________________________________
De: Han-Teng Liao (OII) <han-teng.liao(a)oii.ox.ac.uk>
Para: Research into Wikimedia content and communities
<wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Enviado: Martes 8 de julio de 2014 9:27
Asunto: [Wiki-research-l] Constructing sensible baselines for Wikipedia language
development analytics
Dear all,
Your suggestions are needed on the ways in which one can construct some sensible
baselines, most likely based on data sets *external* to Wikipedia projects, of *expected*
Wikipedia language versions development.
Such baselines should ideally indicate, given the availability of language users and
content (some numbers based on external data sets), a certain language version should have
expected number of articles/active users.
Hello all,
It looks like some of these are questions addressed by an ongoing research line conducted
by Kevin Crowston, Nicolas Jullien and me:
Sustainability of Open Collaborative Communities: Analyzing Recruitment Efficiency
http://timreview.ca/article/646
Abstract: Extensive research has been conducted over the past years to improve our
understanding of sustainability conditions for large-scale collaborative projects,
especially from an economic and governance perspective. However, the influence of
recruitment and retention of participants in these projects has received comparatively
less attention from researchers. Nevertheless, these concerns are significant for
practitioners, especially regarding the apparently decreasing ability of the main open
online projects to attract and retain new contributors. A possible explanation for this
decrease is that those projects have simply reached a mature state of development. Marwell
and Oliver (1993) and Oliver, Marwell, and Teixeira (1985) note that, at the initial stage
in collective projects, participants are few and efforts are costly; in the diffusion
phase, the number of participants grows, as their efforts are rewarding; and in the mature
phase, some
inefficiency may appear as the number of contributors is greater than required for the
work.
In this article, we examine this possibility. We use original data from 36 Wikipedias in
different languages to compare their efficiency in recruiting participants. We chose
Wikipedia because the different language projects are at different states of development,
but are quite comparable on the other aspects, providing a test of the impact of
development on efficiency. Results confirm that most of the largest Wikipedias seem to be
characterized by a reduced return to scale. As a result, we can draw interesting
conclusions that can be useful for practitioners, facilitators, and managers of
collaborative projects in order to identify key factors potentially influencing the
adequate development of their communities over the medium-to-long term.
As for external data sources, we integrate in the analysis information from UNESCO and
OECD, among others.
Best regards,
Felipe.
As previous research has suggested that Wikipedia activities need
mutually-reinforcing cycles of participation, content, and readership, it is expected that
the development of a Wikipedia language version is conditioned by the availability of
(digitally) literate users and (possibly digitized) content/sources.
So the assumption is:
Wikipedia Activities = Some function of (available users and content)
For example, the major non-English writing languages in the world such as Arabic,
Chinese, Spanish, etc., may have different numbers of Internet users and digital content.
These numbers indicate the basis on which a Wikipedia language version can develop.
One practical use of this baseline measurement is to better categorize/curate
activities across Wikipedia language versions. We can then better come up with expected
values of Wikipedia development, and thus categorize language versions accordingly based
on the *external conditions* of available/potential users and content.
Another use of this baseline measurement is to better compare the development of
different language versions. It should help answer questions such as (1) whether Korean
language version is *underdeveloped* on Wikipedia platforms when compared with a language
version that enjoys similar number of available/potential users and content.
The current similar external baseline data is probably the number of language
speakers. My hunch is that it is not good enough in taking into accounts the
available/potential users and content, especially the digitally-ready one.
So I welcome you to add to the following list, any external indicators (and possibly
data sources) that may help to construct such base line.
==Indicators==
* Internet users for each language (probably approximate measurement based on CLDR
Territory-Language information and ITU internet penetration rates.
* Number of books published annually in different languages (suggested data sources? Does
ISBN have a database or stat report on published languages?)
* Number of web pages returned by major search engines on the queries of
"Wikipedia" in different languages, excluding results from Wikimedia projects.
* Number of scholarly publications across languages (suggested data sources?)
* Number of major newspaper publications across languages (suggested data sources?)
Please share your thoughts!
--
han-teng liao
"[O]nce the Imperial Institute of France and the Royal Society of London begin to
work together on a new encyclopaedia, it will take less than a year to achieve a lasting
peace between France and England." - Henri Saint-Simon (1810)
"A common ideology based on this Permanent World Encyclopaedia is a possible means,
to some it seems the only means, of dissolving human conflict into unity." - H.G.
Wells (1937)
_______________________________________________
Wiki-research-l mailing list
Wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l