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 > <https://web.archive.org/web/20171018194720/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/michael-jackson/> > almost > ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he gave > us. Erik retired <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> 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 <https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—with his signature > pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s > <https://web.archive.org/web/20060412043240/https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—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 > <https://web.archive.org/web/20110608214507/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/12/new-editors-are-joining-english-wikipedia-in-droves/> > 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 > <https://web.archive.org/web/20160405055621/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/09/sarah-palin/> > or public health crises > <https://web.archive.org/web/20090708011216/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/05/h1n1-flu-or-new-flu-or/>. > He has created countless > <https://twitter.com/Infodisiac/status/1039244151953543169> visualizations > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/27/new-interactive-visualization-wikipedia/> > 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 > <https://web.archive.org/web/20141222073751/http://infodisiac.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/piechartscorrected.png>, > 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 > <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=stats.wikimedia.org> > 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. > > Please join me in celebrating Erik on his well-deserved retirement, read > his statement <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> to learn > what he's planning to do next, or check this lovely portrait > <https://www.wired.com/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/> Wired published a > while back about "the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia's Massive Data > Trove". > > Dario > > > -- > *Dario Taraborelli *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation > research.wikimedia.org • nitens.org • @readermeter > <http://twitter.com/readermeter> > _______________________________________________ > Analytics mailing list > analyt...@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics -- ---- quelltextlich e.U. ---- \\ ---- Christian Aistleitner ---- Companies' registry: 360296y in Linz Christian Aistleitner Kefermarkterstrasze 6a/3 Email: christ...@quelltextlich.at 4293 Gutau, Austria Phone: +43 7946 / 20 5 81 Fax: +43 7946 / 20 5 81 Homepage: http://quelltextlich.at/ ---------------------------------------------------------------
signature.asc
Description: Digital signature
_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-requ...@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe>
