Wikipedia talk:Statistics: Difference between revisions

Believe it or not

Special:Statistics has historically had about 1 in every somewhat less than 1000 logged-in users administrators. Now, however, it is 1 in more than 1000. I think we should add a new figure, which is the number of logged-in users who are not indefinitely blocked. Any thoughts?? Georgia guy 16:32, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

See ya', cnn.com! Next stop, Gatesburg....

So, how are the squids doing? --James S. 17:48, 21 January 2006 (UTC)

Page organization

Somebody promoted the "Manually updated statistics" above the "Periodically updated statistics", then moved "Search engine statistics" from one category to the other. First of all, if you know what these pages are and note the descriptions given, the recategorization was simply wrong, because the groups are of different types. As to placement on the page, while recognizing that people like to follow Alexa stuff, I think the breadth and depth of Wikipedia statistics in the other section deserves the higher placement. There are lots of places you can get data comparing Wikipedia against the rest of the internet, and the statistics here are just occasional glimpses at things that other sites do better. On the other hand, this is the best place to go for in-depth statistics specifically about Wikipedia (Erik Zachte's in particular) and I think that's what we should be featuring. --Michael Snow 18:15, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Care to offer any examples of "places you can get data comparing Wikipedia against the rest of the internet"? I'm inclined to doubt that any good ones exist. At the moment all but one of the stats in the top section are at least 8 weeks old, which looks pretty useless in my opinion. 62.31.55.223 17:49, 9 February 2006 (UTC)

Alexa to start with; getting data from the horse's mouth seems preferable to me as opposed to looking at a secondhand compilation. Beyond that, data get released to the media periodically by companies like comScore, Hitwise, and Nielsen//NetRatings (or whatever they're called now). Whereas for detailed numbers about Wikipedia itself, there aren't really outside sources, and a compilation like Erik Zachte's is as good as you'll find anywhere from anybody. Also, seeing as how you undid my change, you still don't seem to have understood why "Search engine statistics" doesn't fit in the category you moved it to. --Michael Snow 03:26, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

The pages here are vastly better than raw Alexa info as they contain a great deal of well organised information covering a long period of time. The pages contain scores of links to Alexa comparison graphs which are not immediately available direct from Alexa (and how would you know what to compare?). Really your comments are a hurtful insult to all of the effort that has been expended. Your other examples are feeble as you admit the information is merely "released periodically". Those sources are also almost entirely U.S. centric, and therefore grossly misleading to the point of being worse than useless as sources about Wikipedia on a worldwide basis. 62.31.55.223 00:18, 12 February 2006 (UTC)

Really now, I don't see why it's such a hurtful insult to suggest that we should prioritize statistics generated by Wikipedians about Wikipedia over collections of statistics copied from outside sources and still available from those same sources. I would think it was much more insulting to describe all the work people have done to produce internal statistics as "pretty useless" simply because the updates depend on having a new database dump available to run their scripts on. --Michael Snow 00:35, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

There is nothing insulting in Michael's remarks. His arguments are certainly valid and his opinion worthwhile considering. Nevertheless I would also prefer the version with the frequently updated statistics on top and the less frequently further down. --Donar Reiskoffer 09:16, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

The "second-hand" compilation offers far more than the Alexa site becuase it is updated most days with information that is only briefly available on Alexa and is organised especially for people who are interested in Wikipedia. It is hard to believe you have even looked at it and your remarks continue to be unrepentantly hurtful and insulting. Why is information produced by Wikipedians by processing internally generated data so superior to information produced by Wikipedians from reputable external data? You position makes no sense to me at all. And the data you value so much hasn't been updated since this discussion started. 62.31.55.223

Question that someone should be able to answer

Why is the number of edits that the Special:Statistics page keeps track of larger than the numbers of the edits kept track of in the page histories?? Georgia guy 20:14, 24 February 2006 (UTC)

Because it counts deleted edits and various adminsitrative actions as "edits" - it is a non-decreasing function of time. – ABCD^e✉ 06:40, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Very Bad News

Now the number of registered users is ahead of the number of articles. Georgia guy 22:16, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Why do you feel this is bad news? I'd take it as neutral at worst; I doubt we would want one billion articles if there were one billion registered users. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 04:42, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

Yeah. Turn it around the other way - in theory (sockpuppets excepted), on average one person in 6000 on the entire planet is a Wikipedian. Surely that's something to celebrate? Grutness...wha? 22:31, 28 February 2006 (UTC)

I don't think it is a "very bad news". There are over seven million registered user accounts and this number will keep on increasing. Masterpiece2000 (talk) 04:25, 13 June 2008 (UTC)

The Big 1,000,000

As of 21:56, 1 March 2006 (UTC), we are at 999,720. Looks like it'll be either today or tomorrow! --TKE

Stub statistics

I couldn't find many statistics related to the number of stubs on Wikipedia, so I tallied a few myself. See User:Dantheox/Stub percentages. Includes a chart of article count over time with overall stub count superimposed. Also includes a chart of the percentage of articles that are stubs over time. Enjoy, --Dantheox 06:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

There is a huge page that provides manually maintained statistics on stub types — Wikipedia:WikiProject Stub sorting/Stub types. Granted, there are not aggregate statistics on this page. Also, there are varying definitions of "stub", a major split being between a "structural" definition based on page length (which is implementable via personal preferences) and a "functional" definition based on being labeled a stub; both the the page I mention here and that mentioned above by Dantheox are based on a "functional" definition. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:45, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

p.s. It would be useful if we had a method for automatically generating statistics that could be used in this page; the counts are binned so as to give a coarse and comparable view of stub counts, to make data collection easier for humans and to provide less distraction to persons viewing the page (less distraction to see several instances of "<200" than "198", "175", and "188"). Automated methods could provide a binned number and an exact number with several potential options for viewing (binned number presented with mouseover for exact; separate pages for binned and exact numbers; preferences level selection of view based on some javascript; etc.) User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 11:51, 1 March 2006 (UTC)

Than can be done...Contact me on my user page. User:Gnome (Bot) is more than capable of doing this. The code will only take 2 or 3 hours to write, as soon as I know what cretiria to use.(As in how and where to put the number)!!!Eagle (talk) (desk) 20:59, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

sounds like an interesting idea. BTW, just to expand slightly on what Ceyockey said, it's not so much that the binned numbers are less distracting - there are two reasons for them: logistical and functional:

• logistical - since the counts are done by hand, exact numbers would become outdated very rapidly whereas bins will probably be accurate for much longer;
• functional - the main reason for these counts is to give WP:WSS an idea of which categories are too big (and needing splitting) or too small (and needing deletion/merging). All that's really needed for that are bins to give a rough idea of size - exact figures aren't needed for that task. That's also the reason why the bins go from actual stub numbers to bolded category page numbers above 800 stubs - it makes it far easier to spot the really big categories.

For those reasons, I'd actually argue that exact figures aren't useful on that page, and would actually distract slightly from what's being done. it would be good to be able to automatically update the bin sizes with a bot, but to bins, not to exact figures. Mind you, a note at the top of the page saying exactly how many articles are marked as stubs in total (similar to the article count on the main page) would be useful! Grutness...wha? 23:00, 6 March 2006 (UTC)

The program already uses bins

The bins are different sizes, but it is only a matter of changing a couple if then statements. I agree with the bins, also the tolal count sounds great to me. Will you support a trial run of the bot on WT:BOTEagle (talk) (desk) 01:59, 7 March 2006 (UTC) PS-unless a bot flag is not needed...the policy really confuses me. My program would make only one edit per time I run it. (every week, what ever)

Thanks for the support!!!!Eagle (talk) (desk) 02:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

potential Problems

I really can't do this unless I get consensous to change the formatting of the project page.(something consistant that I can regex for)

The actual articles are not the problem, Its keeping the data togather.

1. first there is the category link itself, this is no problem as they automatically have a definate beginning and end point, that code can find with no problem.

1. next there is the description of the category...right now there is no definate begginning and end point to these. (there may be more than one sentence) unless the description is the only thing in ()'s I find it very hard to keep these with the category. Are these even nessacary to the project???, I will waste time coding to find these, but if I don't I will like this project even more!!! (another page can hold the descriptions, or we can make sure that there is a specific start symobol say ( and a specific end symbol say ). These MUST' occur only once per countable category.

I'm all ears to your suggestions?? I may be overlooking something simple. If I am feel free to tell me I'm an idiot:-)Eagle (talk) (desk) 02:12, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

1. lastly there is the number of articles (bin). This is absolutly no problem, as I will write over this each time.

All the above is from Eagle (talk) (desk) 02:08, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Question

I have code that will automaticlly get the categoryes and count them, right now. The problem is getting all the other stuff on the page.

Please help me give suggestions, but remember that each section must end with a unique symbol, such as $%^&*()+[]{}, ect. else the code can't find all of the pieces, As a result it will ruin the page, and we will have to revert. (That will be a waste of my time, so lets get this right the first time!!!

Here is a proposed page syntax, there can be more than one *, if the indent needs to go further.

• [[:Category:<name> stubs]] {{<Link to stub template>}} (<Comment on what the stub category is for, ect. This is the description I am having problems with>) <Binned article count>

No special symbols are needed for the article count, as this is added by my code, (I don't have to find this on the page)

When the article count exeeds 800, it will change to <Binned article count>. NOTE right now, the program uses all numbers.

Bin values are: 5, 10, 25, 50, 100, 200, 300, 400, 500, 600, 700, 800, 1000, 1200, 1400, 1600, 1800, 2000, 2200, 2400, 2600, 2800, 3000, "CATEGORY IS WAY TO BIG".

Suggestions on these are welcome, but if you want me to count by number of pages, please give me a VERY good argument for that instead of the numbers. Remember if it is too large the number will be in bold. (also I can do this if it is too small)

Personally I prefer the numbers, and as I am the one who is doing the programming, I will go with my preference unless a strong reason is given otherwise.

• I Will keep a database on my computer to keep trak of trends, useing the real numbers. (That way if a category is just not getting poupulated, or there is a specific question I will be able to answear it. (The database will be public on a page somewhere, but that is for another day.

All the above is my edits. People, please give imput, I really need it to feel confident about what I am doingEagle (talk) (desk) 03:23, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Couldn't you just ignore the stuff other than the category name and number of articles? For now, the number of articles is always (atleast in theory): one of three forms

• <\d+
• '''\d+\s*pages'''
• ''new''

You could just match and replace those, and leave the rest as is...Mairi 04:06, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Problem is, what happens when the theory is not reality?? Result, messed up page.Eagle (talk) (desk) 18:35, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm a little confused by this - the only stuff on each line of the page is the category, the template, one of four codes if there are associated wikiprojects, redirects or child categories (always one letter followed by "*", and the count. What is this "Comment on what the stub category is for" business? (oh, and no problem with using article numbers rather thanpage numbers, as long as the larger ones are bolded). Grutness...wha? 11:52, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

The category [[]] The template {{}}, Ok I'll have to add template to the code. (that will be more work).Eagle (talk) (desk) 18:36, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

Also, forget the commments, I was looking at the wrong page!!!Oops.

The Program works

Only one problem, My regex statements are not correct yet for one of the values. but other than that everything works. Will begin the automated counts on saterday, unless someone objects(the bot will do only one edit)Eagle (talk) (desk) 21:18, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

I'm a bit concerned about the resource-efficiency of this; isn't this going to require many thousands of page-loads if you're doing this via the wiki, on the live database? Note that Conscious is also working on this (see his recent update), via a script from off-line stats; it'd be good to co-ordinate the effort on this, at least. I'm also somewhat reluctant to impose too great a burden on people updating the page to ensure it's "machine-readable", which isn't its primary purpose. Alai 04:40, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Its already fixed up. The regex statements are quite broad, I had to do a little formatting, but it was very minor. The bot can read everything on the page.

Though I will say one thing, the bot was designed to relive some of the burden on the project.(sure I will have to make sure that the bot can read new entries, but I will do that now) In addition now manual counting is a thing of the past.Eagle (talk) (desk) 05:07, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Noted with the thing on the database.(I am limiting the bot to loading a page every 25 seconds.) Plus i will now only run the bot on saterday, times of little server load.(the bot will make only one edit, that is at the end)

It's no harm to put the page in a consistent format, no problems there. But the trouble is, it has to be updated manually when types are added, renamed, moved around the hierarchy, etc; if we end up telling people "keep it in exactly this format, otherwise the bot won't like it!", they'll get annoyed, be less likely to update it at all, etc. Mind you, if you can automate that part too... Alai 05:16, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Alai, please realize that I have spent over 8 hours now programming this thing. Let me get it working correctly first. Yes I can make the page format be an automated proccess, but one thing at a time,please. Eagle (talk) (desk) 05:24, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

Automatic growth analysis

Since the analysis of wikipedia growth page tends to get outdated easily, I have mad a ruby/gnuplot script that automatically makes a graph of the growth and fits a few models to it. However: This needs a file of article creation dates to run, and I don't have a regular supply of those. Perhaps somone here who can easily create such dumps would be interested in making such dumps and analysing them with the script on a regular basis? The whole process should be easily automated. The script and an example of what it produces can be found at the bottom of my user page. Amaurea 09:37, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Foreign languages

I am finding it hard to get from here to a page which shows the sizes of wikipedia in all its languages, rather than just English. Can someone put in a link please? --MacRusgail 18:36, 29 March 2006 (UTC)

• See the first two links under "Periodically updated statistics". 62.31.55.223 13:15, 17 April 2006 (UTC)

Broken link on special page

Okay, I don't know where the community pages are to discuss things like this so... on the special statistics page special statistics page the first link ("Detailed tables and charts of Wikipedia statistics") is either broken or just not working now. If there is a better place I could have put this please reply on my talk page. TXAggie 03:22, 10 April 2006 (UTC)

Realtime statistics

The "Realtime statistics showing daily, monthly, and yearly global traffic across all Wikimedia projects" haven't worked for me the last several times I have tried to look at them. Are they working for other people? CalJW 04:41, 15 April 2006 (UTC)

If you are talking about the graphs at noc.wikimedia.org, I don't think these are available anymore, as far as I know. However, I recently came across a link to very similar statistics at Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Falling off the edge of a cliff in Alexa. See http://tools.wikimedia.de/~leon/stats/reqstats/ I will try to update the project page accordingly.--GregRM 02:57, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

Google Trends

Look at the folloking graph:

http://www.google.com/trends?q=%22Wikipedia%22&ctab=0&date=all&geo=all

Far too good information not to use... But where and how?

preceding added by 132.231.54.1

• Two places might be considered: Wikipedia:Awareness statistics and/or Wikipedia:Search engine statistics. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:29, 12 May 2006 (UTC)
• By the way ... 'one million articles' is mentioned twice two years apart on the plot (points A and E) - could someone explain that? Thanks. User:Ceyockey (talk to me) 00:32, 12 May 2006 (UTC)

Total and English? LossIsNotMore 23:55, 5 August 2006 (UTC)

word count

I have long given up to lobby for a switch from "article" to "word" count as the main gauge of WP's growth. However, the main statistics page if at all possible should list the number of words (some 400M now?) along with the "article number". Comparing "numbers of articles" has become far too widespread and is often used irresponsibly. dab (ᛏ) 14:31, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

Broken link?

The link to Erik Zachte's Wikipedia Statistics Sitemap isn't working for me. Any comments? 62.31.55.223 19:58, 15 July 2006 (UTC)

I don't know if the problem has been going on the whole time, but it isn't working for me, either—almost two months after you pointed it out. I'm getting a 403 (Forbidden) on every page, although I seem to remember it working once in the past week or so. Chances are that was my imagination

In the meantime, it's on the Google cache (retrieved on October 5, interestingly). I'm going to make a note about this in the article. — supreme_geek_overlord 02:48, 13 October 2006 (UTC)

Some statistics

I compiled some statistics: how many articles from non-English Wikipedias are translated into English, and how many notable topics from specialized databases are covered on Wiki so far. My conclusions: there are about 2 millions articles in need of translation, and more then 400 million of specialized topics in need of creation :) See User:Piotrus/Wikipedia interwiki and specialized knowledge test for details.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus  talk}  18:38, 22 July 2006 (UTC)

Most watched articles

Would someone who has access to watchlist data please compile a list of the top-5000-or-so most watched articles? I know the least watched need to be kept secret to defend against vandalism, but the most watched will be profoundly interesting and will help answer some pressing questions. This has been asked on Wikipedia:Village pump (technical)#Most watched articles without results. LossIsNotMore 00:07, 6 August 2006 (UTC)

I would like to see this also. Does this information exist? — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 20:41, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Job queue

Thread moved to Wikipedia:Village_pump_(technical)#Job_queue. --kingboyk 11:56, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Wikipedia article rankings in search engines

Wikipedia articles are ever more frequently showing up in Google's top 10 search results. I'd like to see some stats on Wikipedia articles' search engine rankings when a search for the article's title is executed. For example, if you google for world war i, Wikipedia's World War I shows up second, while a google for music put's the Music article at #14.

I'd like to see a count or even a list of the Wikipedia articles whose corresponding Google search lists the article in the #1 position, #2, #3, etc. Something like this:

1. 9.7% (1,330,093) of articles are the #1 search result on a Google query for the article's title.
2. 13.6% (1,619,002)
3. 7.3% (930,177)
4. 2.1% (301,990)
5. 1.3%
6. etc
7. etc
8. etc
9. etc
10. etc

• 43.8% of articles are not return in the top 10 search results.

This shouldn't be to hard to do; just a database dump and a little Google API magic. Any thoughts? — Jonathan Kovaciny (talk|contribs) 19:59, 18 September 2006 (UTC)

Access to Wikipedia Graphs and Charts is now Forbidden

This link: Charts and Graphs is no longer accesible, however there is a link to it in special page Statistics.--tequendamia 03:23, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Why are these stats forbidden (on all Wikimedia projects)? Anybody? --195.210.251.91 17:03, 17 October 2006 (UTC)

Once again. Why are statistics unavailable?! --213.250.11.131 09:46, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

According to meta:Wikimedia_site_feedback#Where_are_the_STATS.3F, the page accidentally contained confidential information and therefore, it was disabled. The problem is only temporary. Tra (Talk) 18:01, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

A change of policy I guess. THey became confidential.--tequendamia 21:25, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

No, what it is is that not all of the Wikimedia wikis are open to public viewing. The Internal wiki only allows unregistered users to see the main page, because it contains confidential information (this has always been like this). The statistics information accidentally contained confidential information about this wiki so it had to be disabled. I presume when the problem has been fixed, the page can be enabled again. Tra (Talk) 22:28, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

So is this ever coming back or what..? --Winterus 14:18, 12 November 2006 (UTC)

Author locations

I am wondering something that doesn't seem to be covered anywhere. Where are the 60-odd thousand article authors located? Are they mostly in English speaking countries? Where are Spanish or Portuguese language article authors located? Spain/Portugal, Latin America, the U.S., Africa? This ought to be easy enough to find out. Where are German language article authors located, etc., etc. Do "overseas Chinese" write disproportionately many articles in the Chinese language Wikipedia?

user count

Although there are millions accounts that were created, some of them are sockpuppets or vandals, some made a few edits and leave, some don't edit at all, and only a handful of those user accounts made over 100 edits. It dosen't necessarily tell me how many active users are there.--PrestonH 02:53, 3 November 2006 (UTC)

Forget it, I'll ask these ? at the refrence desk.--PrestonH 05:12, 9 November 2006 (UTC)

page views

It would be nice if a wikipedia article/page in addition to saying "This page was last modified..." at the bottom of the page, stated the page views to know how popular a particular article is. Idleguy 08:43, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

This has been suggested many times. That particular feature has been disabled for performance reasons. There is, however, wikicharts which gives this information for the top 100 most-viewed pages. Tra (Talk) 13:53, 25 November 2006 (UTC)

What happend to wikicharts? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.217.92.4 (talk) 07:44, 17 June 2008 (UTC)

page view frequency

I just noticed this and it disturbs me on privacy grounds. I thought that showing (or keeping track of) how many times individual pages had been viewed was done experimentally a few times several years ago and then it stopped. I see it's started up again. This does not seem like a good idea. Libraries (in the US at least) don't keep track of how many times individual books are looked at (they are forbidden by law from doing this). They can track books being borrowed but not if you just look at the book in the library, and reference books usually cannot be borrowed. See the stat faq of arxiv.org for some more about this, and about why Arxiv doesn't keep these statistics.

Generating these numbers requires processing the server logs which are private, so info like this shouldn't be disclosed without careful consideration and discussion. I personally don't think it's a good idea to release them (or even generate or examine them internally) on any regular basis. 67.117.130.181 22:42, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

Looking at the link you mentioned, the main privacy arguments are that:

1. People may be embarassed to find that an article they wrote is not read often
2. People could manipulate the results using a bot
3. People don't like the idea of 'Big Brother' watching them

To address these points:

1. Only the top 1000 articles are available through Wikicharts, there are 6,855,354 articles in Wikipedia so the vast majority will not show up, so people shouldn't be too concerned if their article doesn't show up.
2. Yes, they probably could quite easily, by sending multiple requests to the toolserver, and without even needing to visit the page itself. However, the results generated are reasonably accurate so I don't think this has been too much of a problem.
3. The tool does not connect any page requests to an IP address or Wikipedia username and the results are totally anonomous.

Tra (Talk) 23:03, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

100,000,000 edit counts! Yeehah!

Have a Toast! Cheers! :)

Again another Wikipedian statistical phenomenon has arrived! However, vandalisms and inactive users aside. First off for mine third compliment and perhaps the forth for this Wikipedia itself, I truly praise, commend and greatly congratulate this English Wikipedia once again for surpassing yet anoher Wiki-record of the One Hundred Millionth (or in figures: 100,000,000) mark of the total Wikipedians' Edit Counts!!! Yet this whopping number of what both users and Wikipedians have made up of this big free encyclopedia ever since July 2002AD and yet they never stop growing (as stated and based on/in the Wikipedian User Statistics)! WOW, what else can I say to express here, man!!? Thus, Congratulations and Kudos to the English Wikipedia! Keep the numbers going and keep on editing and contributing for more! Yaaahooooo!!! --onWheeZierPLot 00:40, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

Number of Active Wikipedians Data missing

Over past few months I have been looking for data on number of active wikipedians but couldnot find it. Is below data available somewhere (for English Wikipedia and may be others as well).

• Number of Wikipedians who edited in last one month (with login and without login).
• Number of Wikipedians who edited in last one week (with login and without login).
• Growth of number of active wikipedians (with login and without login).
• Growth of number of Wikipedian with edit counts > 1000/5000/10000/20000/50000 etc.

Typically this data should exclude the those wikipedians (typically using IP address) who only tests the site for its 'Open Editing By All' policy and then goes off and there may be many belonging to such category may be much greater than number of active vandals. One need to define Active Wikipedian one possible definition could be, the wikipedian who have edited the wikipedia atleast for more than 1 day. Vjdchauhan 06:19, 27 December 2006 (UTC).

Sandbox

People who come here might be looking for WP:SB when they type WP:S. Should I add a redirect notice? -Slash-^μιλώ 05:23, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

Graphs

I have collected all Wikipedia related charts I could find in Category:Wikipedia charts. There is also Commons commons:Category:Wikipedia statistics, where all those graphs should eventually be moved.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:10, 4 February 2007 (UTC)

Update

Update this page, people! It's so old (since November 30, 2007). --Meno25 00:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

Shouldn't that be Nov 30 2006? Otherwise, are you from the future? :). And yes i agree. Simply south 20:27, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

I second that. Update! --217.72.64.8 12:33, 14 February 2007 (UTC)

The stats are from 30 November 2006! --213.250.17.90 20:00, 15 February 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia in amateur studies

I have compiled a list of studies published in Wikipedia space, as well as useful tools published here: see Wikipedia:Researching Wikipedia.-- _{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk}  18:48, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

WP:ST redirect

I was just wondering. At the top of this current page (not the redirect) should i add This page is about statistics. For the project on Scottish transport, see WikiProject Transport in Scotland...? Simply south 01:08, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

Request for Weekend-only user stats

In a debate on deletion policy and how long AfDs should last for as a minimum, it would be good to get some evidence based on WP usage stats. So, would it be possible for someone who can do this to compile some or all of the following:

• What proportion of users (for all users or a statistically valid random sample) only access Wikipedia at weekends (with maybe 1% of non-weekend usage allowed)?
• What proportion of users only edit Wikipedia at weekends (with, say, 1% of non-weekend editing allowed)?
• What is the distribution of wikipedia users who access wikipedia every N days? Where N is from 2 to 14 days?

Many thanks --Amaccormack 10:38, 7 March 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia Statistics are 6 months out of date

Wiki charts and stats has not been updated since October. I asume the stats are there and only need to be put up. Whats going on here. I am happy to help. David Spart 15:18, 11 March 2007 (UTC)

Broken link?

I tried visiting http://wikimedia.org/stats/en.wikipedia.org/url_200403.html and http://wikimedia.org/stats/en.wikipedia.org/url_200404.html , but I got file not found both times. Are there any available versions of these pages? Andjam 23:07, 12 April 2007 (UTC)

Anon edits

Are there any stats on anon edits and, recognizing the difficulty of gathering them, the percentage reverted? Seems like I've been seeing less and less anon edits over the last 12 months, and that the bulk of those have just been vandalism. Be neat to see some numbers on the subject. MrZaius^talk 14:20, 28 April 2007 (UTC)

My Stats

Are my stats pages like this one any use for statistical purposes? Please comment on it's talk page. Thanks! Matt/TheFearow (Talk) (Contribs) (Bot) 02:24, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

stats on individual articles?

Is there any plan to present stats for individual articles? In other words, see the weekly or hourly traffic and such for a given article?Hubbardaie 01:33, 17 June 2007 (UTC)

How big is this thing? No, really.

We've apparently been so busy translating computer size into human size that we've forgotten the data the statistics are derived from. We have all these statistics on article count, edit count, word count, traffic, etc, etc. But I can't find the size of Wikipedia in terms of bytes anywhere. In a nutshell: how many gigabytes are there? Specifically, how many bites of text, in all of Wikipedia, and in all of Wikimedia? Have I just not found the right place, or is this information truly not available? Twilight Realm 21:47, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

Most articles per population...

What country has the most amount of articles per population?

Example: Do Norway have more articles per its 4,7 million people, then Sweden's 9,1 millions?

Is there any list? Though ofcourse many countries share the same language, like Spanish in Spain and Argentina and so on, and English in many other countries... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.108.241.197 (talk) 19:30, 8 September 2007 (UTC)

Views per article?

Is it possible to find out how many times an article has been viewed? Is it possible to get this info over a period of time? I mean for all articles, not just the 100 greatest. BillMasen 18:35, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

Number of users

We have the number of registered users - apparently something like 5 million, but I doubt that many of these accounts are still active. A lot would be either retired or sock puppets/vandals etc. This is also relevant for the percentage of users who are admins, which I imagine is a deceptively small percentage which in reality is a lot more than a small fraction of a percent. Richard001 09:46, 12 September 2007 (UTC)

Top 100 Searches

Is there a way to see the top 100 searches at any given time? Is there a way to see the number of views on any given page? Ill take the answer at my user page. --Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) 18:17, 19 October 2007 (UTC) I found it here: [[1]] —Preceding unsigned comment added by Richard Arthur Norton (1958- ) (talk • contribs) 18:18, 19 October 2007 (UTC)

Special:Statistics

Shouldn't there be some sort of reference for http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Statistics ?

Furthermore, shouldn't there be some sort of mention that when editor make edits and the pages is thereafter delete those statistics are not included either? --CyclePat (talk) 20:25, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Another stat...?

I'd like to know about the amount of storage used up in Wikipedia... can someone please include it here...? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Wiknerd (talk • contribs) 12:43, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

WikiChart not working

The WikiChart statistics is not working anymore for some odd reason. Can anybody diagnose the problem of what is going on with this tool? PrestonH 04:09, 28 January 2008 (UTC)

Tumbleweeds

A lot of these blowing through this page. One might gain the impression that it is impolite to answer people's queries. Ericoides (talk) 23:38, 18 February 2008 (UTC)

The shortage of Wikipedia Statistics in English version

I have met two problems in terms of the two websites in the course of being involved in researching Wikipedia. The first came from the website of Wikipedia Statistics Sitemap (http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/Sitemap.htm) in which the figure of Wikipedians statistics regarding English version is just up to October 2006. Can I have the access to get the statistic figures of Wikipedians and the figures of "Edits per month" after October 2006? The other problem I met stemmed from the website of http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Awareness_statistics

At the middle of this website, there is a data set, titling the Alexa reach per million measurement for wikipedia.org - leaving me two questions：Can I get the statistic figures with regard to this data set before the date of February 2003? Besides, what makes me confused is what is exact meaning of the term one-week average, while i am conscious of the fact that the list of one-week average will very likely, however, give the impression of certain day, for example：The date of 12 May 2004 and 13 May 2004 both are made up of certain day. What is exactly different from the daily figures, which were exhibited after December 2004?

Thank you so much in advance for your response. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jackiewi (talk • contribs) 15:10, 6 March 2008 (UTC)

Wikipedia Statistics - Time between edits

Recently, I did a little research and, just to satisfy my own curiosity, I put together some stats regarding the time between every 10,000,000th edit. The page is here: [2] One of the reasons I put it together is that I couldn't find statistics like this listed anywhere on this page. Does anyone think this information would be of interest to anyone else? If so, would anyone object to creating a sub page from this one to house these statistics? Or, if someone knows of stats like this already somewhere, please let me know as I am still curious and interested in statistics such as this. Thanks. κaτaʟaveno^T_C 13:46, 31 March 2008 (UTC)

Languages

Is there an available list, somewhere in the statistics, of what articles have the most foreign language links? If not, can one be added? This article’s main page has 33 foreign language links. I’ve seen one with 76. What article sets the record for most referred? Greg L (talk) 22:58, 21 June 2008 (UTC)

Demographics

Is there a source for demographic data on wikipedia editors? and for readers? I am interested to know who is writing for wikipedia and what characteristics makes up the audience?

Matthews Bs (talk) 14:52, 1 July 2008 (UTC)

Active registered user accounts

Special:Statistics now states the number of "active registered user accounts". But I can't find where that number is defined. What is the criteria for determining which registered user accounts are "active"? -- John Broughton (♫♫) 22:19, 10 September 2008 (UTC)

From what people say (on IRC #wikimedia-tech) it is the number of distinct user identities found in the recent changes log in the database. There seems to be some confusion, however, whether this looks 1 week or 1 month or 90 days back. In this copy of CommonSettings.php the configuration variable "$wgRCMaxAge = 30*86400" or 30 days (there are 86400 seconds in 24 hours). But is that setting also used for every language of Wikipedia? Entries in the recent changes log older than this value are removed on every 100th edit, according to this piece of source code. --LA2 (talk) 21:32, 21 September 2008 (UTC)

The line now says "Active users (registered users with at least one edit or logged action in the past 30 days): 153,549". However, the value doesn't vary every minute, but seems rather static. I don't know how often it is updated. --LA2 (talk) 19:30, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

Is historical data available for this? It would be far more interesting to see how the ratio between those numbers changes over time and the rate of growth in active users. Similarly, if a db dump is possible anymore, it'd be awesome to see how many editors with 100+ edits drop off every month and how many more join their ranks. This could provide a vital metric for the health of the project. MrZaius^talk 12:27, 2 October 2008 (UTC)

I agree that historical information would be extremely useful. For example, of all the editors who edited at least 100 times in a given month, how many had that same level of activity a year earlier? Of all the editors a year earlier that had 100 or more edits in the month, how many had 100 or more edits in the same month a year later? For both groups, what does a histogram look like that shows earliest edit (by month)? For the older group, what does a histogram look like that shows the latest edit (by month)?

There does seem to be a bit of historical information on active editors, for a number of months, here (despite the name): Wikipedia:List of Wikipedians by number of edits. But the counts don't seem totally comparable from month to month, nor with the Wikipedia:Statistics count: For example, as I read the table, there were 208,707 editors with one or more edits between mid-August 2008 and mid-September 2008.

And, for what it's worth, the count - as I post this - is 157,889. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 20:45, 16 October 2008 (UTC)

Number of words

I'm wondering if there's any measurement of the number of words in Wikipedia, or, perhaps, the average number of words per article (which might be more useful because one could just multiply this by whatever the article count is in the future)?--165.123.238.86 (talk) 13:05, 26 September 2008 (UTC)

In October 2006 (yes, two years ago) the English Wikipedia contained 609 million words in 1.4 million articles, or 435 words per article. Let's hope these statistics are updated more often in the future. --LA2 (talk) 19:27, 29 September 2008 (UTC)

User:Emijrp/Stats template removed

I have removed User:Emijrp/Stats template, as it was not updated for over a year. With all due respect to Emirjp, we have many userpage statistical essays, most of which are similarly not updated, and none of which (including my own) really deserve a spotlight here (I'd make exception if any of them were dynamically or at least regularly updated, but I don't think any are). Comments? --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 16:50, 24 December 2008 (UTC)

User:Emijrp/Popular_articles removed

In the same manner, I removed the link to User:Emijrp/Popular articles from this link. Still with all due respect to Emirjp, a ~6 months old snapshot of the most popular pages in that hour is not very useful. Any comments are still appreciated. Mikael Häggström (talk) 06:52, 19 February 2011 (UTC)

Which websites are most used as references?

For use in the WRS project, I need a list of the most popular websites Wikipedians use to reference facts. That means counting points for all <ref>http://someurl</ref> elements found in Wikipedia articles. Has anyone already done that? Thanks a lot! Nicolas1981 (talk) 12:33, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Any chances for post-Oct'06 updates?

En wiki stats ([3], [4]) are not updated since Oct'06. It would be nice if the reason for this was clearly explained, and a discussion of can this ever be fixed be present as well. --_{Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus| talk} 08:42, 31 May 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps the numbers are not in wikimedia's favor?Smallman12q (talk) 15:30, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Articles/edits per day

Is there a place where I can see the number of articles created (and edits) per day?Smallman12q (talk) 12:59, 1 October 2009 (UTC)

pages per namespace?

Is there a way to see how many pages there are in each namespace? If there isn't could there be? L☺g☺maniac chat? 00:58, 30 December 2009 (UTC)

http://stats.grok.se

http://stats.grok.se seems dead. What's the replacement for it? --WikedKentaur (talk) 06:29, 22 March 2010 (UTC)

What is Article Traffic Stats recording, exactly?

I started a new article page yesterday, June 4. The traffic stats, however, date back to March of this year, with a fair amount of traffic for the past three months. I know there was a single red link to the namespace. Is stats.grok.se actually measuring clicks on red links as well? Or does it also measure search field entries? I can easily do a few tests of my own, but I was hoping maybe someone knew the answer right off the bat. Thanks! – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 20:04, 5 June 2010 (UTC)

I think stats.grok.se is measuring the number of times a page was accessed, whether that be via a wikilink, Wikipedia's built-in search box, a search engine, etc. Emw (talk) 04:14, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Interesting! Kind of spooky, too. – Kerαunoςcopia^◁_galaxies 04:48, 6 June 2010 (UTC)

Gradient descent

Hi, I just did lots of updates to Gradient descent#Solution of a non-linear system. Can someone have a look at that to be sure I got it right. Before it was using notation not elsewhere used in the article so I just tried to make it make some sense. 0¹⁸ (talk) 00:04, 20 June 2010 (UTC)

Sticky prods

Hi, anyone interested and willing to help with stats at Wikipedia_talk:Requests_for_comment/Biographies_of_living_people#Statistics? ϢereSpielChequers 13:54, 23 June 2010 (UTC)

Binomial probability distribution

Question 1. A Binomial probability distribution has p=0.20 and n=100.

(a) What are expected value and the standard deviation? (b) What is the probability of axactly 24 successes? (c) What is the probability of 18 to 22 successes? (d) What is the probability of 15 or fewer successes?Tuoane Z. (talk) 11:49, 3 July 2010 (UTC)

Signpost article

I've submitted an article for next weeks signpost at Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2010-08-09/In data it covers our declining number of active admins and some stats I've prepared at User:WereSpielChequers/RFA by month on what I think is a the growing wikigeneration gulf between the admin cadre and the wider community. Input from statistically minded Wikipedians would be appreciated, especially in the next few days before publication. ϢereSpielChequers 12:04, 3 August 2010 (UTC)

Article size

Of the 3m articles, how many are over 100KB size? I could not find the answer. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 117.193.56.9 (talk) 11:04, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

More reading, less editing?

Evaluation of a single article shows increased page views and decreased edits by anons. Does anyone know whether this a general trend, particularly in older articles? See Wikipedia_talk:Invitation_to_edit#Stats for details. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:54, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

The general trend in recent years has been that readership is growing at about the same rate as the Internet whilst the amount of editing has stabilised or slightly fallen. As the number of article is still increasing albeit quite slowly, I think it shouldn't surprise if individual articles are getting a higher reader to editor ratio as that is happening across the project. ϢereSpielChequers 12:23, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

Blip

thisshows a trough in march/april that looks like a gap in the data rather than a fluke result. ϢereSpielChequers 12:24, 10 June 2011 (UTC)

AFD/DRV statistics about repeated nominations

Is there a tool that will generate a list of articles that have been nominated for deletion more than __x__ times, or even better __x__ times in the last __y__ months? If yes, will the tool also have the results of any deletion review or other appeals proceeding? This would be very useful for a pending policy discussion about AFD/DRV procedures in this thread at the village pump NewsAndEventsGuy (talk) 17:19, 3 February 2012 (UTC)

• If anyone ever comes up with one, please let me know. The number of relistings is out of control, and AfD participation is declining ever further.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 23:36, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

WP's unethical surveying

I quote from the code of ethics of the international public-opinion research society:

III. RULES OF PRACTICE BETWEEN RESEARCHER AND RESPONDENTS

D. Responsibility to Informants ...

25. The interview method or any other method employed by the researcher must never be used as a disguise for other purposes such as marketing, sales solicitation, fundraising or political campaigning."

Similar codes exist for the European and American public-opinion societies.

For ethical compliance and the avoidance of public sanctions, WP should remove the invitation for readers to begin editing, which has been described as a major purpose of the article surveys.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 22:27, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

Update: The American ethical-code is clearer: "We shall not misrepresent our research or conduct other activities (such as sales, fundraising, or political campaigning) under the guise of conducting survey and public opinion research." (KW 00:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC))

Wikipedia's documentation of its unethical surveying

The feature brings in editors. One of the main Strategic Goals for the upcoming year is to increase the number of active editors contributing to WMF projects. The initial data from the Article Feedback tool suggests that reader feedback could become a meaningful point of entry for future editors.

Once users have successfully submitted a rating, a randomly selected subset of them are shown an invitation to edit the page. Of the users that were invited to edit, 17% attempted to edit the page. 15% of those ended up successfully completing an edit. These results strongly suggest that a feedback tool could successfully convert passive readers into active contributors of Wikipedia. A rich text editor could make this path to editing even more promising.

While these initial results are certainly encouraging, we need to assess whether these editors are, in fact, improving Wikipedia. We need to measure their level of activity, the quality of their contributions, their longevity, and other characteristics.

After answering a survey on an article, readers are invited to edit as part of WMF's strategy to recruit new editors.

Discussion

At this point, it is best that WMF separate the survey from anything that looks like a recruitment tool.

A public apology and resolution to avoid potential appearance of unethical surveying would help educate the public and the Wikimedia community.

Respectfully,  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:22, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• You would at least have to stretch the definitions a bit, if not legally then morally, to 1) count the article survey as "public-opinion research", 2) the invitation to edit Wikipedia as "marketing, sales solicitation, fundraising or political campaigning" and 3) the rather obvious process as a disguise. —Ruud 23:19, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

  Hi Ruud,

  Good point! "Public-opinion research" is the generic name for the profession of survey researchers, and this includes marketing researchers asking people in shopping stores, etc.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:24, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

  You may want to address the second point as well. I have a meeting with Dario in ~2 hours; I will get his perspective then. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:25, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

  You cannot begin with a survey, relying on the good will built up by generations of ethical surveyors, and then exploit that good will to recruit people.

  This is the standard concern of all professional ethical codes.

  As I mentioned, there are similar codes (and histories of public condemnations of unethical practice) for the American and European societies, which should be checked.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:33, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

  Kiefer, the survey is displayed in some cases, not in all cases. If it is displayed, it goes form - survey - "you can edit!" call to action (CTA). If it is not displayed, it goes form - "you can edit!" CTA. The survey itself has nothing to do with the CTA. As said, I will have a proper statement later on in the day - although I fail to see how your argument here addresses Ruud's second point. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 23:40, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

  That point about only a proportion of surveys then getting the CTA doesn't matter. The recruitment is displayed in c. 18% of the surveys, if my memory is correct. (Do you think that that proportion was chance, or involved a calculation of the proportion sufficient to reach a high percentage of the audience, say monthly? This question answers itself....) WMF employees and officers have discussed the survey (often primarily) as a recruitment tool in multiple fora, and this use of a survey is prohibited.

  The American ethical code is more general: "We shall not misrepresent our research or conduct other activities (such as sales, fundraising, or political campaigning) under the guise of conducting survey and public opinion research."

  Just separate the recruitment from the survey and all will be well. I and other statisticians and social scientists should have complained before....  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 23:48, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

  We could have a very deep legal or philosophical discussion on this issue, but from a pragmatic point of view I would see little harm in using the article survey to both gain feedback on the content quality and attracting new editors. The two seem directly related, and although the latter is even phrased as a valid survey question ("Did you know you can edit?", although this can be compared in both a positive and a negative sense to the more dubious survey question "Did you know Coca Cola contains less sugar than Pepsi Cola?"). The survey is used to raise awareness, but can this be called "marketing"? From the context in which this term is used above, I would say it has to involve a commercial component. Now, if the article survey asked you to donate money, or the article quality feedback was simply discarded, I'd probably argue differently.

  The end with an anecdote, last year I was offered a cheap fire alarm by the Dutch foundations for burn victims and now they keep requesting donations from me. I find this significantly less ethical than informing people filling out an article survey that they can also edit the article in question. —Ruud 00:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  Ruud, the ethical codes are designed to protect the public and the profession. Statisticians don't want people using surveys for other purposes, because people reduce their respect for surveys. Did you see my quotation from the American public-opinion society? "We shall not misrepresent our research or conduct other activities (such as sales, fundraising, or political campaigning) under the guise of conducting survey and public opinion research." Its ethical code is more general and applies to this topic.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:12, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  Yes, although I apparently interpret it differently than you do. The word "misrepresent" is very important here. In my opinion, we would be misrepresenting the activity of raising awareness about the fact you can edit articles under the guise of a survey if this was our primary motive of letting people take the survey. But it is not. We are primarily interested in the survey results and raising awareness of the edit button is tangential. Although I do sympathise with Carrite's position below. It isn't (shouldn't be) a disguised part of the survey, but a piece of on-topic information presented afterwards. This is also something we don't do for our own gain (as e.g. soliciting donations would be), but because we genuinely believe the survey-taker might be interesting in learning about the fact you can edit Wikipedia articles. —Ruud 00:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  Another important point is that people take this survey out of their own free will and it isn't forced upon them like many surveys (either by being asked to participate in person or by through obnoxious pop-up). We can therefore reasonably expect they are doing so from a motivation to improve Wikipedia's content. The information presented after survey merely offers them another way to do so, without any subconscious trickery. —Ruud 01:05, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• Wikipedia doesn't do original research, hence there can be no ethical obligations breached. If there are, let's be horrible outlaws and may God save our souls.--Milowent • ^hasspoken 23:35, 27 February 2012 (UTC)
  • You're making the common mistake of confusing the encyclopedic content of Wikipedia with the community creating said content. E.g., the content is supposed to be written from a neutral point of view, however, as a community we are far from politically neutral. —Ruud 23:43, 27 February 2012 (UTC)

• It seems at most extremely unlikely that the article feedback system falls with the bounds of the kind of activity that the public-opinion research society is hoping to cover with their ethical guidelines.©Geni 00:06, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  Geni, please read the American ethical code I linked above. "We shall not misrepresent our research or conduct other activities (such as sales, fundraising, or political campaigning) under the guise of conducting survey and public opinion research."  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:16, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I've read it. Nothing in it suggests that the article feedback system falls with the bounds of the kind of activity that the public-opinion research society is hoping to cover with their ethical guidelines.©Geni 02:20, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Article feedback is a survey. The concluding invitation to edit is the problem, especially when WMF documents and Sue Gardner's web-presentations suggest that the survey was designed to recruit editors.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

argument by assertion logical fallacy.©Geni 12:15, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I've linked pages documenting WMF declarations that a primary goal for the survey is recruitment. Such rudeness and laziness has been a symptom of brain damage, in my experience, e.g. of teaching algebra to cancer survivors and traumatic injury survivors, and I trust that your behavior is a momentary lapse.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:32, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• Well, even if you eliminate the banner inviting people to edit, they will end up back on a page with a big word "Edit" at the top of the page, and the word "edit" next to ever subject heading all the way down the page. Also, AFT4 is currently awaiting the chop, to be replaced with AFT5. If this breaks the ethical guidelines of public opinion researchers (which I'm not sure it does), then their rules are both absurd and utterly unfit for the digital age. They don't seem to be too worried about the torrents of churnalism bullshit that dodgy public research firms seem to spew out. —Tom Morris (talk) 00:23, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  Let's do what's right. It is a simple matter to separate the survey and the recruitment. I agree that this is not a capital crime, and that others behave badly.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 00:45, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• I'm not smart enough to know whether the "Survey Tool" is ethical or not in its current form. What IS clear however, is that WMF sees this as a de facto recruiting tool and that is what is driving this thoroughly useless and visually annoying feature. I await the first person to document that data generated from the so-called "surveys" has aided in the identification and correction of even a single "problem" article. What we have is a 3 column inch chunk of ugly digital uselessness. If Wikipedia wants to start running 3 inch ads on the bottom of every page inviting participation, I'd have less trouble with that than the Rube Goldberg-like contraption they have now, hoping that IP visitors clicking will somehow gain consciousness of Wikipedia's malleability and become productive contributors. That's a goofy theory, one could just as easily argue that clicking RATE THIS PAGE will deter people from clicking EDIT THIS PAGE and directly fixing what needs to be fixed. — Tim Davenport //// Carrite (talk) 00:46, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  Editor recruitment is not our primary goal; if it was, we'd be going about it in a really stupid way. We've got five staffers working on a new version of a tool with a ridiculously low recruitment rate, making changes that only benefit the primary goal of the project: to get useful feedback from readers in order to improve content. It's bloody awful at recruiting people. It's impossible to say if feedback will help correct problems, because we haven't fully deployed the tool that allows you to give proper feedback yet. However, the hand-coding found that up to 70 percent of the feedback is "helpful". And for reference, we are testing whether there's any impact on editing :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 00:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  I can backup with Okeyes is saying: I've helped with going through the feedback in the AFT5 trial. Subjectively speaking, there's lots of good feedback, and lots of useful feedback. Quite often, I'd see feedback useful enough that I'd go and edit the article to add it. In one case, there was someone offering to upload rare images for an article that didn't have any images. As they included an e-mail address, I sent them an email with advice on how to upload: haven't yet heard back from them, sadly. If you ask nicely, people do give really useful and helpful feedback that can improve articles. —Tom Morris (talk) 01:55, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  @Tom Morris,

  PO-Research ethical codes forbid using surveys to mask manipulation. WMF should simply stop ending the survey with a request to edit, per the ethical code.

  WMF is free to ask some or all to edit, so long as such solicitations are not masked with a "survey" (especially at the end of a "survey"). (Nobody has disputed that the survey gives useful information. There may be an ethical problem with the questions about the reader background, which waste the public's time---to what end?) Please stay on-topic:

  Topic: Is it ethical to end the "survey" on article quality with a solicitation, particularly when numerous WMF documents and statements describe the "survey" as a recruitment tool, or not?

   Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:58, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

• I don't see an issue here, we have always follow "anyone can edit" principle and backed this up with a "so fix it" attitude. Now we ask people who have read the article to rate it, then follow this with the so fix it attitude . If someone does give an article a rating then obviously they have some qualification in the subject, seriously these ratings aren't really authoritative because we have no way of knowing whether the person responding has the knowledge to review the topic nor on what criteria they decide to judge the article. Its nonsensical to think that asking a question about one article is causing some statistical sin that's going to destroy the ethics of surveys across the globe, the survey is more akin to an in-store taste test most people are going nod their head say they like it but very few are going to go and buy it, even less will buy it again the following week. Gnangarra 01:34, 28 February 2012 (UTC)
• False premise that Wikipedia is a professional poll researcher: The claim of unethical actions might seem a resonable conclusion, but it is based on a false premise thinking Wikipedia is a professional public-opinion researcher, when in reality, it is not. Likewise, scientists are bound by a code of ethics to not publish falsified or slanted data, but Wikipedia is not a scientist either. In general, wp:NOTCENSORED applies, because Wikipedia is not a member of a religious society or other organization which forbids sacrilegious or offensive language (or inviting people to edit pages). When considering any line of reasoning, always check the assumptions first, and if they are incorrect, then the whole argument crumbles, due to the logical fallacy of argument from false premises. In fact, the heading for this thread, as title, "WP's unethical surveying" is a violation of "begging the question" and should be corrected, as improper as saying, "WP's continual wife-beating" which is an unfounded claim. I was a formal debate judge for years, so I hope the points I have raised, above, have clarified why the issue of unethical surveying does not apply to Wikipedia's Article Feedback tool. -Wikid77 (talk) 11:27, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

  Wikid77,

  Ethical codes govern practices, and clearly state that anybody engaging in the practice is bound by the code, even if they reject the label of the profession and claim not to be bound by the code, and is subject to penalties for unethical conduct.  Kiefer.Wolfowitz 11:41, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

When You "Crowd-Source" Facts and Truth ...

... who can really object to crowd-sourced ethics? Moynihanian (talk) 01:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

We never claim to be true or presenting facts :). Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 01:11, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

People have been conditioned to believe that an encyclopedia is factual, and that it strives to present a true account of whatever person or subject chronicled. So Wikipedia, by calling itself an encyclopedia, has to a large degree traded on the popular understanding of what encyclopedias do. But you're correct, Wikipedia has never claimed to be accurate, factual, or true. What's happening is that people are, in stages, being informed of this. Moynihanian (talk) 02:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

You mean the Disclaimer we've had at the bottom of every single page, article or no, since 2003? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 02:10, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

The disclaimer is not "at the bottom of every single page." Actually, it's not at the bottom of any pages here. That's a fact, but maybe it'll be outvoted, in which case it'll no longer be a fact to Wikipedia. In any case, I do favor the idea of a disclaimer. It should be prominently posted at the top of every page, informing readers that factual accuracy is not in any way relevant in preparing, retaining, or editing Wikipedia articles. That would certainly satisfy me, and would have the advantage of being honest. Moynihanian (talk) 02:24, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

See the link at the top in the old classic skin. Happy? Not that I am in any case greatly concerned about what satisfies you. You appear to be here purely to try and play politics (zero article namespace edits? really?) so objectively it matters litter if you are satisfied or not.©Geni 02:47, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

I suggest that you read my talk page. I have given my views at more length there, including some comments about my Wikipedia experience. Moynihanian (talk) 05:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Holy ****! I've made over 2,000 edits on Wikipedia, and I just saw that disclaimer page for the first time. Only because I happened to wander onto this page, which is far off the beaten path of the encyclopedia. Where have you been hiding it? How is a "normal" reader supposed to see it, or navigate to it?

Hmm, it doesn't look like many article pages link to it, though some talk pages and images do[5]

What is old classic skin, I don't know what that means. —Wbm1058 (talk) 03:00, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

In vector its at the bottom of the page third link from the left. Classic is the name of an old wikipedia skin that was used back before monobook.©Geni 03:09, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Oh I see. Thankyou. Next to "privacy policy" and "About Wikipedia". — Preceding unsigned comment added by Wbm1058 (talk • contribs) 03:13, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Ah, yes, the tiny link in 6-point type. Hardly a "disclaimer," but rather a virtually invisible link to one. Reminds me of those speed-talk listings of the contraindicators for whatever new drug they're advertising on cable TV, or the fine print in one of those mortgage ads. Not exactly, um, transparent. Moynihanian (talk) 05:21, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

"Rate this page" suggestion

The "rate this page" stats at the bottom of an article are useful in helping show general reader opinion on the quality of the article. If the article is rated low in one category, however, the rating doesn't really give specific advice on how to fix it. Could a "comments" link be added to the box, which when clicked automatically starts a thread on the article's discussion page in which the reader can leave suggestions/comments for improvement? Cla68 (talk) 04:50, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Already working on it :). See WP:AFT5. Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 11:33, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Again, your reference documents an unethical use of a survey for recruitment purposes:

"Article Feedback Goals

• engage readers to participate more on Wikipedia

• initial focus on article feedback and content quality

• encourage a collaboration between editors and readers

• develop new ways to drive thoughtful participation "

(emboldening removed and added)

 Kiefer.Wolfowitz 12:08, 28 February 2012 (UTC)

Kiefer, it seems fairly clear at this point that literally nobody agrees that what we are doing in any way falls within those guidelines and/or violates them. May I suggest quitting while you're behind? Okeyes (WMF) (talk) 12:25, 28 February 2012 (UTC)