Wikipedia:Village pump (miscellaneous)
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Help Brazilian Wikipedia
Hey guys how are you doing? While getting involved with Brazilian Wikipedia community, I got access to some very interesting data. According to Wkimedia stats, whereas there are 22 English-speaker-editors per million, there are only 5 Portuguese-speaker-editors. That said, I was thinking of good strategies to improve editors' participation, to increase the number of editors and to convert more readers into editors (only 3% of Wikipedia Portuguese readers are also editors).
I know that Wikipedia in Enlish is a huge community and that you might face or have faced that very same problem. That said, I would very much appreciate if you could share some strategies/projects that have worked in English-speaking countries, in terms of tackling the aforementioned challenges.
I believe that cross-country collaboration among wikipedist has the potential of spreading good solutions! Phelps246 (talk) 06:10, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
- Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention is the English language project best associated with this problem. Perhaps you could contact some people who are active there. --Jayron32 06:14, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
- Dear Jayron, I was reading about it yesterday and it indeed seemeed to be an incredibly initiative. I will most definitely be in touch with people who have been actively participating there to understand what has worked or not. Do you know any other interesting projects: for instance, initiatives that bring Wikipedia community closer to schools and universities, promote Wikipedia and attract new editors through social network (Facebook is the most accessed site in Brazil) and, in general, convert readers into editors (in Brazil only 3% of readers also edit). I do appreciate your help :) Phelps246 (talk) 12:11, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
- One thing to note is that the en.wikipedia Editor Retention Project is mainly aimed at helping existing editors not to leave. It is not aimed at recruiting new editors, as such. The problem with the lack of Portugese-speaking editors is more how to recruit new editors, than how to retain existing ones. So it is a different problem.
- I don't have proper figures, but I would guess that many of the Portugese speakers in the world are in places like Brazil, where internet access is generally less widespread than in the English-speaking world. Awareness of Wikipedia might be less widespread too!
- So focusing on those issues may be more valuable than an editor retention initiative. I do know the UK Chapter has done some work on expanding awareness, but I'm sure other chapters will have too. It's worth having a look at all the different approaches, probably. (Perhaps someone could give links to places to look?)
- There are also initiatives for giving out devices capable of accessing (maybe editing?) Wikipedia. Maybe you could request some of these be sent to Portugese-speaking areas that might need them? Or an entire separate grant to support a Wikipedia awareness drive in Portugese-speaking areas? (Perhaps someone could give links to places to look regarding the cheap device plan?) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:16, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
- What? News flash: Brazilian Internet phenomenon (an IBOPE/NetRatings study that revealed that they overtook the U.S. in terms of time surfing on the internet and, as of 2004, were the people who spent the most time on the internet.) and Internet in Brazil (In 2011 Brazil ranked fifth in the world with nearly 89 million Internet users, 45% of the population.) --Atlasowa (talk) 12:26, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
- There are also initiatives for giving out devices capable of accessing (maybe editing?) Wikipedia. Maybe you could request some of these be sent to Portugese-speaking areas that might need them? Or an entire separate grant to support a Wikipedia awareness drive in Portugese-speaking areas? (Perhaps someone could give links to places to look regarding the cheap device plan?) --Demiurge1000 (talk) 22:16, 17 May 2013 (UTC)
- Hello Phelps, it's a really hard problem. Converting readers into editors is tricky, you get a lot of trash contributions. Better concentrate on the newbies that are coming despite the markup etc. Try to improve editors' participation by making people aware of "easy tasks" on WP, for example a translation project with mentoring. Or ask for photos of monuments in articles Special:Nearby? Some interesting things to read:
- Phelps, I have a question about portuguese WP in return: You have activated both Article Feedback Tool 4 (Rate this page/Avaliar esta página - O que é isto?) and pt:Wikipédia:Informe um erro (Report an error feature/Wikibugs/Wikipedia:Kvetch) for readers. Do you think that this could "cannibalize" new editors? Clicking on the article-rating-stars or just leaving a note "to Wikipedia", instead of editing/contributing? This may be easier for readers - but it's not creating new editors? Do you make statistics on those features? Best of luck for your project! --Atlasowa (talk) 21:14, 18 May 2013 (UTC)
- Hello Atlasowa! I'm from pt.wiki and I'd like to answer your questions. First, thank you for the links you provided. It's a very interesting reading. I think both pages "Informe um erro" is not engaging people to be bold and fix for themselves. It's curious we ask readers to make an edit to inform us but about an error but don't to ask them to fix it. "Avalie esta página" is a feature that we don't use to anything. We have a discuss some time ago to remove it but it looks like a new feature is comming so we are waiting to change it. Brazilian Catalyst Program hired a data analyst to research some features of pt.wiki with community and I expect to help with this statistics in a near future. OTAVIO1981 (talk) 16:58, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
- Hello Otavio, thank you for your answer!
- Regarding pt:Wikipédia:Informe um erro: I would love to see an evaluation/statistics of this feature. It's activated for all pt.wiki articles, right? How many "Informe um erro" posts do you get, per day? How many are useless vandalism, how many useful and answered/copied to talk pages? How many Wikipedians answer/moderate "Informe um erro"? Do you use bots for archiving posts etc.? How many users consider this feature useful? (RfC, poll?) Maybe another WP has made an evaluation of this feature, or you can collaborate for this with other Wikis ("report an issue"/WikiBugs/Kvetch is used on polish, spanish, russian WP)? Spanish WP discussion, Russian WP reports: "I was for a long time active in Russian Wikipedia, and there the feedback tool page exists for I believe two years, ru:Википедия:Сообщения об ошибках. (Before Russian Wikipedia, it was introduced in Polish Wikipedia, but there I had no experience with it.). The link to the feedback form is found in the Toolbox field. It is a long-standing pain-in-the-ass page, since it creates a considerable backlog and requires a constant attention of several dozens of dedicated editors. I do not have any quantitative statistics, but my impression is that all comments are at least meaningful (possibly the meaningless ones are blocked by a filter, I am not sure) in the sense it is clear what the user actually wants. About 50% (in my estimate) are about typos which are easy to fix; about 10% are bogus (when the user misread smth or wants to add smth which clearly does not belong to the article or is plain wrong) and do not require any reaction, but the remaining 40% or so is addition of some unsourced information which looks credible but may be not credible (especially what concerns the BLP, the press-secretaries usually go the feedback form for whatever reason). The users who leave messages never come back and it does not make any sense to ask them questions. In many cases the dedicated users who work on the page can not handle the feedback, and then eventually it gets archived and goes to the talk page (and dies there). (...) From my experience, it never worked. We even had a number of "regulars" who were willing to point out some inconsistencies in the articles on a regular basis but unwilling to correct them themselves (or actually to edit articles at all). It might be good to find someone who had an experience in Polish and/or Portuguese Wikipedia working on the feedback pages, it might be different doe to the differences in the interface.--Ymblanter (talk) 15:17, 28 October 2011 (UTC)"
- Regarding Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool version 4 (Rate this page/Avaliar esta página): You can find excellent analysis on AFT4 at: User:Protonk/Article_Feedback. See also his wikimania 2012 presentation on AFT4 with video (30 min) and slides (File:Measuring_Quality_Content_Wikimania_2012.pdf). Since Protonk has already done this analysis once for en.wiki, maybe he can do the same with AFT4-data from pt.wiki - and then we can have an interesting comparison. My opinion about AFT4: it doesn't produce useful ratings or data. Readers often don't rate the quality of an WP article but rather their like/dislike of the subject, and readers give the same ratings for all (Well Sourced, Neutral, Complete, Readable), and most readers give the maximum 5 stars anyway, and the ratings don't improve when the article improves. So this is rather a waste of time - and it would be really bad, if readers put a lot of thought into rating the article instead of editing the article or proposing improvements on the talk page...
- Regarding the "new feature", Wikipedia:Article Feedback Tool/Version 5 or AFT5, is pretty much a mix of the Article Feedback Tool version 4 design/JS and Report an error feature/Wikibugs. Just 1 question with a yes/no, "Did you find what you were looking for?” and a comments box. Compared to "Report an error" it is much more visible (big box at the end of the article) and the question is far broader (with comments like "needs a picture" or "give more info!"). The problems are similar (to the russian report an error), it needs many wikipedians to work on the reader feedback, high noise-ratio of useless comments, and it may divert readers from becoming editors ("Share your feedback with the editors"). The good thing is, AFT5 delivers call-to-action: to create an account, to edit the article. The bad thing is, this doesn't work too well, only 0.2% conversion to a unreverted edit from those who initiated the feedback process by clicking yes/no [1]. The final release version of Article Feedback v5 is now activated on the English, French and German Wikipedias, with limited scope/testing. --Atlasowa (talk) 12:26, 25 May 2013 (UTC)
- Hello Otavio, thank you for your answer!
- Hello Atlasowa! I'm from pt.wiki and I'd like to answer your questions. First, thank you for the links you provided. It's a very interesting reading. I think both pages "Informe um erro" is not engaging people to be bold and fix for themselves. It's curious we ask readers to make an edit to inform us but about an error but don't to ask them to fix it. "Avalie esta página" is a feature that we don't use to anything. We have a discuss some time ago to remove it but it looks like a new feature is comming so we are waiting to change it. Brazilian Catalyst Program hired a data analyst to research some features of pt.wiki with community and I expect to help with this statistics in a near future. OTAVIO1981 (talk) 16:58, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
Help required re a disambiguation page
I was editing an article on the Edinburgh International Festival and created a link to the Renaissance poet Sir David Lyndsay. I then noticed that the link was bringing up the David Lyndsay disambiguation page. I then moved the David Lyndsay page I was interested in targeting to David Lyndsay (poet) (to differentiate it) and amended existing redirects. I then discovered that entering 'David Lyndsay' in the Wikipedia general search box was skipping the disambiguation page entirely and leading directly to the David Lyndsay, the poet. This is hardly satisfactory for those seeking other David Lyndsays. I've tried some reverts but they're not working; so I conclude I am doing something wrong, hence clueless. Can anyone advise me on how to resolve this issue? Kim Traynor | Talk 14:35, 23 May 2013 (UTC)
- @Kim Traynor: = You could change David Lyndsay to redirect to David Lindsay, but since there are no other David Lyndsays on the disambiguation page, is that necessary? GoingBatty (talk) 00:11, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for that suggestion, but it seems from the Preview that if I do that I still end up on the David Lyndsay (poet) page. Kim Traynor | Talk 00:47, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
- Since there is only one David L-Y-ndsay, and all the others are David L-I-ndsays, then why should someone searching for David L-Y-ndsay even want to see all of those David L-I-ndsay pages? It seems to me that this is doing what it ought to do. In fact, the page shouldn't be pre-disambiguated at David Lyndsay (poet); it probably ought to just be at plain David Lyndsay (unless and until a second David L-Y-ndsay turns up). WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:55, 27 May 2013 (UTC)
- Thanks for that suggestion, but it seems from the Preview that if I do that I still end up on the David Lyndsay (poet) page. Kim Traynor | Talk 00:47, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Organizing edit-a-thon in Belgium in June, who helps?
On Saturday 29 June there are European edit-a-thon planned in several countries with the subject World War I. This World War had Belgium as chess board so it would be great and a good idea to organize a an edit-a-thon in Belgium.
What is an edit-a-thon?
An edit-a-thon is a (small) event where people come together and work on articles on a particular topic. Often such edit-a-thon is organized for people relatively new to Wikipedia and held at an organization.
What are the needed ingredients?
- At least two users from Wikipedia being there (I am prepared to)
- A short explanation/presentation about Wikipedia (encyclopaedia), the neutral point of view, fee license, no original research, mentioning sources. (is available)
- Cheatsheets <Help:Cheatsheet> (can be printed or ordered with a chapter)
- A list of subjects which are missing in a certain language
- Organization with knowledge/library (preferable) or other location, must have internet connection
- Organization can also publish a press release to attract interested people and people from that organization
Conclusion: the only work is in finding an organization.
What are possible organizations?
- Brussels: Royal Museum of the Armed Forces and Military History < http://www.klm-mra.be/ > in Parc du Cinquantenaire, Brussels
- Overview of museums: http://www.euro-t-guide.com/See_Type/WWI_1.htm
I am not aware of other museums/etc, anyone? Another possibility is a university with a history faculty. Which universities have such?
Questions
- Who want to contact organizations in Belgium to ask if they are prepared to participate? (We have a Wikimedia e-mail address if you like: wmbe
wikimedia.org.)
- Who wants to help out on the day itself to help users edit Wikipedia?
- (You only need to know how to edit Wikipedia and know what a neutral point of view is.)
- Who is willing to help with the rest of the organizing of this edit-a-thon in Belgium? (like creating a list of missing articles about World War I, etc)
For this purpose I have created the page: meta:World War I edit-a-thons/Belgium
Be welcome!
Romaine (talk) 16:20, 24 May 2013 (UTC)
Article on criticism of the modern evolutionary synthesis?
Is there an article on criticism of the modern evolutionary synthesis? — goethean 15:58, 26 May 2013 (UTC)
Hello
Hello, note that Abdoulaye Sekou Sow has died. Thank you. Scymso (talk) 14:44, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
- Added to his article, thanks. Chris857 (talk) 16:41, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
- I made some further updates to the article. Please note that every article has a talk page where you can suggest updates for the article, such as Talk:Abdoulaye Sékou Sow. GoingBatty (talk) 23:12, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
articles and categories
Which is the article containing the highest numbers of categories? --Marce79 (talk) 15:30, 28 May 2013 (UTC)
Star and heart logos
At the top of my page there is a star logo and a heart logo. I finally figured out what they are for, but what about newcomers? Why can't we use words instead? Unfamiliar logs are not friendly at all. Same for the mosh of abbreviations. I mean, what does TW, CSD, XFD, etc., mean to the average person? Please comment. GeorgeLouis (talk) 13:35, 30 May 2013 (UTC)
Why are so many SVGs written in Segoe UI?
Hi.
Just to ask a question, but why are the text in a lot of SVG images written in Segoe UI font?
Worst regards, Greek Fellows". Visit ma talk page and ma contributions. 13:37, 30 May 2013 (UTC)