>________________________________ > De: Han-Teng Liao (OII) <han-teng.l...@oii.ox.ac.uk> >Para: Research into Wikimedia content and communities ><wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org> >Enviado: Martes 8 de julio de 2014 9:27 >Asunto: [Wiki-research-l] Constructing sensible baselines for Wikipedia >language development analytics > > > >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.
Hello all, It looks like some of these are questions addressed by an ongoing research line conducted by Kevin Crowston, Nicolas Jullien and me: Sustainability of Open Collaborative Communities: Analyzing Recruitment Efficiency http://timreview.ca/article/646 Abstract: Extensive research has been conducted over the past years to improve our understanding of sustainability conditions for large-scale collaborative projects, especially from an economic and governance perspective. However, the influence of recruitment and retention of participants in these projects has received comparatively less attention from researchers. Nevertheless, these concerns are significant for practitioners, especially regarding the apparently decreasing ability of the main open online projects to attract and retain new contributors. A possible explanation for this decrease is that those projects have simply reached a mature state of development. Marwell and Oliver (1993) and Oliver, Marwell, and Teixeira (1985) note that, at the initial stage in collective projects, participants are few and efforts are costly; in the diffusion phase, the number of participants grows, as their efforts are rewarding; and in the mature phase, some inefficiency may appear as the number of contributors is greater than required for the work. In this article, we examine this possibility. We use original data from 36 Wikipedias in different languages to compare their efficiency in recruiting participants. We chose Wikipedia because the different language projects are at different states of development, but are quite comparable on the other aspects, providing a test of the impact of development on efficiency. Results confirm that most of the largest Wikipedias seem to be characterized by a reduced return to scale. As a result, we can draw interesting conclusions that can be useful for practitioners, facilitators, and managers of collaborative projects in order to identify key factors potentially influencing the adequate development of their communities over the medium-to-long term. As for external data sources, we integrate in the analysis information from UNESCO and OECD, among others. Best regards, Felipe. > > > 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 >Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org >https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > > > _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
