I'm joining in disappointment too. Extreme coupling to an young platform like wikidata created a lot of trouble for making anything with the project, and kill all momentum and made it look bad.
I feel like this kind of micro-contributions are the only effective way we are going to be able to engage mobile users in improving wikipedia, and the micro contributions itself as infrastructure could've been something really empowering. We should've designed and tested lots of different micro-contributions experiments and mechanisms and measured results, without worrying about where the underlying data will end up (maybe wikipedia, maybe wikidata, maybe other projects). With how the project was managed we only have data for a Question - Yes/No/MultipleAnswer type of micro-contribution, which shouldn't be enough to judge the whole underlying idea. Now there's a lot of skepticism towards the idea in any of its forms :( I would love to see a *lessons learned* (not just from the data but from the struggles of the project), we should get the most of it while it is still fresh on our memories. On Tue, Jun 2, 2015 at 4:13 AM, Oliver Keyes <[email protected]> wrote: > Totally; as I think my email made clear, I was aware that the limiting > factor here was the sheer cost of building out the infrastructure. The > core question, though, was what the project would be replaced with - > what those "highest return-on-investment" projects were. > > On 1 June 2015 at 20:45, Jon Katz <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi Oliver, > > Thanks for sharing your disappointment. I do not think you are alone in > > wanting to see wikigrok continue and grow. I would clarify that the > > 'success rates' you allude to were for reader engagement and accuracy, > not > > in actually improving our projects by filling in important gaps in > wikidata. > > A great deal of work would be required to build out in order for this > > project to have a scalable impact on wikidata. > > > > I am not saying that casual contributions are going away, simply that we > are > > going to recognize our resource limitations and evaluate opportunities > for > > them based on highest return-on-investment. We currently have 5 > developers > > working on readership for the entire web (due to some temporary leaves) > and > > there might be smaller wins using casual contributions that work towards > our > > end goal, but don't require the heavy upfront investment. This doesn't > mean > > we don't take on big thorny problems, just that we take a step back and > see > > if there are ways to subdivide them into smaller projects along the way. > > > > Best, > > > > Jon > > > > [1] > > > https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Requests_for_permissions/Bot/WikiGrok > > > > On Mon, Jun 1, 2015 at 12:05 PM, Oliver Keyes <[email protected]> > wrote: > >> > >> I'm personally incredibly disappointed; this was the most successful > >> intervention I'd seen anyone try in a long while, if ever, and the > >> results blow me away. My question would be "what interventions with > >> similarly high success rates are going to be worked on instead?" - I > >> assume that we're not working on them because we can achieve the same > >> outcome through easier-to-implement interventions. I would be > >> interested to hear what those interventions are. > >> > >> On 1 June 2015 at 14:57, Jon Katz <[email protected]> wrote: > >> > Hi, > >> > > >> > TLDR: Wikigrok proved that readers are interested in and capable of > >> > making > >> > casual, mobile contributions to Wikipedia. We are putting continued > >> > development of the 'Wikigrok' casual contribution feature on hold > until > >> > we > >> > have a plan for optimally harnessing this interest/capability. > >> > > >> > Background > >> > Given the growth of mobile traffic on wikipedia and the challenges > >> > inherent > >> > to traditional editing on a mobile device, Wikigrok was proposed as a > >> > way to > >> > test if regular wikipedia readers would be interested in making > smaller, > >> > more casual contributions to wikimedia projects while reading > Wikipedia > >> > on a > >> > mobile device. > >> > > >> > Results > >> > By early 2015, the results were in: readers were relatively interested > >> > in > >> > engaging with the feature[1]. Some oft-quoted comparisons include: > >> > > >> > 3x the number of unique responders as mobile editors during test > period > >> > (4.5K editors, 12.3K WikiGrokkers), even with WG on sample of > articles & > >> > users > >> > 1.5x better clickthrough than 2014 Fundraising full-screen mobile > banner > >> > > >> > (I actually do not have references for these, as they are borrowed > >> > quotes) > >> > Furthermore, we found that the quality of responses was rather high > >> > [2,3]. > >> > > >> > Future > >> > The original thought was to use these responses to fill in gaps in > >> > Wikidata > >> > and our initial test results (2 weeks worth) were successfully ported > >> > over > >> > in late April [4]. However, in order to production-ize the system, we > >> > would > >> > have to: > >> > > >> > scale and develop queries against the new wikidata query service > >> > create an article parser to identify potential multiple choice answers > >> > for > >> > each question > >> > create a system for attributing aggregated results to the specific > >> > contributors (per Wikidata bot request discussion[5]) > >> > > >> > None of these are unsurpassable, but we have learned a great deal and, > >> > at > >> > this stage, we believe that further effort should be devoted to > >> > evaluating > >> > areas of need and fit before we commit additional efforts to > >> > specifically > >> > porting information into Wikidata. > >> > > >> > Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or concerns > >> > about > >> > this decision. > >> > Best, > >> > > >> > Jon > >> > > >> > [1] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:WikiGrok/Test2 > >> > [2] Quality of responses, version A: > >> > > >> > > https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/File:All_Campagins,_Scatterplot,_version_(a).pdf > >> > [3] Quality of responses, version B: > >> > > >> > > https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/File:All_Campaigns,_Scatterplot,_version_(b).pdf > >> > [4] > >> > > https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/WikiGrok?limit=500 > >> > [5] > >> > > >> > > https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:Requests_for_permissions/Bot/WikiGrok > >> > > >> > > >> > _______________________________________________ > >> > Mobile-l mailing list > >> > [email protected] > >> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l > >> > > >> > >> > >> > >> -- > >> Oliver Keyes > >> Research Analyst > >> Wikimedia Foundation > > > > > > > > -- > Oliver Keyes > Research Analyst > Wikimedia Foundation > > _______________________________________________ > reading-wmf mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/reading-wmf > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
