Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Analytics] Farewell, Erik!

[Leila Zia]

Erik,

It's been an incredible honor to work with you as a colleague and a
volunteer. Thank you for the stats and all the conversations about
categories, topics, languages, ..., but even more so for showing me
the path and the purpose, time after time. I will dearly miss you in
Wikimedia Foundation, and I hope that I can be a steward of what you
stood for (or at least I can say that I will continue to try:).

Enjoy your new endeavors and see you around.

Regards,
Leila


On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 3:22 PM Christian Aistleitner
 wrote:
>
> Hi Erik,
>
> Thank you for your work!
>
> When I first came across Wikistats, it completely blew my mind. Such a
> huge collection of raw data turned into digestible information. It's
> amazing, stunning, and above all: enlightening.
> I've spent countless hours digging through Wikistats in awe.
>
> But besides the gargantuan effort that Wikistats represents, I even
> more value your passion for the data and information it holds, your
> second-to-none expertise on it, and your willingness to go through the
> details and numbers with each and everyone, regardless where they come
> from, your openness, your unbiased-ness, your constructive approach,
> and your never-shying-away from discussions about the numbers and
> trends.
>
> Enjoy your retirement from WMF, and seeing your blog post and your
> tree mapping project, I'm sure it'll be an amazing "Unruhestand" :-)
>
> Have fun,
> Christian
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 06, 2019 at 01:17:48PM -0800, Dario Taraborelli wrote:
> > “[R]ecent revisions of an article can be peeled off to reveal older layers,
> > which are still meaningful for historians. Even graffiti applied by vandals
> > can by its sheer informality convey meaningful information, just like
> > historians learned a lot from graffiti on walls of classic Pompei. Likewise
> > view patterns can tell future historians a lot about what was hot and what
> > wasn’t in our times. Reason why these raw view data are meant to be
> > preserved for a long time.”
> >
> > Erik Zachte wrote these lines in a blog post
> > 
> > almost
> > ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he gave
> > us. Erik retired  this
> > past Friday, leaving behind an immense legacy. I had the honor to work with
> > him for several years, and I hosted this morning an intimate, tearful
> > celebration of what Erik has represented for the Wikimedia movement.
> >
> > His Wikistats project —with his signature
> > pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s
> > —has
> > been much more than an "analytics platform". It's been an individual
> > attempt he initiated, and grew over time, to try and comprehend and make
> > sense of the largest open collaboration project in human history, driven by
> > curiosity and by an insatiable desire to serve data to the communities that
> > most needed it.
> >
> > Through this project, Erik has created a live record of data describing the
> > growth and reach of all Wikimedia communities, across languages and
> > projects, putting multi-lingualism and smaller communities at the very
> > center of his attention. He coined metrics such as "active editors" that
> > defined the benchmark for volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the
> > academic community to understand some of the growing pains and editor
> > retention issues
> > 
> > the movement has faced. He created countless reports—that predate by nearly
> > a decade modern visualizations of online attention—to understand what
> > Wikipedia traffic means in the context of current events like elections
> > 
> > or public health crises
> > .
> > He has created countless
> >  visualizations
> > 
> > that show the enormous gaps in local language content and representation
> > that, as a movement, we face in our efforts to build an encyclopedia for
> > and about everyone. He has also made extensive use of pie charts
> > ,
> > which—as friends—we are ready to turn a blind eye towards.
> >
> > Most importantly, the data Erik has brougth to life has been cited over
> > 1,000 times
> > 
> > in the 

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Analytics] Farewell, Erik!

[Christian Aistleitner via Wikimedia-l]

Hi Erik,

Thank you for your work!

When I first came across Wikistats, it completely blew my mind. Such a
huge collection of raw data turned into digestible information. It's
amazing, stunning, and above all: enlightening.
I've spent countless hours digging through Wikistats in awe.

But besides the gargantuan effort that Wikistats represents, I even
more value your passion for the data and information it holds, your
second-to-none expertise on it, and your willingness to go through the
details and numbers with each and everyone, regardless where they come
from, your openness, your unbiased-ness, your constructive approach,
and your never-shying-away from discussions about the numbers and
trends.

Enjoy your retirement from WMF, and seeing your blog post and your
tree mapping project, I'm sure it'll be an amazing "Unruhestand" :-)

Have fun,
Christian



On Wed, Feb 06, 2019 at 01:17:48PM -0800, Dario Taraborelli wrote:
> “[R]ecent revisions of an article can be peeled off to reveal older layers,
> which are still meaningful for historians. Even graffiti applied by vandals
> can by its sheer informality convey meaningful information, just like
> historians learned a lot from graffiti on walls of classic Pompei. Likewise
> view patterns can tell future historians a lot about what was hot and what
> wasn’t in our times. Reason why these raw view data are meant to be
> preserved for a long time.”
> 
> Erik Zachte wrote these lines in a blog post
> 
> almost
> ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he gave
> us. Erik retired  this
> past Friday, leaving behind an immense legacy. I had the honor to work with
> him for several years, and I hosted this morning an intimate, tearful
> celebration of what Erik has represented for the Wikimedia movement.
> 
> His Wikistats project —with his signature
> pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s
> —has
> been much more than an "analytics platform". It's been an individual
> attempt he initiated, and grew over time, to try and comprehend and make
> sense of the largest open collaboration project in human history, driven by
> curiosity and by an insatiable desire to serve data to the communities that
> most needed it.
> 
> Through this project, Erik has created a live record of data describing the
> growth and reach of all Wikimedia communities, across languages and
> projects, putting multi-lingualism and smaller communities at the very
> center of his attention. He coined metrics such as "active editors" that
> defined the benchmark for volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the
> academic community to understand some of the growing pains and editor
> retention issues
> 
> the movement has faced. He created countless reports—that predate by nearly
> a decade modern visualizations of online attention—to understand what
> Wikipedia traffic means in the context of current events like elections
> 
> or public health crises
> .
> He has created countless
>  visualizations
> 
> that show the enormous gaps in local language content and representation
> that, as a movement, we face in our efforts to build an encyclopedia for
> and about everyone. He has also made extensive use of pie charts
> ,
> which—as friends—we are ready to turn a blind eye towards.
> 
> Most importantly, the data Erik has brougth to life has been cited over
> 1,000 times
> 
> in the scholarly literature. If we gave credit to open data creators in the
> same way as we credit authors of scholarly papers, Erik would be one of the
> most influential authors in the field, and I don't think it is much of a
> stretch to say that the massive trove of data and metrics Erik has made
> available had a direct causal role in the birth and growth of the academic
> field of Wikimedia research, and more broadly, scholarship of online
> collaboration.
> 
> Like I said this morning, Erik -- you have been not only an invaluable
> colleague and a steward for the movement, but also a very decent human
> being, and I am grateful we shared some of this journey together.
> 
> Pl

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Analytics] Farewell, Erik!

[Brad Patrick]

Erik:

From the early days until now, your quiet leadership and excellence have been a 
great credit to the organization and most importantly, your leadership by 
example has been an inspiration to untold numbers of people. But, actually, 
it’s not untold numbers because of your work! You tell it with numbers. 

All the best in your next chapter. Thank you so much for your work!

BradPatrick

b...@baplegal.com
Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 6, 2019, at 5:21 PM, effe iets anders  wrote:
> 
> I have always enjoyed Erik's insightful input - especially the insights
> that people don't like to hear at first. I trust that much more of that is
> to come in the future, so I'm not ready to say farewells :). I wouldn't be
> able to accurately summarize it anyway.
> 
> Erik, I hope that you'll find a lot of joy in the beautiful tree project
> that you're working on these days (folks, definitely check it out if you're
> interested in Leiden's horticulture). It is another beautiful example of
> how you manage to visualize the things that sound dull without you
> explaining them. Your presentations at Wikimania were for that reason
> usually the ones I most looked forward to.
> 
> What maybe not everyone realizes, is that Erik is one of the people that
> the French Wikipedia would categorize as 'Grand Ancients
> ',
> having been active since 2001. A unique understanding of the history of
> Wikipedia combined with dedication and understanding data has clearly
> resulted in good work. Thanks for summarizing this so elaborately, Dario :)
> 
> Until soon,
> 
> Lodewijk
> 
>> On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 1:54 PM Pine W  wrote:
>> 
>> Thanks for your work, Erik. I hope that we will see you in the future.
>> 
>> This is the first time that I can recall hearing about a person retiring
>> from WMF. Volunteer retirements and semi-retirements happen regularly, and
>> the reasons that I hear for those retirements are often sad. It's nice to
>> hear of someone who is retiring after years of success and is moving in a
>> positive direction.
>> 
>> I think that you leave a good legacy in the Wikiverse, and as you might
>> guess from my username, I like what you chose for your next project.
>> 
>> Best wishes,
>> 
>> Pine
>> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>> 
>> 
>> ___
>> Analytics mailing list
>> analyt...@lists.wikimedia.org
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>> 
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Analytics] Farewell, Erik!

[effe iets anders]

I have always enjoyed Erik's insightful input - especially the insights
that people don't like to hear at first. I trust that much more of that is
to come in the future, so I'm not ready to say farewells :). I wouldn't be
able to accurately summarize it anyway.

Erik, I hope that you'll find a lot of joy in the beautiful tree project
that you're working on these days (folks, definitely check it out if you're
interested in Leiden's horticulture). It is another beautiful example of
how you manage to visualize the things that sound dull without you
explaining them. Your presentations at Wikimania were for that reason
usually the ones I most looked forward to.

What maybe not everyone realizes, is that Erik is one of the people that
the French Wikipedia would categorize as 'Grand Ancients
',
having been active since 2001. A unique understanding of the history of
Wikipedia combined with dedication and understanding data has clearly
resulted in good work. Thanks for summarizing this so elaborately, Dario :)

Until soon,

Lodewijk

On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 1:54 PM Pine W  wrote:

> Thanks for your work, Erik. I hope that we will see you in the future.
>
> This is the first time that I can recall hearing about a person retiring
> from WMF. Volunteer retirements and semi-retirements happen regularly, and
> the reasons that I hear for those retirements are often sad. It's nice to
> hear of someone who is retiring after years of success and is moving in a
> positive direction.
>
> I think that you leave a good legacy in the Wikiverse, and as you might
> guess from my username, I like what you chose for your next project.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>
>
> ___
> Analytics mailing list
> analyt...@lists.wikimedia.org
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>
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Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Analytics] Farewell, Erik!

[Pine W]

Thanks for your work, Erik. I hope that we will see you in the future.

This is the first time that I can recall hearing about a person retiring
from WMF. Volunteer retirements and semi-retirements happen regularly, and
the reasons that I hear for those retirements are often sad. It's nice to
hear of someone who is retiring after years of success and is moving in a
positive direction.

I think that you leave a good legacy in the Wikiverse, and as you might
guess from my username, I like what you chose for your next project.

Best wishes,

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
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