Re: [GLAM] The right way to add external links?

-----Original Message----- From: glam-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:glam- bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Peter Ekman Sent: maandag 18 maart 2013 17:48 To: glam(a)lists.wikimedia.org Subject: [GLAM] The right way to add external links? David and Sumana have passed on info from two outside projects that have added external links to Wikipedia articles and measured the results. I don't doubt the good faith of anybody here, nor the usefulness of the links, but I must note that this type of activity is almost certain to attract the attention of the hardworking (and equally good-faith) anti-spammers at WP:WikiProject SPAM. There's also a question of WP:COI involved. As far as the attention grabbing aspect, please consider the following list from WP:WikiProject Spam of things that the anti-spammers look for: "How to identify spam and spammers 1.User is anonymous (an IP address) 2. User:page and/or User_talk:page are red links 3. No edit summary (other than, perhaps /* External links */) 4. User has made only one edit, which consisted of inserting a link 5. User has made multiple edits to related articles 6. The majority of user's edits are to external links sections" There are 14 more points - but the two projects likely raised at least 3 of these red flags already. Many Wikipedians absolutely hate spammers, and if an outside project raises these red-flags they are likely to get a bad result, just wasting their time. I do not have the complete answer of how to do this right and completely within Wikipedia rules, but I think the question needs to be raised. Another example - just from this week. An anon apparently from the Society of Architectural Historians added a bunch of links to a new feature of their website which gives (gratis) text from their series of expensive books "Buildings of the United States". On my watchlist I saw red flags 1-3 at a glance and my first thought was spam. On closer examination, I saw it had all the attributes of spam, except that I really found the links useful. Others started deleting the links right away, and I had to take some time to defend the links. Clearly there is a problem here, which an uncritical reading of the 2 above projects would fail to address. As I said - I don't completely know how to solve this problem, but my first reaction is that they should try to work with established Wikipedia editors. I think I have to mention some of my recent related Wikipedia activities. I've been working on WP:Glam/smarthistory to insert external links (via the external media template) to Smarthistory's very useful and informative series of videos on art history. As far as I know, only one of these links has been deleted and there have been no complaints to the spam project, but there has been a bit of tension, simply because external links are involved. This is despite the fact that I am a completely independent editor with a long visible history of fighting against COI-editing. In short - a straightforward reading of the 2 outside projects' write-ups is likely to lead to some problems. We should try to thrash out how to avoid these problems. Pete Ekman User:Smallbones > Message: 2 > Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2013 09:36:56 +0100 > From: "David Haskiya" &lt;David.Haskiya(a)KB.nl&gt; > To: "Wikimedia & GLAM collaboration [Public]" > &lt;glam(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; > Subject: Re: [GLAM] case study with statistics: libraries & archives > should share on Wikipedia > Message-ID: <9E81C54D7C665F4599EA05450BA9853D023888A8@goofy> > Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" > > Hi, > You may know of it already but in case you don't. > > The Biodiversity Heritage Library also published an interesting case > study on the effects of citing/referencing to their authoritative > sources on zoology, botany etc.: > >

> tage.html > > Cheers, > David > > --- > Product Developer > www.europeana.eu > > Phone: +31 (0)70 3140 696 > Mobile: +31 (0)64 217 2542 > Email: david.haskiya(a)kb.nl > Skype: davidhaskiya > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: glam-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:glam- >> bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Sumana Harihareswara >> Sent: zaterdag 16 maart 2013 18:32 >> To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities; >> glam(a)lists.wikimedia.org; A mailinglist for the Analytics Team at

> and >> everybody who has aninterest in Wikipedia and analytics. >> Subject: [GLAM] case study with statistics: libraries & archives > should >> share on Wikipedia >> >> http://www.dlib.org/dlib/march13/szajewski/03szajewski.html >> >> "This case study examines the use of Wikipedia by the Ball State >> University Libraries as an opportunity to raise the visibility of >> digitized historic sheet music assets made available in the > university's >> Digital Media Repository. By adding links to specific items in this >> collection to relevant, existing Wikipedia articles, Ball State >> successfully and efficiently expanded the user base of this

>> in the Digital Media Repository by vastly enhancing the > discoverability >> of the collection's assets... >> >> "The results of this study show that the addition of links from > relevant >> Wikipedia articles to individual digitized assets in the Hague

>> Music Collection in the Ball State University Digital Media

>> was an overwhelming success. Despite the fact that only 57 links to

>> assets were added to Wikipedia articles, pageviews for the

> of >> 149 assets roughly tripled as a result of this effort. The adding

>> links at the item level provided a plethora of highly-visible entry >> points to this collection's assets, raising awareness of the

>> of these resources to interested Internet users who were previously >> unaware of these materials, as is suggested by the collection's use >> statistics. The success of this initiative is also remarkable in

>> efficiency, generating a large number of new digital patrons while >> requiring relatively little time to plan and execute." >> >> Includes an encouraging graph. :-) >> -- >> Sumana Harihareswara >> Engineering Community Manager >> Wikimedia Foundation >> >> _______________________________________________ >> GLAM mailing list >> GLAM(a)lists.wikimedia.org >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/glam > > > > ------------------------------ > > Message: 3 > Date: Mon, 18 Mar 2013 07:48:35 -0400 > From: Sumana Harihareswara &lt;sumanah(a)wikimedia.org&gt; > To: "A mailing list for the Analytics Team at WMF and everybody who > has an interest in Wikipedia and analytics." > &lt;analytics(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt; > Cc: "Wikimedia & GLAM collaboration \[Public\]" > &lt;glam(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;rg>, Lars Aronsson

> Subject: Re: [GLAM] [Analytics] case study with statistics:

relevant >>> Wikipedia articles to individual digitized assets in the Hague

>>> Music Collection in the Ball State University Digital Media

>>> was an overwhelming success. Despite the fact that only 57 links

>>> assets were added to Wikipedia articles, pageviews for the

of >>> 149 assets roughly tripled as a result of this effort. >> >> Do we know to what degree archives and libraries succeed >> to actually benefit from an increased web audience? >> I'm trying to understand Swedish archives and libraries. >> Some of them measure web traffic, but none seems to >> care if the numbers are large or small. It's not like a >> revenue stream to them. > > Lars, I shall defer to the GLAM experts, but take a look at > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Analytics/Pageviews/GLAM . "To

> GLAMs to upload content to Wikimedia Commons, it is necessary to be

> to communicate how many times these media files are being presented

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