Thanks to Federico Leva (Nemo) for the follow up questions (i.e. "what additional data would you need and why, given clarifications above?"). I have the following suggestions for the Wikimedia staff to consider and ask other Wikipedian and Wikipedia researchers to share their thoughts. I organize my answers from the easiest to the most difficult.
Some suggestions to the current and future Wikipedia traffic data curation and presentation. (I). What can be done quickly with relatively little pain but with substantial gains? (I-A). Tabulate the data points in absolute numbers first, not percentage numbers In terms of data points, this should be easy to do. It would be much useful if absolute numbers, not percentage numbers, are provided so as to see historical dynamics in terms of absolute numbers not relative numbers in percentage points. Currently, say for Chinese Wikipedia, it is already possible to see the trend regarding the *proportion* of Taiwan users versus that of Hong Kong. But it would be much more helpful, for researchers and Wikipedians alike, to see if there is a decline or increase in absolute numbers. That is to say, for Chinese Wikipedia, we can know better if, for a specific region, the viewing/editing traffic has increased or decreased. We need to know whether there is a growth and decline and the current percentage data does not allow us to do so. (I-B). Include all language versions for the *editing traffic* report as well. In terms of the language version coverage, it would be useful for both Wikipedians and researchers to compare the *editing versus viewing* traffic so as to identify the gaps for development if the editing traffic report would be as comprehensive as that of viewing traffic. Currently, many language versions are reported with viewing traffic data only, not with editing traffic data. Hindi, Kurdish, Uyghur, Wuu, Cantonese, etc. are such examples: http://users.ox.ac.uk/~kebl3178/wikipedia_traffic_hi.html http://users.ox.ac.uk/~kebl3178/wikipedia_traffic_ku.html http://users.ox.ac.uk/~kebl3178/wikipedia_traffic_ug.html http://users.ox.ac.uk/~kebl3178/wikipedia_traffic_wuu.html http://users.ox.ac.uk/~kebl3178/wikipedia_traffic_zh-yue.html (I-C). Provide static data objects in more accessible format (i.e. csv and/or json). My life would be much easier if csv and/or json formats are provided. I believe that others would be easier too. For the current outcome, I had to scrape the data off the html page, which was a lot of work. (II).What should be done soon to provide more consistent and accessible traffic data reports? (II-A). Putting viewing traffic and editing traffic report on the same page. For viewers' convenience, table presentation and visualization should allow readers to compare editing traffic and viewing traffic *on the same page* so that viewers do not have to switch between pages (II-B). Organizing and archiving the traffic reports for historical comparison. In terms of traffic data report release (per language and per country one), it would be of great help for Wikipedians and researchers alike to organize past reports according to the coverage of the data points (i.e. annually or quarterly or even monthly) and make the historical pages accessible. (Currently I have to retrieve past data via Internet archive.) (I-C). Provide dynamic data objects in more accessible format (i.e. csv and/or json). It would be awesome to have some API developed to generate traffic data report in csv or json formats. Note that the infographics that I have prototyped can be tweaked in a way to load data for more interactive experience. (III).What should be discussed for the longer-term development to inform Wikipedia policies and strategies using/curating the traffic reports? (III-A). Shorter time aggregate units. I notice that there seems to be a shift from providing annual report ones to quarterly ones lately. It is a good direction for others can do the annual average themselves based on quarterly ones. >From researchers' point of view, I would prefer more frequent and shorter data release cycles (e.g. monthly if not weekly), and then do the statistics (average, etc.) myself so as to derive annual report. (III-B). Smaller (i.e more specific) geographic aggregate units. The country (geographic) information is often based on geo-IP databases, and sometimes provincial and city-level data would be available. It would be extremely useful if the aggregate units can be lowered one level down to the first administrative levels below countries. This will create important reports for the geographic distribution of editing/viewing traffic across different provinces in mainland China or India, or different states in the United States. (III-C). Relevant geolinguistic and geocultural database for country/language name/code disambiguation and queries. First, the country codes and language codes should be provided and maintained centrally in one place so as to help others to reuse the data with data consistency and integrity. Second, the country names and language names should be also provided and maintained (preferably from Wikidata) so as to help others to localize the traffic data report in all languages! I somehow believe that traffic reports in different languages will help various Wikimedia's outreach programs, including fund-raising. Effectively the country/language names/codes together will provide an important "translation memory" for identifying/converting/translating country and language names/codes. ( I know that the Unicode Common Locale Data Repository (CLDR Version 25<http://cldr.unicode.org/index/downloads/cldr-25> ) provides “language-territory” <http://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/latest/supplemental/language_territory_information.html> or “territory-language” <http://www.unicode.org/cldr/charts/latest/supplemental/territory_language_information.html>unit-based charts, but I believe that the Wikimedia projects can use and build one better..) The above suggestions are limited by my own experience and understanding of Wikipedia and content localization/language industry. It is of course biased towards my own interpretations of geolinguistic methods. There are of course other suggestions worthy of considerations and discussions regarding reporting viewing/editing traffic data. I would argue, however, that the geolinguistic comparisons inform a more geocultural (and possibly geopolitical) understanding that also matches how Wikipedia projects are currently divided and governed (language versions with some regional considerations). Best, han-teng liao 2014-05-17 14:50 GMT+08:00 Federico Leva (Nemo) <[email protected]>: > h, 17/05/2014 01:54: > > Thus, we might want to share what has been done >> > > +1, but: > > > and what could be done >> regarding the current traffic data provided by the Wikimedia Foundation >> while acknowledging the sensitivity of the traffic data release, >> > > what additional data would you need and why, given clarifications above? > Have you considered using revision data instead, correlated with the > publicly available squid reports which already tell you what's the share of > each country for each language? > > Nemo > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l >
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