Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2014-08-20/Op-ed
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Hi Dennis, good article and interesting topic.
- A small note: Maybe you should flip around File:A_new_metric_for_Wikimedia_-_3.png, because the next graph changes left-right direction. Maybe easier to understand.
- As to your question, "But are these really the primary metrics we should keep an eye on? Is Editor engagement the ultimate goal? I agree that these are very interesting metrics. I am not sure if they answer the question whether we are achieving our mission. But how could an alternative look like?" I think the metrics we don't have and we should keep an eye on are:
- (A) article quality metrics that scale (are the articles reliable, readable, sourced, grammatically correct, updated, vandalised etc.) We have pretty much nothing. and
- (B) maintenance metrics: Which article types need more maintenance or less maintenance than others (Animal species? Biographies of Living People? Bio of dead people? Company articles? Sports Tournaments? Rivers/Mountains and other geographic features?) How can a stagnating editor base keep up a growing article mass? Which tools allow us to do more effective maintenance and push the boundaries?
- I think these are far more important and pressing questions for us than "how many percent of the infinite 'all knowledge' do we cover?" (see User:Emijrp/All human knowledge). And, as you correctly pointed out: "The energy and interest of volunteers cannot be allocated arbitrarily." / "But the question that the movement as a whole faces is how to prioritize the allocation of resources that the movement can actually allocate?" --Atlasowa (talk) 11:42, 19 August 2014 (UTC)