Well as I see it, the state of any language version is a combination of the state of its content and community. Going back to the zero-state, in order to have permission to start a language version, there must be a "list of 10,000 important topics" that has to be registered somewhere (sorry, no idea where). This list for the English wikipedia includes an entry for the singer Michael Jackson, one of the many articles that gets lots and lots of page hits daily. Perhaps this is the case for all other languages in the world (I have no idea), but I would assume one measurement going forward from the zero-state would be the number of changes over time involving this list in the specific language, such as 1) The list itself (do these topics ever change?) 2) The average number of edits and page views of those pages in the specific language 3) The average number of blue links per page on those pages in the specific language 4) The average number of editors *ever* contributing per page on those pages in the specific language 5) The average number of active editors contributing per page on those pages in the specific language ...
Other important measurements could be the number of active editors over all, the number of edits appearing in the recent changes list per day/month/year, the number of pages created or deleted per day/month/year... On Tue, Jul 8, 2014 at 9:27 AM, Han-Teng Liao (OII) < [email protected]> wrote: > Dear all, > > Your suggestions are needed on the ways in which one can construct > some sensible baselines, most likely based on data sets *external* to > Wikipedia projects, of *expected* Wikipedia language versions development. > > Such baselines should ideally indicate, given the availability of > language users and content (some numbers based on external data sets), a > certain language version should have expected number of articles/active > users. > > As previous research has suggested that Wikipedia activities need > mutually-reinforcing cycles of participation, content, and readership, it > is expected that the development of a Wikipedia language version is > conditioned by the availability of (digitally) literate users and (possibly > digitized) content/sources. > > So the assumption is: > > Wikipedia Activities = Some function of (available users and content) > > For example, the major non-English writing languages in the world > such as Arabic, Chinese, Spanish, etc., may have different numbers of > Internet users and digital content. These numbers indicate the basis on > which a Wikipedia language version can develop. > > One practical use of this baseline measurement is to better > categorize/curate activities across Wikipedia language versions. We can > then better come up with expected values of Wikipedia development, and thus > categorize language versions accordingly based on the *external conditions* > of available/potential users and content. > > Another use of this baseline measurement is to better compare the > development of different language versions. It should help answer questions > such as (1) whether Korean language version is *underdeveloped* on > Wikipedia platforms when compared with a language version that enjoys > similar number of available/potential users and content. > > The current similar external baseline data is probably the number of > language speakers. My hunch is that it is not good enough in taking into > accounts the available/potential users and content, especially the > digitally-ready one. > > So I welcome you to add to the following list, any external > indicators (and possibly data sources) that may help to construct such base > line. > > ==Indicators== > * Internet users for each language (probably approximate measurement > based on CLDR Territory-Language information and ITU internet penetration > rates. > > * Number of books published annually in different languages (suggested > data sources? Does ISBN have a database or stat report on published > languages?) > > * Number of web pages returned by major search engines on the queries of > "Wikipedia" in different languages, excluding results from Wikimedia > projects. > > * Number of scholarly publications across languages (suggested data > sources?) > > * Number of major newspaper publications across languages (suggested data > sources?) > > > Please share your thoughts! > > -- > han-teng liao > > "[O]nce the Imperial Institute of France and the Royal Society of London > begin to work together on a new encyclopaedia, it will take less than a > year to achieve a lasting peace between France and England." - Henri > Saint-Simon (1810) > > "A common ideology based on this Permanent World Encyclopaedia is a > possible means, to some it seems the only means, of dissolving human > conflict into unity." - H.G. Wells (1937) > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > >
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