been doing all these years? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
This is precisely one of the problems that is holding us back. Individual prejudices against younger individuals may have scared younger users away from the project. When I started at Wikipedia, I noticed several approaches from users: - Some were initially unaware of my age and were surprised to learn it. - Of those who knew my age, some treated me as they would treat any other user. - Others chose to treat me as they might treat their own children, trying to provide guidance of a parental nature that was sometimes appreciated but usually was not. - Some people who intially respected me changed their minds once they discovered my age. Rather than judge me based on intellect and quality of my contributions, or even my behavior record (which was, I will admit, spotty, but better than many seasoned middle-aged Wikipedians), they found themselves unable to look past the relatively small number of years I'd been alive. - A few who initially had little respect for me seemed to change their minds once they discovered my age. All in all, I feel that we should basically treat all users the same, regardless of age. If a 15 year old makes good contributions to an article on particle physics but they need a little fixing up, it should be treated the same way as if a 30 year old made the same contribution - fix it. If they are making a mess of physics articles, do the same thing you'd do if a 30 year old were to make a mess of physics articles. Give them a warning. I recognize that younger users often have a greater propensity for poor or uncivil behavior onwiki; some admins may feel like giving them extra chances due to their age. I don't recommend against this but I don't think it should be necessary. If there is anything teenagers crave, it is to be treated like adults. In my experience, as someone who will only stop being a teenager finally in a few days on 18 August, being treated like an adult encourages a young person to act more mature. In conclusion, I think it's quite sad that Henning has displayed such a negative attitude towards young people. There are a lot of us on the projects, you might be surprised to see all the contributions we have made and will continue to make as we grow up with Wikimedia. Mark On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 1:02 PM, Henning Schlottmannh.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: John Vandenberg wrote: On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 3:27 PM, Henning Schlottmannh.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: And if there are kids with knowledge and understanding on these or other topics, they will be fascinated by Wikipedia and find the project on their own. We don't need to recruit these prodigy childs. Contributors, both young and old, do not need to be interested in the topic they contribute to - they need to see the value of the skills that they acquire in the process. And we can help them learn about the benefits. Well it certainly helps if you have a deeper understanding about the topics you cover. And Wikipedia once was about people who have certain knowledge and enjoy to share it with the world. It was originally not about recruiting people to do research into topics they would never have researched without Wikipedia. On wikimedia, bilingual young people can improve their mastery of second languages by translating articles into different languages. Oh yeah - that is how most translations look like. A bilingual kid trying to improve their mastery of a foreign language. Without even understanding the topic of the text he or she is translating. We already have too many of those translations. On wikimedia, young people learn how to properly reference an article, which will help them as they progress in their education. Originally Wikipedia was about People, who could already write academic papers and did not need tutoring or learning those abilities on Wikipedia for their future life. Young people have the most to gain from participating, because the skills that they acquire on wikimedia will stay with them, helping them in their many years to come. And what does Wikipedia get from those young people? We don't have the man power to nanny them or teach them academic writing. We all are authors, first and foremost. I'm not going to change the diapers of any promising young people who would like to make their first attempts of focused writing on Wikipedia. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
It is not entirely a matter of recruitment. To me the problem appears in the form of how welcoming the projects are to the different types of contributors and types of contributions. That, in turn relates to the value system and cognitive and social biases of those who control the projects. As we have more to protect (formatting, layout, content organization, stylistic unity) there is a negative attitude toward anyone who might jeopardize it through clumsy attempts at improvement. I sometime notice and feel a tendency to be more cooperative and patient with someone I perceive as being older. I'm pretty sure that younger contributors sense my efforts to communicate with them as, um, adult. This provides a bias against younger would-be contributors. Facilitating contributions by newbies is part of what might help make for an easier induction of all new users, which provides a modest tendency to favor the young without disfavoring the old. Having a bit more structure to new user induction seems to be the inevitable direction to go to elicit breadth on the projects. Out existing low-structure approaches need to be supplemented with attractive more-structured paths. Perhaps inviting structured feedback (eg article ratings with links to article talk pages) to draw folks into low risk-of-damage active involvement would enable us to get more from those a little less bold and motivated. On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 11:26 PM, Robert Rohde raro...@gmail.com wrote: Bleh. When did this become an either-or proposition? You go recruit retired professionals. I'll go recruit young people. Someone else can recruit soccer moms, and yet another person can go after teachers. Everybody wins. The only way to lose is if either: A) You believe one of these groups should not be participating in Wikipedia or B) You believe efforts to recruit professionals will actually interfere with my efforts to recruit young people, etc. If you believe A) then frankly I believe you are out of touch with the ethos of the projects. Different groups may need a different amount of guidance before they are prepared to contribute, but there is no group of people we should be categorically shutting out or discouraging. If you believe B) and somehow think that recruiting one group somehow interferes with recruiting other groups, then I'd like to see an explanation of that. It seems unlikely in most cases. Besides which, there are many things we can be doing (such as improving the editing interface and documentation) that should widely benefit most groups of potential new editors. -Robert Rohde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Dennis C. During Cynolatry is tolerant so long as the dog is not denied an equal divinity with the deities of other faiths. - Ambrose Bierce http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cynolatry ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
John Vandenberg wrote: On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 3:27 PM, Henning Schlottmannh.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: And if there are kids with knowledge and understanding on these or other topics, they will be fascinated by Wikipedia and find the project on their own. We don't need to recruit these prodigy childs. Contributors, both young and old, do not need to be interested in the topic they contribute to - they need to see the value of the skills that they acquire in the process. And we can help them learn about the benefits. Well it certainly helps if you have a deeper understanding about the topics you cover. And Wikipedia once was about people who have certain knowledge and enjoy to share it with the world. It was originally not about recruiting people to do research into topics they would never have researched without Wikipedia. On wikimedia, bilingual young people can improve their mastery of second languages by translating articles into different languages. Oh yeah - that is how most translations look like. A bilingual kid trying to improve their mastery of a foreign language. Without even understanding the topic of the text he or she is translating. We already have too many of those translations. On wikimedia, young people learn how to properly reference an article, which will help them as they progress in their education. Originally Wikipedia was about People, who could already write academic papers and did not need tutoring or learning those abilities on Wikipedia for their future life. Young people have the most to gain from participating, because the skills that they acquire on wikimedia will stay with them, helping them in their many years to come. And what does Wikipedia get from those young people? We don't have the man power to nanny them or teach them academic writing. We all are authors, first and foremost. I'm not going to change the diapers of any promising young people who would like to make their first attempts of focused writing on Wikipedia. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Milos Rancic wrote: The whole thread is about long-term sustainability. At least, I started it with this intention, mentioning that WMF started to work on that (Strategy plan). Long term planning for the Foundation is not planning with contributors who will write on Wikipedia for several decades. I have almost 15 years of experience in a completely different field of volunteering and in the very long term oriented culture of German Vereine (~ non-profit associations, but ingrained in to German society for 150 years). Even there you don't recruit people with the intention to keep them for decades. In the beginning Wikipedia offered professionals and aspiring students a place where they could share their existing knowledge with others and ultimately with the world. Now some here seem to think about building an education system where kids can make their first steps in serious non-fictional writing and get supported in their learning. It is delusional to plan with Wikipedia volunteers to enter as high-school students and keep them as writers to their grave. Pretty much every Wikipedian is a passing guest. He or she will share some of their knowledge or just fix a few typos and leave afterwards. Maybe to come back sometimes - or not. And that's perfectly fine, because that is what we need, fresh outside knowledge. The Foundations job is to facilitate this kind of contribution. The few long term authors will grow out of these on their own - just like the core of volunteers in the German Vereine I mentioned above evolved out of irregular contributors. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
geni wrote: English wikipedia has 2.9 million articles and far more words and can still have things added to it by teenagers. And it's not just different inclusion standards. For example [[Langstone]] meets any reasonable inclusion standards. De does not have an article. [[Ordnance Survey]] is clearly notable. No article on De. Ordnance Survey would be a great addition to de-WP. I might write it myself *g*. But do you expect kids to write on those - for them - obscure topics? And if there are kids with knowledge and understanding on these or other topics, they will be fascinated by Wikipedia and find the project on their own. We don't need to recruit these prodigy childs. Recruiting efforts should be done where contributions to Wikipedia are not coming naturally. One of those fields are retired professionals. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Correct, we have built a system that does not value new users, but rather seeks to get rid of them. Its a pattern I have observed in some businesses as well. Subconsciously, people hate change. While they consciously want new users or wonder why the flow has stopped, their subconscious is busy erecting walls to stop new things/users. From: John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, July 25, 2009 2:49:15 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics Finally, we can not ignore the potential benefits of large scale contributions coming from specific communities, specially from educational institutions at all levels. The potential applications of Wikipedia to learning environments has been also a matter of research, and some authors have shown that direct contribution approaches may have negative consequences for both the quality of content and the willingness of young authors to continue to contribute if the get strictly negative responses to their first revisions. All the same, semi-controlled strategies like providing a final version of the contribution, may have better effects for both the quality of content and maintaining the implication of young contributors. In this regard, providing special tools for highlighting these contributions could facilitate the work of experienced Wikipedia authors, who could then provide more focused comments. How the new contributors are approached by the community is very important and it seems like they face a very hostile environment. How can we change this, both at a human level and with technical solutions? Is it somehow possible to let newcomers write articles together with oldtimers until they learn the most basic things? Perhaps it is possible to make personal sandboxes where they can get some guidance before the dogfight starts? John ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Milos Rancic wrote: * Also, statistically, old people are dying more often than young people. Fortunately our generations (20+, 30+ and 40+) will become retired academicians or so one day in the future and then we'll have a very nice expansion in the number of highly qualified contributors. However, if we don't attract younger than us, Wikimedia projects will die with us. Don't you think it is delusional hubris to plan with editors, who stay in the project from 15 to retiring age? For pretty much everyone Wikipedia is of passing interest. The phase can be 30 days, 100 days, two or three years. But very few people enjoy a hobby like this for decades. And the very few who do, will find Wikipedia on their own. We need to recruit people who are willing to contribute for a few winter months. And maybe - just maybe - continue in spring or return next year again. Wikipedia was always intended for drive-by editing: Readers, who correct a fact, add some new information or fix a typo. It is nice to have extremely active editors, but the bulk of the content - as opposed to the copy editing and template filling - is done by passing contributors. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Mark Williamson wrote: Do you have data to back this up? For the record, I'll be 20 in August and the main areas I edited were pages about cultures, countries, and languages since I was about 15. Great. And I never denied that prodigy kids exist, but they are few - just think of how many of your class mates did like you. And they will find Wikipedia on their own, we don't need to recruit them. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 7:39 AM, Henning Schlottmannh.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: It is delusional to look three, five, ten years into the future. Wikipedia is and always will be done ad-hoc. It is fine to plan ahead half a year or a year, but that's it. I will not even spend time to think about who will write Wikipedia in five years, this is the job of those who will see themselves as stewards of the project then. I will most probably not be among them, because I am now contributing for about four years and can't possibly know what I will do five years from now. The whole thread is about long-term sustainability. At least, I started it with this intention, mentioning that WMF started to work on that (Strategy plan). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Hoi, While I agree that these numbers are interesting, they typically only show what they highlight. When you consider featured articles you will find that many Wikipedias do not have featured articles. For some Wikipedias it is hard to establish yourself as a Wikipedian when you are a teenager we are said. For most of our Wikipedias this is not the case. For most of our Wikipedias a half decent article is a welcome addition and citations are not an issue at all. The point has been made repeatedly; Wikis follow a pattern and most of our Wikipedias are still very much in their early stages of development. The big issue of identifying with your Wikipedia is that the issues of the other Wikipedias are not considered. It would be interesting to know for instance which Wikipedias have: - featured articles - featured pictures - their own featured pictures Thanks, GerardM 2009/7/25 Felipe Ortega glimmer_phoe...@yahoo.es This is a good point, Milos. Quantity and quality are more related to each other than we may thought initially. For instance: * The main proportion of Featured Articles in all top-ten language versions needed, at least, more than 1,000 days (3 years) to reach that level. * Most of editors contributing to FAs were high experienced editors, meaning more than 2.5 or 3 years participating in Wikipedia. And these editors tend to be very active ones (though they not necessarily get 'sysop' or other special privileges). I recall you that more than 50% of editors abandonned after aprox.. half a year, in all versions we studied. Therefore, the high experienced editors are taking care of top-quality content. Probably because they know, better than many other editors, the guidelines, procedures and daily workflows in the community. Of course, their knowledge (about the topics they contribute to) also matters. But I believe that the first condition is also critical. And you can get to that point with time, interacting with Wikipedia and the community. As a result, any attempt to improve the feeling of newcomers as they start to contribute is invaluable. I've read your comments about chats with sysops or article's main editors. I've also read about training environments (customized sandboxes, more friendly, etc.). So, all this makes *a lot of sense* in the current situation. Not because of quantity, but to improve *quality*. Best, Felipe. --- El sáb, 25/7/09, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com escribió: De: Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics So, to give the answer about quantity vs. quality: We need quantity to have sustainable community development or even just a sustainable stagnation. We shouldn't be shy of saying that quantity is very important to us because we are able to build quality. And, yes, it is possible that quality brings quantity. This thread is about that: we have to think how to do that. If we don't think (thinking=quality) how to bring quantity and our quantity is lowering: we are at the dead end. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Дана Sunday 26 July 2009 07:22:06 Henning Schlottmann написа: Mark Williamson wrote: Do you have data to back this up? For the record, I'll be 20 in August and the main areas I edited were pages about cultures, countries, and languages since I was about 15. Great. And I never denied that prodigy kids exist, but they are few - just think of how many of your class mates did like you. And they will find Wikipedia on their own, we don't need to recruit them. I don't see why would someone who is 15 and writing about countries be called a prodigy. The boy was simply writing about something he was interested in. And on srwiki at least I also notice that young contributors are writing about a variety of topics - sure, not quantum physics, but pretty much anything else. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
The whole thread is about long-term sustainability. At least, I started it with this intention, mentioning that WMF started to work on that (Strategy plan). Am I right understanding your words following way: This thread was started as PR action for WMF Strategy plan? :-P On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 9:33 AM, Milos Rancicmill...@gmail.com wrote: On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 7:39 AM, Henning Schlottmannh.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: It is delusional to look three, five, ten years into the future. Wikipedia is and always will be done ad-hoc. It is fine to plan ahead half a year or a year, but that's it. I will not even spend time to think about who will write Wikipedia in five years, this is the job of those who will see themselves as stewards of the project then. I will most probably not be among them, because I am now contributing for about four years and can't possibly know what I will do five years from now. The whole thread is about long-term sustainability. At least, I started it with this intention, mentioning that WMF started to work on that (Strategy plan). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 11:56 AM, Pavlo Shevelopavlo.shev...@gmail.com wrote: The whole thread is about long-term sustainability. At least, I started it with this intention, mentioning that WMF started to work on that (Strategy plan). Am I right understanding your words following way: This thread was started as PR action for WMF Strategy plan? :-P Probably, if I didn't withdraw my candidacy for the Board, it would be interpreted as my own PR campaign :P I participate in campaigns just openly (to be noted, I support Gerard's, Sj's, Ting's and Kat's candidacies). Raising an issue publicly, at foundation-l, means, at least for me, that wider community should be aware of that issue. WMF Strategy plan has limited scope. WMF is not able to work intensively on every particular project, in every country. WM FR and WM DE are able to work much more effectively in France and Germany. Contributors of es.wp and ja.wp are able to work much more effectively on their projects. I would be very happy if just one person per ~20 top projects read that and understood that action is needed. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
2009/7/26 Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@gmx.net: geni wrote: English wikipedia has 2.9 million articles and far more words and can still have things added to it by teenagers. And it's not just different inclusion standards. For example [[Langstone]] meets any reasonable inclusion standards. De does not have an article. [[Ordnance Survey]] is clearly notable. No article on De. Ordnance Survey would be a great addition to de-WP. I might write it myself *g*. But do you expect kids to write on those - for them - obscure topics? And if there are kids with knowledge and understanding on these or other topics, they will be fascinated by Wikipedia and find the project on their own. We don't need to recruit these prodigy childs. Does Germany not have libraries? It's true that your average 15 year old is not going be able to write high end maths and physics articles but your average 18-22 university student may well be able to. Even if they can't such articles are a pretty small percentage of the articles DE doesn't have. Recruiting efforts should be done where contributions to Wikipedia are not coming naturally. One of those fields are retired professionals. Recruiting efforts should be done where they have a reasonable chance of success. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Henning Schlottmann wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: We need to recruit people who are willing to contribute for a few winter months. And maybe - just maybe - continue in spring or return next year again. Wikipedia was always intended for drive-by editing: Readers, who correct a fact, add some new information or fix a typo. The company I work for employs a large number of people with with Doctorates in mathematics and quantum mechanics. Most are opinionated and argumentative but do not read wikipedia in areas that they have expertise in. The last discussion I had with one of them over a wikipedia article went If I don't forget what I read there I'll have to edit it, but I'm not prepared to have argue about it all weekend again. Those with professional expertise are prepared to argue an issue with colleagues, they are unlikely to spend several days over it on a web site, particularly if they have start off by explaining basic concepts. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 3:27 PM, Henning Schlottmannh.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: geni wrote: English wikipedia has 2.9 million articles and far more words and can still have things added to it by teenagers. And it's not just different inclusion standards. For example [[Langstone]] meets any reasonable inclusion standards. De does not have an article. [[Ordnance Survey]] is clearly notable. No article on De. Ordnance Survey would be a great addition to de-WP. I might write it myself *g*. But do you expect kids to write on those - for them - obscure topics? And if there are kids with knowledge and understanding on these or other topics, they will be fascinated by Wikipedia and find the project on their own. We don't need to recruit these prodigy childs. Child prodigies and young people motivated by the free culture ethos will come without recruitment, however there are many people who are neither of those. By participating in Wikimedia, young people can *become* more educated, and can *become* motivated by the free culture ethos. Contributors, both young and old, do not need to be interested in the topic they contribute to - they need to see the value of the skills that they acquire in the process. And we can help them learn about the benefits. On wikimedia, bilingual young people can improve their mastery of second languages by translating articles into different languages. On wikimedia, young people learn how to properly reference an article, which will help them as they progress in their education. On wikimedia, young people can rub shoulders with people who are knowledgeable in fields that they are considering undertaking higher degrees in. On wikimedia, young people can learn to interact sensibly online, provided that our code of conduct is kept high above the average of Internet forums. They can watch people act badly and be banned, and learn from it. On wikimedia, young people can learn about the world around them by interacting with people from other cultures, including the vandals. Young people have the most to gain from participating, because the skills that they acquire on wikimedia will stay with them, helping them in their many years to come. Recruiting efforts should be done where contributions to Wikipedia are not coming naturally. One of those fields are retired professionals. I do agree that retired professionals are potential contributors that we should be focusing on. However they will also come if they want to. Retirees usually have a full life, so they have less time and motivation to become involved. -- John Vandenberg ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Bleh. When did this become an either-or proposition? You go recruit retired professionals. I'll go recruit young people. Someone else can recruit soccer moms, and yet another person can go after teachers. Everybody wins. The only way to lose is if either: A) You believe one of these groups should not be participating in Wikipedia or B) You believe efforts to recruit professionals will actually interfere with my efforts to recruit young people, etc. If you believe A) then frankly I believe you are out of touch with the ethos of the projects. Different groups may need a different amount of guidance before they are prepared to contribute, but there is no group of people we should be categorically shutting out or discouraging. If you believe B) and somehow think that recruiting one group somehow interferes with recruiting other groups, then I'd like to see an explanation of that. It seems unlikely in most cases. Besides which, there are many things we can be doing (such as improving the editing interface and documentation) that should widely benefit most groups of potential new editors. -Robert Rohde ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 5:55 PM, Felipe Ortegaglimmer_phoe...@yahoo.es wrote: You can check more precise figures and graphs in my thesis about general statistics for survivability for all logged editors and core editors (the top 10% most active editors in each month), from the beginning until Dec. 2007, in the top-ten language versions (at that time). http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/phd-thesis (page) http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/thesis-wkp-quantanalysis (doc) As for the percentages of users by age, education level, etc. my impression is that opinions from experienced community members are often well oriented. But they're only opinions. Until we get the results of the general survey, we won't have a clear picture of the current recruitment targets for all versions. Nevertheless, according to our updates, it seems that the situation is not getting better from Jan 2008 onwards. Great work, Felipe! I've seen mentioning of your work, but up to now, I didn't read that. Now, I looked into the highlights of your thesis and they are very informative. I am quoting some of the conclusions here: Q5: What is the average lifetime of Wikipedia volunteer authors in the project?: The main conclusion we can infer from our survival analysis performed on the community of authors in the top ten Wikipedias is that there is an extraordinary high mortality rate in all languages. Actually, we show that the monthly number of deaths of logged authors in the top ten language versions surpassed the monthly number of new logged authors coming to contribute for the first time in a certain version. Therefore, the higher mortality rate, since the beginning of 2007, offers a possible explanation for the steady-state reached by the monthly number of contributions and monthly number of active pages in all versions during the same period. A significant proportion of authors (more than 50% in all versions) abandons the project after more than 200 days. Moreover, reaching the core group of very active authors does not ensures that those authors will exhibit better survivability since, in fact, more than 50% of them abandon that core of very active authors after less than 100 days (less than 30 in the case of the Portuguese and English Wikipedias). Complementing this findings, the application of the Cox proportional hazards model let us demonstrate that the participation of logged authors in FAs or talk pages has a significant positive impact to enhance the survivability of such contributors, being the contribution to both key types of pages the one presenting the higher enhancement effect over the average lifetime of authors. Q7: Is it possible to infer, based on previous history data, any sustainability conditions affecting the top-ten Wikipedias in due course?: As a main conclusion, looking at the evolution of the key parameters already identified as relevant to explain the progress in time of the top ten Wikipedias and their communities, we find that those statistics describing the activity of logged authors tend to follow Pareto-like distributions that become, in general, more and more log-linear as time elapses. On the other hand, metrics describing articles has progressively lost the old Pareto-like shape for their distribution, reaching a lognormal shape during 2007 (probably, as a result of the stabilization of the number of logged authors in all versions, as well). The analysis of the evolution in time of contributions from the core of very active authors identified in each month of history of a certain language version, reveals that former core authors does not provide a comparable amount of effort to the level offered by new, even more active members of the core. Nevertheless, again the evolution parameters point out a somewhat delicate situation, since the monthly inequality level of the contributions from logged still maintains the same values as in previous years. Thus, this indicates that either the inequality of the distribution of revisions maintains the present level (in which case the authors would not be able to address so many articles than in previous years) or else, that the inequality level of this distribution will continue to grow, until core authors begin to find their natural limit in the maximum number of revisions performed and number of different articles reviewed. 5.1.2 Sustainability conditions The main conclusion that we can infer from the overall results of our quantitative analysis is that there exists a severe risk in the top-ten language versions of Wikipedia, about maintaining their current activity level in due course. According to our graphs and numbers, the inequality level of the contributions from logged authors is becoming more and more biased towards the core of very active authors. At the same time, the monthly Gini coefficients show that the inequality level of contributions from logged authors has remained stable over time, at the cost of demanding more
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Дана Friday 24 July 2009 16:42:06 Pavlo Shevelo написа: Anyone else concerned by this line of reasoning? What happened to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit? Nothing happened and we (at least talking about me) are only realistic in analysis and straight in putting things as they are. Face the reality. Period. Nothing else. Well, I don't think you are realistic. You are cynical, and even if your observations are true, your conclusions are wrong. Pavlo Shevelo wrote: As a matter od fact teenagers contribute mainly to articles about sports, movies and other entertainment staff. Almost only exception is computers hardware and software stuff. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Well, well, well ... even if your observations are true Not so bad for the beginning: you can suggest that my observations might be correct. By the way, when I wrote Face the facts! I meant (and still mean) observations first of all. ... You are cynical, and ... your conclusions are wrong. Would you please be so kind as to concentrate on weaknesses of my conclusions, but not on you personal judgement about my personality? I have doubts that you grasped my conclusions (maybe because I missed/failed in clear explanation provisioning) so let me put everything once again: 1) Observation as survey (summary) of facts was (and still is): Teenagers (age between 13-20 roughly) are most active in articles about entertainment (movies, musical bands, computer games etc.) but neither in articles on science technology nor articles regarding museums, literature (but Harry Potter and likes) etc. As it could be easily seen (from all this discussion and beyond) it's far not only my point. 2) Conclusion: If we are serious in Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment. (are we?) we should attract people of other (older) ages as they are able to contribute that part of sum of all knowledge which is out of teenager's activity focus right now. What is wrong (and what is cynical, by the way) in that conclusion? I'm not saying that this conclusion could not be wrong, but please be specific versus just putting Wrong! label. I'm aware that this conclusion could help (serve) only as part of solution but not the complete solution. So? :) On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 9:31 AM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.yu wrote: Дана Friday 24 July 2009 16:42:06 Pavlo Shevelo написа: Anyone else concerned by this line of reasoning? What happened to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit? Nothing happened and we (at least talking about me) are only realistic in analysis and straight in putting things as they are. Face the reality. Period. Nothing else. Well, I don't think you are realistic. You are cynical, and even if your observations are true, your conclusions are wrong. Pavlo Shevelo wrote: As a matter od fact teenagers contribute mainly to articles about sports, movies and other entertainment staff. Almost only exception is computers hardware and software stuff. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Finally, we can not ignore the potential benefits of large scale contributions coming from specific communities, specially from educational institutions at all levels. The potential applications of Wikipedia to learning environments has been also a matter of research, and some authors have shown that direct contribution approaches may have negative consequences for both the quality of content and the willingness of young authors to continue to contribute if the get strictly negative responses to their first revisions. All the same, semi-controlled strategies like providing a final version of the contribution, may have better effects for both the quality of content and maintaining the implication of young contributors. In this regard, providing special tools for highlighting these contributions could facilitate the work of experienced Wikipedia authors, who could then provide more focused comments. How the new contributors are approached by the community is very important and it seems like they face a very hostile environment. How can we change this, both at a human level and with technical solutions? Is it somehow possible to let newcomers write articles together with oldtimers until they learn the most basic things? Perhaps it is possible to make personal sandboxes where they can get some guidance before the dogfight starts? John ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 11:26 AM, Pavlo Shevelopavlo.shev...@gmail.com wrote: Teenagers (age between 13-20 roughly) are most active in articles about entertainment (movies, musical bands, computer games etc.) but neither in articles on science technology nor articles regarding museums, literature (but Harry Potter and likes) etc. Pavlo, just try not to think synchronically. A teenager in her or his 17 is probably interested more in music than in nuclear physics, but just in two years she or he may be a valuable contributor in that scientific field. And I think that it is clever to invest time and energy even in 12 years old persons. Also, many of teenagers are interested in being a part of the world of mature people and they are giving a strong contribution to various scientific fields. Not to talk about constant battles against vandals. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Pavlo, just try not to think synchronically. A teenager in her or his 17 is probably interested more in music than in nuclear physics, but just in two years she or he may be a valuable contributor in that scientific field. And I think that it is clever to invest time and energy even in 12 years old persons. Also, many of teenagers are interested in being a part of the world of mature people and they are giving a strong contribution to various scientific fields. Not to talk about constant battles against vandals. Milos, don't blame me in that what I'm not doing. I know, that I'm narrow-minded to certain extent (as all of us are :) ) but not as much as you think so describe me :)) Let me illustrate by example: I started to invest good portion of my time into comforting 11 (!) years old boy despite the fact that his usage of be bold rule to several most popular templates was like hurricane that not each vandal may create :) 17 is probably interested more in music than in nuclear physics, but just in two years she or he may be a valuable contributor in that scientific field. Let's be realistic (though not cynical ;) ): 1. Far not in two years - not less than in 10 years. Will we be satisfied by popmusics/games-pedia until than +2-3 years (to create articles); 2. She or he may and may not became contributor in some scientific field. If she/he will see work of elders (in best - eventually pass the aprenticeship under control of master) during all these years it will increase both that probability to became and quality of future contribution. Also, many of teenagers are interested in being a part of the world of mature people Oh well, so we do need that world of mature people existing NOW, not that it will born in future if (!) youngsters will stay in it long enough being leaved on themselves. On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 12:54 PM, Milos Rancicmill...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 11:26 AM, Pavlo Shevelopavlo.shev...@gmail.com wrote: Teenagers (age between 13-20 roughly) are most active in articles about entertainment (movies, musical bands, computer games etc.) but neither in articles on science technology nor articles regarding museums, literature (but Harry Potter and likes) etc. Pavlo, just try not to think synchronically. A teenager in her or his 17 is probably interested more in music than in nuclear physics, but just in two years she or he may be a valuable contributor in that scientific field. And I think that it is clever to invest time and energy even in 12 years old persons. Also, many of teenagers are interested in being a part of the world of mature people and they are giving a strong contribution to various scientific fields. Not to talk about constant battles against vandals. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
John, Thanks a lot - you made my Saturday! ;) Is it somehow possible to let newcomers write articles together with oldtimers until they learn the most basic things? But why (?) we suggest that it's impossible? If we will put that as (realized) aim this is very possible - we should just to embody in Wikipedia community such thing as apprenticeship http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apprenticeship . Isn't it sorta funny that Wikipedia contain guidelines which seems to be ignored by project community? ;) How can we change this, both at a human level and with technical solutions? ... Perhaps it is possible to make personal sandboxes where they can get some guidance before the dogfight starts? Some people believe that it's good for newcomer to put him/her into the middle of dogfight from the day1. I'm not really supporter of that approach - there will be more than enough dogfights in future. So it's really important (mission-critical in terms of Wikipedia mission) what happens before the first dogfight. We have some stuff (RSS-feeds, personal sandboxes etc.) to assist both grossmeister and apprentice, but sure we should develop some more. On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 12:49 PM, John at Darkstarvac...@jeb.no wrote: How the new contributors are approached by the community is very important and it seems like they face a very hostile environment. How can we change this, both at a human level and with technical solutions? Is it somehow possible to let newcomers write articles together with oldtimers until they learn the most basic things? Perhaps it is possible to make personal sandboxes where they can get some guidance before the dogfight starts? John ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Pavlo Shevelopavlo.shev...@gmail.com wrote: Let me illustrate by example: I started to invest good portion of my time into comforting 11 (!) years old boy despite the fact that his usage of be bold rule to several most popular templates was like hurricane that not each vandal may create :) 17 is probably interested more in music than in nuclear physics, but just in two years she or he may be a valuable contributor in that scientific field. Let's be realistic (though not cynical ;) ): 1. Far not in two years - not less than in 10 years. Will we be satisfied by popmusics/games-pedia until than +2-3 years (to create articles); 2. She or he may and may not became contributor in some scientific field. If she/he will see work of elders (in best - eventually pass the aprenticeship under control of master) during all these years it will increase both that probability to became and quality of future contribution. I have quite opposite experiences. One of them had become Wikimedian with 16-17 and two years later became a steward (by passing elections with ~95% of support). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 4:41 PM, Milos Rancicmill...@gmail.com wrote: I have quite opposite experiences. One of them had become Wikimedian with 16-17 and two years later became a steward (by passing elections with ~95% of support). BTW, one of the persons who trolled the project (sr.wp) was economist who is working now on the Encyclopedia of Serbian Academy of Sciences and Arts. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
--- El sáb, 25/7/09, John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no escribió: De: John at Darkstar vac...@jeb.no Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics Para: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: sábado, 25 julio, 2009 3:47 I asked a source if they may grant us access to some statistics on users behaviour within social media. The time series starts well before Nupedia. That would be great, John. Though Wikipedia peculiarities should be taken into account, long time series would allow interesting comparisons. In particular, about the future trends that we may expect to find in the future, from patterns already observed in other scenarios with a wider timespan. Best, Felipe. John Felipe Ortega wrote: --- El vie, 24/7/09, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com escribió: De: Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics Para: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: viernes, 24 julio, 2009 5:25 Whatever means in the official statistics. It would be good to have numbers about newcomers and those who made 10 or 100 edits, so we may compare how do we attract attention through the time. However, I think that those numbers are relatively stable in the past couple of years (let's say, from 2005 or so). You can check more precise figures and graphs in my thesis about general statistics for survivability for all logged editors and core editors (the top 10% most active editors in each month), from the beginning until Dec. 2007, in the top-ten language versions (at that time). http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/phd-thesis (page) http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/thesis-wkp-quantanalysis (doc) As for the percentages of users by age, education level, etc. my impression is that opinions from experienced community members are often well oriented. But they're only opinions. Until we get the results of the general survey, we won't have a clear picture of the current recruitment targets for all versions. Nevertheless, according to our updates, it seems that the situation is not getting better from Jan 2008 onwards. Best, Felipe. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundatio...@lists..wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
2009/7/25 Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com: I have quite opposite experiences. One of them had become Wikimedian with 16-17 and two years later became a steward (by passing elections with ~95% of support). Yes. We must keep in mind that the Wikimedia projects attract some *ridiculously* smart, clueful and capable kids. I am still regularly shocked how young some fellow Wikimedian is, typically people I guess are in their mid-twenties turning out to be in their mid-teens. - d. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
This is a good point, Milos. Quantity and quality are more related to each other than we may thought initially. For instance: * The main proportion of Featured Articles in all top-ten language versions needed, at least, more than 1,000 days (3 years) to reach that level. * Most of editors contributing to FAs were high experienced editors, meaning more than 2.5 or 3 years participating in Wikipedia. And these editors tend to be very active ones (though they not necessarily get 'sysop' or other special privileges). I recall you that more than 50% of editors abandonned after aprox.. half a year, in all versions we studied. Therefore, the high experienced editors are taking care of top-quality content. Probably because they know, better than many other editors, the guidelines, procedures and daily workflows in the community. Of course, their knowledge (about the topics they contribute to) also matters. But I believe that the first condition is also critical. And you can get to that point with time, interacting with Wikipedia and the community. As a result, any attempt to improve the feeling of newcomers as they start to contribute is invaluable. I've read your comments about chats with sysops or article's main editors. I've also read about training environments (customized sandboxes, more friendly, etc.). So, all this makes *a lot of sense* in the current situation. Not because of quantity, but to improve *quality*. Best, Felipe. --- El sáb, 25/7/09, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com escribió: De: Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics So, to give the answer about quantity vs. quality: We need quantity to have sustainable community development or even just a sustainable stagnation. We shouldn't be shy of saying that quantity is very important to us because we are able to build quality. And, yes, it is possible that quality brings quantity. This thread is about that: we have to think how to do that. If we don't think (thinking=quality) how to bring quantity and our quantity is lowering: we are at the dead end. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
2009/7/25 David Gerard dger...@gmail.com: 2009/7/25 Felipe Ortega glimmer_phoe...@yahoo.es: * The main proportion of Featured Articles in all top-ten language versions needed, at least, more than 1,000 days (3 years) to reach that level. Note that FA numbers on en:wp don't indicate a given quailty level - but a rising quality level. That is, the quality standards at :en:WP:FAC are consciously being continually raised by the regulars, so that it indicates the best of the best rather than measuring generally the quality increase of en:wp. Looking at article classes (A-class, B-class, C-class, stub-class) for en:wp may be a better measure - these tend to be assigned inside the specialist wikiprojects on a topic. There is little evidence for this in recent years. While for a long time the FA standards did rise (to keep the promotion rate at about 1 a day) that pattern ceased a couple of years back. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Do you have data to back this up? For the record, I'll be 20 in August and the main areas I edited were pages about cultures, countries, and languages since I was about 15. There are lots of intelligent young people scattered across the globe, I don't know how much they are able to contribute to de.wp but when it comes to en.wp, you will find some of the brightest young people (in addition to some not-so-bright ones (-: perhaps) Mark On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 6:54 AM, Pavlo Shevelopavlo.shev...@gmail.com wrote: Here we are not looking at 15 year olds, we are looking at retired academics as the future of our user base. That's right point! If Wikipedia is education tool we should (!) think about something more than cross-education of teenagers and students As a matter od fact teenagers contribute mainly to articles about sports, movies and other entertainment staff. Almost only exception is computers hardware and software stuff. On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Henning Schlottmannh.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: In all cases we need to think seriously how to educate younger generations about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Thanks for all the data and the number crunching. But I think you are wrong in your assumptions and therefore in your analysis at least regarding de-WP. Here we are not looking at 15 year olds, we are looking at retired academics as the future of our user base. Quite frankly, a 15 years old can't contribute to de-WP anymore. Not even 20 years olds can. De-WP has reached a level where undergraduates can do vandal fighting and stuff like that, but writing and improving articles needs access to academic literature and experience in academic writing. 25 to 45 years olds usually have other priorities, they build a career and a family. It is the logical step to look for retired academics, because they have the expertise needed. The demographics in the 15-35 range therefore are completely irrelevant for de-WP. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Mark, I appreciate your input to this discussion as well as I believe you regarding your contribution to en:WP. Both of us (you and me) know that there are bright young people (geeks etc.) and ... not so bright. Besides I'm willing not to be snobbish geek and I trust that people (whatever their age are) who do not care about science but love fun are *NOT* bad/wrong etc. people. We, Wikipedians, love fun as well - though our fun is very ... wikiish :-P Exact figures of people of both kind (fun oriented and other) as well as volumes of their contribution are yet to come as age disclosure (as well as real names etc.) is more exception than rule. From another point of view I do respect such contribution like entertainment stuff - I care about balance between those and articles about science and technology. I'm 'old school guy' so for me encyclopedia is about science and technology first of all. P.S. I'm going to question you about you contribution as I failed to discover it myself. I will do that by private mailing to safe everything that you would like to keep not so public. On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 9:25 PM, Mark Williamsonnode...@gmail.com wrote: Do you have data to back this up? For the record, I'll be 20 in August and the main areas I edited were pages about cultures, countries, and languages since I was about 15. There are lots of intelligent young people scattered across the globe, I don't know how much they are able to contribute to de.wp but when it comes to en.wp, you will find some of the brightest young people (in addition to some not-so-bright ones (-: perhaps) Mark On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 6:54 AM, Pavlo Shevelopavlo.shev...@gmail.com wrote: Here we are not looking at 15 year olds, we are looking at retired academics as the future of our user base. That's right point! If Wikipedia is education tool we should (!) think about something more than cross-education of teenagers and students As a matter od fact teenagers contribute mainly to articles about sports, movies and other entertainment staff. Almost only exception is computers hardware and software stuff. On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Henning Schlottmannh.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: In all cases we need to think seriously how to educate younger generations about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Thanks for all the data and the number crunching. But I think you are wrong in your assumptions and therefore in your analysis at least regarding de-WP. Here we are not looking at 15 year olds, we are looking at retired academics as the future of our user base. Quite frankly, a 15 years old can't contribute to de-WP anymore. Not even 20 years olds can. De-WP has reached a level where undergraduates can do vandal fighting and stuff like that, but writing and improving articles needs access to academic literature and experience in academic writing. 25 to 45 years olds usually have other priorities, they build a career and a family. It is the logical step to look for retired academics, because they have the expertise needed. The demographics in the 15-35 range therefore are completely irrelevant for de-WP. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Oh, Milos... We were talking about articles on nuclear physics, aren't we? ... and you suddenly switched to stewardship. Why? With all due respect to the institution of stewardship (and each of our Stewards personally ;) ) what's the big deal with that in context of what we were talking before you switched. Stewardship is (I'm simplifying) top level of adminship (sysopship). So if we have 16 year old addmin (sysop) so it 's not big surprise to see 19-year old steward. ... but what about articles on nuclear phisics or same scientific/technology topic written by 19 year old guy/lady? ... FA-grade articles if any? ... and let's discuss not exceptions but... mainstream. I completely agree with David Gerard, Mark and others that there is bright young contributors (new Stephen Hawking etc.) but I (1001th confirmation!) never said that we should stop recruiting among youngsters. On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 5:41 PM, Milos Rancicmill...@gmail.com wrote: On Sat, Jul 25, 2009 at 12:48 PM, Pavlo Shevelopavlo.shev...@gmail.com wrote: Let me illustrate by example: I started to invest good portion of my time into comforting 11 (!) years old boy despite the fact that his usage of be bold rule to several most popular templates was like hurricane that not each vandal may create :) 17 is probably interested more in music than in nuclear physics, but just in two years she or he may be a valuable contributor in that scientific field. Let's be realistic (though not cynical ;) ): 1. Far not in two years - not less than in 10 years. Will we be satisfied by popmusics/games-pedia until than +2-3 years (to create articles); 2. She or he may and may not became contributor in some scientific field. If she/he will see work of elders (in best - eventually pass the aprenticeship under control of master) during all these years it will increase both that probability to became and quality of future contribution. I have quite opposite experiences. One of them had become Wikimedian with 16-17 and two years later became a steward (by passing elections with ~95% of support). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
2009/7/25 Pavlo Shevelo pavlo.shev...@gmail.com: Stewardship is (I'm simplifying) top level of adminship (sysopship). So if we have 16 year old addmin (sysop) so it 's not big surprise to see 19-year old steward. ... but what about articles on nuclear phisics or same scientific/technology topic written by 19 year old guy/lady? ... FA-grade articles if any? Sure. The 19 has a reasonable chance of being at a university that means they have access to reliant journals and at least some free time. ... and let's discuss not exceptions but... mainstream. Then why are you talking about FAs? The mainstream are not FAs. But still there is no really reason to think think we don't have plenty youngsters able to write science and technology articles. While people keep pretty quiet about ages on en I've certainly run across people at university or younger who work in those areas. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
[Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Bad news is that I was right almost a year ago about trends of new Wikimedians. Relatively good news is that the statistics may be interpreted as not so bad ones. Good news is that WMF started to act in relation to those problems around half a year ago. I went to en.wp stats [1] and I've seen that: * Number of new Wikipedians is lowering since March 2007. May 2009 is the worst month since March 2006. * Fortunately, numbers of active and very active Wikipedians are stable since the second half of 2007. * The problem is that curves for active and very active Wikipedians look like just prolonged curve of the number of new Wikipedians. But, I wanted to be sure that this is the trend on other large projects. * German Wikipedia [2]: worse than English in the sense of new Wikipedians, however, very stable in the sense of active and very active ones. * French Wikipedia [3]: Somewhat better than German, but it just shows the earlier phase of German Wikipedia. * Chinese Wikipedia [4]: Almost the same as French. * Russian Wikipedia [5]: Shows even earlier phase. Lowering number of new Wikipedians just began. Then, I wanted to see if there are some problems in general demographics. So, I've found demographics pyramids of USA [6], Germany [7] and France [8] (from 2005). If we assume that our target groups are between 15 and 24, just number of German contributors may be ~10% less (note that the population groups are now ~5 years older). In the case of French contributors we should expect ~5% less contributors, while in the case of USA we should expect ~2% more contributors. But, this is not all. We should add another variable. A significant number of the initial new Wikipedians (by initial I assume the raising period, in the case of en.wp, it is up to March 2007) were older. So, younger than them were also inside of the initial group. But, is the number of older Wikipedians so big that we may expect just 16% (de.wp), 46% (fr.wp), 60% (en.wp), of the peak number of new Wikipedians (statistics from de.wp: January 2006=1960 new, May 2009=320 new; see others from the charts)? * If our dominant groups are 15-24 years old and if we say that they consist 80% of Wikipedians, we should expect that the number of new Wikipedians compared to the peak should be: de.wp ~30%, ~35% fr.wp, ~40% en.wp. * If our dominant groups are 15-29 years old, then the numbers are ~25%, ~30%, ~35%. * If our dominant groups are 15-35 years old, then the numbers are ~15%, ~20%, ~25%. (Note that you may move up lower age level and you'll get approximately the same results.) In the best scenario, just de.wp is in the dangerous zone. In the worst scenario de.wp is far inside of the unsustainable development, while fr.wp and en.wp are still staying relatively well. (However, again, note that fr.wp and en.wp look a lot like the earlier phases of de.wp.) In all cases we need to think seriously how to educate younger generations about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. [1] - http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaEN.htm [2] - http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaDE.htm [3] - http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaFR.htm [4] - http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaZH.htm [5] - http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/ChartsWikipediaRU.htm [6] - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pyramide_Etats-Unis.PNG [7] - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pyramide_Allemagne.PNG [8] - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Pyramide_France.PNG ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Milos Rancic wrote: In all cases we need to think seriously how to educate younger generations about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Thanks for all the data and the number crunching. But I think you are wrong in your assumptions and therefore in your analysis at least regarding de-WP. Here we are not looking at 15 year olds, we are looking at retired academics as the future of our user base. Quite frankly, a 15 years old can't contribute to de-WP anymore. Not even 20 years olds can. De-WP has reached a level where undergraduates can do vandal fighting and stuff like that, but writing and improving articles needs access to academic literature and experience in academic writing. 25 to 45 years olds usually have other priorities, they build a career and a family. It is the logical step to look for retired academics, because they have the expertise needed. The demographics in the 15-35 range therefore are completely irrelevant for de-WP. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Bad news is that I was right almost a year ago about trends of new Wikimedians. Relatively good news is that the statistics may be interpreted as not so bad ones. Good news is that WMF started to act in relation to those problems around half a year ago. July 17, 2009: the method of counting total and new wikipedians has changed. All wikis will be upgraded to this new scheme in coming weeks. In the new scheme wikipedians will only be included in total/new wikipedians from the month in which they made their 10th edit, not the month in which they registered. From Erik Zachte site ;) Always the last month was the worst month :) I'm waiting for new scheme. http://stats.wikimedia.org/PL/TablesWikipediansNew.htm Erik - big thx. Przykuta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Hello Milos, What an informative note you made! Thanks a lot! There is a lot to think about but as for meantime would you please provide more details on If we assume that our target groups are between 15 and 24... (and you never went over age of 35 in your analisys) ? As a part of that: do you have wikipedians age analysis for largest projects (let it be en: de: fr: ru: ). And closer to your data: When you say new Wikipedians what do you mean exactly: - either new people registered; - or new people who made at least 1 edition (any other threshold?)? I mean are you talking about people who just come (enter the door), or about those, who come and stay (don’t leave and eventually grow to “most active”)? My aim is to point following: to accommodate newcomers is not less important than to attract attention (educate as you say) of prospective candidates. On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 1:54 PM, Milos Rancicmill...@gmail.com wrote: Bad news is that I was right almost a year ago about trends of new Wikimedians. Relatively good news is that the statistics may be interpreted as not so bad ones. Good news is that WMF started to act in relation to those problems around half a year ago. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Here we are not looking at 15 year olds, we are looking at retired academics as the future of our user base. That's right point! If Wikipedia is education tool we should (!) think about something more than cross-education of teenagers and students As a matter od fact teenagers contribute mainly to articles about sports, movies and other entertainment staff. Almost only exception is computers hardware and software stuff. On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 4:24 PM, Henning Schlottmannh.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: Milos Rancic wrote: In all cases we need to think seriously how to educate younger generations about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Thanks for all the data and the number crunching. But I think you are wrong in your assumptions and therefore in your analysis at least regarding de-WP. Here we are not looking at 15 year olds, we are looking at retired academics as the future of our user base. Quite frankly, a 15 years old can't contribute to de-WP anymore. Not even 20 years olds can. De-WP has reached a level where undergraduates can do vandal fighting and stuff like that, but writing and improving articles needs access to academic literature and experience in academic writing. 25 to 45 years olds usually have other priorities, they build a career and a family. It is the logical step to look for retired academics, because they have the expertise needed. The demographics in the 15-35 range therefore are completely irrelevant for de-WP. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Do you have any ideas how to get them? As I still believe, for many articles this is a meta issue, meaning that it is likely that only a few people in the world have necessary expertise AND a wish to edit the articles, and they all speak English, but may have random mothertongues (not necessarily German speakers). You're right, but it's only part of the story. Another side of the coin is: even relatively young PhDs don't like the idea to contribute to the progect which is of the youth and teenagers for youth and teenagers type. On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 4:48 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanterpute...@mccme.ru wrote: It is the logical step to look for retired academics, because they have the expertise needed. The demographics in the 15-35 range therefore are completely irrelevant for de-WP. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l Do you have any ideas how to get them? As I still believe, for many articles this is a meta issue, meaning that it is likely that only a few people in the world have necessary expertise AND a wish to edit the articles, and they all speak English, but may have random mothertongues (not necessarily German speakers). Cheers Yaroslav ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
The retired academics trend is apparent at en.wikt too. There are many valuable depth and quality contributions that they can make and few others can. It might be possible to rely on a population of academics as contributors but there needs to be a mechanism to make sure that the needs of our actual users have appropriate weight in decision making From the point of view of a major content contributor, a wiki is largely a free resource on which they can build what they want within broad limits. A community of academics will tend to build a resource for academics. It may be cloaked in education, but the absence of any pressure to respond to or anticipate the actual needs of actual users will cause major drift away from making a useful resource for a broader population. The difficulty I perceive is that the wiki concept de facto depends on contributors being not too dissimilar from users. There are many design and presentation considerations (especially at wikt) for which contributors have no good model of user behavior other than introspection and a little anecdotal experience with others. The life experience of academics does not make them the perfect behavioral model for the young portion of the user base and may give them an excessively controlling or dismissive attitude toward newbies and people not educated to their preferred standard. Below is an excerpt from a recent discussion at en.wikt that betrays some of the attitudinal tendencies that concern me: Uhm sorry but I don't think it's acceptable to confine ourselves with the user vulgaris, which is by definition semi-literate imbecile :) Our target audience are primarily reasonably intelligent people who'd be using Wiktionary as an educational resource, and are willing to spend something like max 5 minutes learning how to effectively use the structure of the entries, and language-specific policy pages. I.e. *not* the type of folks who come by Google searches and leave comments such as I can't find the definition [http://en.wiktionary.org/w/index.php?title=Wiktionary:Feedbackdiff=6632516oldid=6632209 On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 9:24 AM, Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@gmx.netwrote: Milos Rancic wrote: In all cases we need to think seriously how to educate younger generations about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Thanks for all the data and the number crunching. But I think you are wrong in your assumptions and therefore in your analysis at least regarding de-WP. Here we are not looking at 15 year olds, we are looking at retired academics as the future of our user base. Quite frankly, a 15 years old can't contribute to de-WP anymore. Not even 20 years olds can. De-WP has reached a level where undergraduates can do vandal fighting and stuff like that, but writing and improving articles needs access to academic literature and experience in academic writing. 25 to 45 years olds usually have other priorities, they build a career and a family. It is the logical step to look for retired academics, because they have the expertise needed. The demographics in the 15-35 range therefore are completely irrelevant for de-WP. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- Dennis C. During Cynolatry is tolerant so long as the dog is not denied an equal divinity with the deities of other faiths. - Ambrose Bierce http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cynolatry ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
2009/7/24 Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@gmx.net: Milos Rancic wrote: In all cases we need to think seriously how to educate younger generations about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Thanks for all the data and the number crunching. But I think you are wrong in your assumptions and therefore in your analysis at least regarding de-WP. Here we are not looking at 15 year olds, we are looking at retired academics as the future of our user base. Quite frankly, a 15 years old can't contribute to de-WP anymore. Not even 20 years olds can. De-WP has reached a level where undergraduates can do vandal fighting and stuff like that, but writing and improving articles needs access to academic literature and experience in academic writing. English wikipedia has 2.9 million articles and far more words and can still have things added to it by teenagers. And it's not just different inclusion standards. For example [[Langstone]] meets any reasonable inclusion standards. De does not have an article. [[Ordnance Survey]] is clearly notable. No article on De. -- geni ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Henning Schlottmann wrote: Quite frankly, a 15 years old can't contribute to de-WP anymore. Not even 20 years olds can. De-WP has reached a level where undergraduates Pavlo Shevelo wrote: As a matter od fact teenagers contribute mainly to articles about sports, movies and other entertainment staff. Almost only exception is computers hardware and software stuff. Dennis During wrote: Uhm sorry but I don't think it's acceptable to confine ourselves with the user vulgaris, which is by definition semi-literate imbecile :) Our target Anyone else concerned by this line of reasoning? What happened to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Nikola Smolenski wrote: Anyone else concerned by this line of reasoning? What happened to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit? Everyone may contribute, but not everyone can.* Ciao Henning * Mantra No.2: http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benutzer:Markus_Mueller/Mantras Disclaimer: These mantras are meant serious by the author and some who cite them, but they are by now means official and certainly not undisputed. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Just to clarify: The passage below was one I quoted and was requoted by Nikola. It was from another en.wikt admin, NOT ME. Moreover it is not en.wikt policy and got negative response, but not as much as I would have hoped, from those I believe to be retired and active academics and graduate students. On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 10:08 AM, Nikola Smolenski smole...@eunet.yuwrote: Dennis During wrote: Uhm sorry but I don't think it's acceptable to confine ourselves with the user vulgaris, which is by definition semi-literate imbecile :) Our target -- Dennis C. During Cynolatry is tolerant so long as the dog is not denied an equal divinity with the deities of other faiths. - Ambrose Bierce http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/cynolatry ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Some complementing data on users from Swedish Wikipedia, -Youngsters 15-22- high turnover somewhat decreasing volume - do vandal fighting, write of computer games, music, film, sport etc (and these areas are worthy of respect too) -Middle aged 22-50 --An increasing number of low volume contributers --A decrease of contributions from regular users, as there are fewer empty spaces for amateur masscontributions (medium turnover) Mature 50+, low turnover which means over time both growing numbers and growing number of contributions per user So we also see a decrease of mass article contributers in the age span 25-35 and a steady increase of contributions from 50+ers (but we still get valuable contributions from all age groups) Anders ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Dennis During wrote: It might be possible to rely on a population of academics as contributors but there needs to be a mechanism to make sure that the needs of our actual users have appropriate weight in decision making Who are our actual users? Students are of course well known to use Wikipedia excessively. But do we know how many professionals and other people from the general public use Wikipedia every day? One of the most active contributors to de-WP once told the story that he was at a pediatric with his sick child and the doctor used Wikipedia to confirm his diagnosis - of course without knowing that the father of his patient had expert knowledge on how this second opinion was written. I met teachers, university docents, authors, journalists, lawyers, social workers, telcom technicians and members of pretty much any other profession, who rely on Wikipedia for a quick lookup of something. My point is: We don't write for students. Our articles should be on a level where everyone, including kids understands the introduction and can find further information in the main text, but we should not dumb down articles to the needs of school curriculums. Ciao Henning ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Dennis During wrote: Uhm sorry but I don't think it's acceptable to confine ourselves with the user vulgaris, which is by definition semi-literate imbecile :) Our target Anyone else concerned by this line of reasoning? What happened to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit? Nothing happened and we (at least talking about me) are only realistic in analysis and straight in putting things as they are. Face the reality. Period. Nothing else. ... I’m not talking about any limitations for teenagers or something like that. On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 5:08 PM, Nikola Smolenskismole...@eunet.yu wrote: Henning Schlottmann wrote: Quite frankly, a 15 years old can't contribute to de-WP anymore. Not even 20 years olds can. De-WP has reached a level where undergraduates Pavlo Shevelo wrote: As a matter od fact teenagers contribute mainly to articles about sports, movies and other entertainment staff. Almost only exception is computers hardware and software stuff. Dennis During wrote: Uhm sorry but I don't think it's acceptable to confine ourselves with the user vulgaris, which is by definition semi-literate imbecile :) Our target Anyone else concerned by this line of reasoning? What happened to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit? ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 4:34 PM, Henning Schlottmannh.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote: But do we know how many professionals and other people from the general public use Wikipedia every day? One of the most active contributors to de-WP once told the story that he was at a pediatric with his sick child and the doctor used Wikipedia to confirm his diagnosis - of course without knowing that the father of his patient had expert knowledge on how this second opinion was written. That's quite scary, actually I met teachers, university docents, authors, journalists, lawyers, social workers, telcom technicians and members of pretty much any other profession, who rely on Wikipedia for a quick lookup of something. Wikipedia is perfectly ok for a quick lookup, to get a brief idea on something you know very little. But that doesn't mean Wikipedia is the ultimate resource. It wasn't meant to be so, and this is not the scope of an encyclopeadia. Cruccone ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Do you have any ideas how to get them? As I still believe, for many articles this is a meta issue, meaning that it is likely that only a few people in the world have necessary expertise AND a wish to edit the articles, and they all speak English, but may have random mothertongues (not necessarily German speakers). You're right, but it's only part of the story. Another side of the coin is: even relatively young PhDs don't like the idea to contribute to the progect which is of the youth and teenagers for youth and teenagers type. Yes, but this is another (albeit related) issue. I do not think we should tie them together for this discussion. Right, just for the last week I have been involved in a mediation of a conflict in the article which is directly related to my professional activity (meaning I am much more qualified than both sides of the conflict). In the end of the day, I had to give up and quit the mediation. I am an academic and still under 45 (though coming close). Cheers Yaroslav ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Initially, I wanted to ask questions; to say that we need this or that analysis. But, I realized that I am able to make some approximations based on my Wikimedian experience. Of course, if we get more precise data, we would be able to make more precise conclusions. On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 3:48 PM, Pavlo Shevelopavlo.shev...@gmail.com wrote: If we assume that our target groups are between 15 and 24... (and you never went over age of 35 in your analisys) 15-24 is the main recruiting phase. Also, there is the next reasoning behind it: * We already reached the peak. Older age groups are not interesting anymore in the sense of quantity (of course, retired academicians *are* interesting, but there are not a lot of them; again, relatively speaking). * If we reached the peak, we are able just to catch new generations in bigger numbers. * Also, statistically, old people are dying more often than young people. Fortunately our generations (20+, 30+ and 40+) will become retired academicians or so one day in the future and then we'll have a very nice expansion in the number of highly qualified contributors. However, if we don't attract younger than us, Wikimedia projects will die with us. In other words, whatever we want or prefer, projects which hope that their main recruiting age is older than 30 -- are dead projects in the long run (i.e., if you are spending time of people in 30s to recruit people in 50s, who will spend time to recruit more people in 50s when those who are now in 30s will be in 70s?). I mean are you talking about people who just come (enter the door), or about those, who come and stay (don’t leave and eventually grow to “most active”)? My aim is to point following: to accommodate newcomers is not less important than to attract attention (educate as you say) of prospective candidates. Whatever means in the official statistics. It would be good to have numbers about newcomers and those who made 10 or 100 edits, so we may compare how do we attract attention through the time. However, I think that those numbers are relatively stable in the past couple of years (let's say, from 2005 or so). ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
My point is: We don't write for students. Our articles should be on a level where everyone, including kids understands the introduction and can find further information in the main text, but we should not dumb down articles to the needs of school curriculums. Ciao Henning There are articles and articles. Whereas [[Pokemon]] or [[Basketball]] or even [[George Washington]] can be mad available for kids (or at least introduction and some sections), [[Josephson effect]] just can not be. And should not be aimed at. Cheers Yaroslav ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
There is some overlap though. I tend to find (certainly on en-wikip) there are some articles which could be explained in layman's terms, particularly in maths and physics, that don't bother and just launch into a forest of LaTeX. I agree that every article ideally should have a Subject in a nutshell explanation in the introduction (which again brings us to the problem of the participation of academics). But it does not mean this explanation can be always made available for 10-years olds. Cheers Yaroslav ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
--- El vie, 24/7/09, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com escribió: De: Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics Para: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: viernes, 24 julio, 2009 5:25 Whatever means in the official statistics. It would be good to have numbers about newcomers and those who made 10 or 100 edits, so we may compare how do we attract attention through the time. However, I think that those numbers are relatively stable in the past couple of years (let's say, from 2005 or so). You can check more precise figures and graphs in my thesis about general statistics for survivability for all logged editors and core editors (the top 10% most active editors in each month), from the beginning until Dec. 2007, in the top-ten language versions (at that time). http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/phd-thesis (page) http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/thesis-wkp-quantanalysis (doc) As for the percentages of users by age, education level, etc. my impression is that opinions from experienced community members are often well oriented. But they're only opinions. Until we get the results of the general survey, we won't have a clear picture of the current recruitment targets for all versions. Nevertheless, according to our updates, it seems that the situation is not getting better from Jan 2008 onwards. Best, Felipe. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 10:32 AM, Jonathan Hall sinew...@silentflame.comwrote: On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 16:31, Yaroslav M. Blanterpute...@mccme.ru wrote: My point is: We don't write for students. Our articles should be on a There is some overlap though. I tend to find (certainly on en-wikip) there are some articles which could be explained in layman's terms, particularly in maths and physics, that don't bother and just launch into a forest of LaTeX. Yes, but this is a very specific problem (which I'm studying for a wikimania talk) in the higher sciences articles Cheers Yaroslav ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l -- 1001010 100100011111011001101100 ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Henning Schlottmann wrote: Who are our actual users? This is a good question, not only with respect to level (youth or academic), but also for topics (academic subjects like medicine, or popular culture). Retired academics might provide useful input on how to treat cancer, but might be out of touch with trends in manga or cooking. If we discourage teenagers from writing about their favorite artists, they will find Wikipedia less useful. It is also a question of what alternatives to Wikipedia our users have. Even if we fail to produce a good encyclopedia (in many smaller languages, it will take a long time to build something useful), we might succeed in killing all competition, especially printed reference works. This is a problem for Wikipedia as well, as we could be running out of sources to cite. I have written many short articles based on information found in reference works like who's who from earlier decades. But many such titles are no longer produced, because printed reference works are no longer profitable, especially in smaller markets (smaller languages). The Swedish Vem är det was published every 2nd year, but had a 6 year gap from 2001 to 2007, and I don't know if there will ever be another edition. Many printed reference works were financially supported by buyers who thought they were necessary to have, but seldom used them. Today the same people still use reference works very seldom. The difference is they now think (wrongly) that everything is online, and they don't need to buy printed reference works anymore. Another traditional must have is the daily newspaper, which many young people are now abandoning, resulting in the current crisis. Revenue from ads on newspaper websites isn't covering the loss of subscription revenue from the printed editions. We could be entering a period of scarcity of good reference information, as counterintuitive as that might seem. There is a huge gap for Wikipedia to fill. -- Lars Aronsson (l...@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Henning Schlottmann wrote: Who are our actual users? This is a good question, not only with respect to level (youth or academic), but also for topics (academic subjects like medicine, or popular culture). Retired academics might provide useful input on how to treat cancer, but might be out of touch with trends in manga or cooking. If we discourage teenagers from writing about their favorite artists, they will find Wikipedia less useful. I think this is a perfectly valid point, but it does not take into account that the number of teenagers willing to write on their favorite artists, manga or cooking, is two orders of magnitude more than the number of retired academics able to write an article on how to treat cancer. This is why is two orders of magnitude more important to look for new editors who are retired academics than for new editors who are teenagers. Having said this I must emphasize that this is a difference in strategy, not in a treatment of users. Once the users are there they should not be treated differently depending on their age or topics they are interested in. Cheers Yaroslav ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Everyone may contribute, but not everyone can.* to contribute =/= to write new articles / to add new info #categorization #linking #templating #bots making #translating #etc. I know many young people who '''can''' clean up Wikipedia very well. przykuta ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
Nikola Smolenski wrote: Henning Schlottmann wrote: Quite frankly, a 15 years old can't contribute to de-WP anymore. Not even 20 years olds can. De-WP has reached a level where undergraduates Pavlo Shevelo wrote: As a matter od fact teenagers contribute mainly to articles about sports, movies and other entertainment staff. Almost only exception is computers hardware and software stuff. Dennis During wrote: Uhm sorry but I don't think it's acceptable to confine ourselves with the user vulgaris, which is by definition semi-literate imbecile :) Our target Anyone else concerned by this line of reasoning? What happened to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia anyone can edit? Very much, but to be fair Dennis was quoting what someone else had said, and expressing his concern. Ec ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 7:04 AM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: 2009/7/24 Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@gmx.net: Milos Rancic wrote: In all cases we need to think seriously how to educate younger generations about Wikipedia and other Wikimedia projects. Thanks for all the data and the number crunching. But I think you are wrong in your assumptions and therefore in your analysis at least regarding de-WP. Here we are not looking at 15 year olds, we are looking at retired academics as the future of our user base. Quite frankly, a 15 years old can't contribute to de-WP anymore. Not even 20 years olds can. De-WP has reached a level where undergraduates can do vandal fighting and stuff like that, but writing and improving articles needs access to academic literature and experience in academic writing. English wikipedia has 2.9 million articles and far more words and can still have things added to it by teenagers. And it's not just different inclusion standards. For example [[Langstone]] meets any reasonable inclusion standards. De does not have an article. [[Ordnance Survey]] is clearly notable. No article on De. -- geni Indeed. The DE-Only-PhDs-elitism seems misplaced (and worrying) based on a few articles I compared. --Falcorian ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
I asked a source if they may grant us access to some statistics on users behaviour within social media. The time series starts well before Nupedia. John Felipe Ortega wrote: --- El vie, 24/7/09, Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com escribió: De: Milos Rancic mill...@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics Para: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: viernes, 24 julio, 2009 5:25 Whatever means in the official statistics. It would be good to have numbers about newcomers and those who made 10 or 100 edits, so we may compare how do we attract attention through the time. However, I think that those numbers are relatively stable in the past couple of years (let's say, from 2005 or so). You can check more precise figures and graphs in my thesis about general statistics for survivability for all logged editors and core editors (the top 10% most active editors in each month), from the beginning until Dec. 2007, in the top-ten language versions (at that time). http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/phd-thesis (page) http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/thesis-wkp-quantanalysis (doc) As for the percentages of users by age, education level, etc. my impression is that opinions from experienced community members are often well oriented. But they're only opinions. Until we get the results of the general survey, we won't have a clear picture of the current recruitment targets for all versions. Nevertheless, according to our updates, it seems that the situation is not getting better from Jan 2008 onwards. Best, Felipe. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
Re: [Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics
On Fri, Jul 24, 2009 at 10:23 PM, Pavlo Shevelopavlo.shev...@gmail.com wrote: * ... Older age groups are not interesting anymore in the sense of quantity Are we really interested in quantity as that? Are we? In other words, whatever we want or prefer, projects which hope that their main recruiting age is older than 30 -- are dead projects in the long run (i.e., if you are spending time of people in 30s to recruit people in 50s, who will spend time to recruit more people in 50s when those who are now in 30s will be in 70s?). :) My point is not switch from 15-24 to 50+ age limits, but to object narrowing of limits too much. I mean that combining of several age diapasons could provide best of two worlds result. And recruiting process should go as snowball - for example 50s should hunt for more 50s (as 30s seems not mature enough to do that really well :) ) I have to say a lot about this, but I'll try to be concise... Let's make one more very rough statistical analysis. It is year 2009 and the age distribution of our contributors is very straight: 15-19: 1000 20-24: 1000 25-29: 1000 30-34: 1000 35-39: 1000 40-44: 1000 45-49: 1000 50-54: 1000 55-59: 1000 60-64: 1000 65-69: 1000 70-74: 1000 75-79: 1000 and we have 13.000 contributors. Now, we are starting with the implementation of the Scenario 1: we want to attract more retired academicians and we don't care for younger and we are very successful in that implementation. So, during the next year we are getting 500 more contributors in the ages groups between 60 and 79. This is year 2013 and we have the next situation: 15-19: 500 20-24: 1000 25-29: 1000 30-34: 1000 35-39: 1000 40-44: 1000 45-49: 1000 50-54: 1000 55-59: 1000 60-64: 1000 65-69: 1500 70-74: 1500 75-79: 1500 and we have 14.000 contributors. This is very good beginning. And we are continuing with caring with older generations, and not caring for younger... This is the year 2019: 15-19: 250 20-24: 500 25-29: 1000 30-34: 1000 35-39: 1000 40-44: 1000 45-49: 1000 50-54: 1000 55-59: 1000 60-64: 1000 65-69: 1500 70-74: 2000 75-79: 2000 and we have 14.250 contributors. Still good, but not as good as it was during the first year. 2023 15-19: 150 20-24: 250 25-29: 500 30-34: 1000 35-39: 1000 40-44: 1000 45-49: 1000 50-54: 1000 55-59: 1000 60-64: 1000 65-69: 1500 70-74: 2000 75-79: 2500 = 13.900, which means that we are behind the peak and that number of contributors will be just lower and lower. OK. Let's try to implement Scenario 2: We want to spread our efforts both on young and old generations. It is 2013: 15-19: 1250 20-24: 1250 25-29: 1250 30-34: 1000 35-39: 1000 40-44: 1000 45-49: 1000 50-54: 1000 55-59: 1000 60-64: 1000 65-69: 1250 70-74: 1250 75-79: 1250 and we have 14.500 contributors. It is 2019: 15-19: 1500 20-24: 1250 25-29: 1250 30-34: 1250 35-39: 1000 40-44: 1000 45-49: 1000 50-54: 1000 55-59: 1000 60-64: 1000 65-69: 1250 70-74: 1500 75-79: 1500 and we have 15.500 contributors. And we may expect slow raising of a number of contributors. And let we try to implement Scenario 3: We are concentrated just on young generations. 2013: 15-19: 1500 20-24: 1500 25-29: 1500 30-34: 1000 35-39: 1000 40-44: 1000 45-49: 1000 50-54: 1000 55-59: 1000 60-64: 1000 65-69: 1000 70-74: 1000 75-79: 1000 = 14.500 2019: 15-19: 1500 20-24: 2000 25-29: 2000 30-34: 1500 35-39: 1000 40-44: 1000 45-49: 1000 50-54: 1000 55-59: 1000 60-64: 1000 65-69: 1000 70-74: 1000 75-79: 1000 = 16.000. Which means that the number of our contributors continues to raise faster. This is a simplistic view, of course. There are a lot of other variables. And, usually, those variables would bring just less contributors, not more. So, in the Scenario 1 we'll have stronger lowering, in the Scenario 2 we'll have, at the best, stagnation and in the Scenario 3 we'll have, at the best, slow raising. Not to talk about the fact that you efforts to find retired academicians are much more expensive than efforts to find young people; as well as that the fact is that lower number of young people means lower capacity for getting old people. Also, it is proved that we don't need to wait for two decades to see the results. 3-5 years are enough because age groups are our simplistic way for grouping data; children are becoming young people every minute, as well as old people are dying every minute. So, to give the answer about quantity vs. quality: We need quantity to have sustainable community development or even just a sustainable stagnation. We shouldn't be shy of saying that quantity is very important to us because we are able to build quality. And, yes, it is possible that quality brings quantity. This thread is about that: we have to think how to do that. If we don't think (thinking=quality) how to bring quantity and our quantity is lowering: we are at the dead end. ___ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
