Hi Isaac,
I do not understand any Yoruba but from my point of view I see quality
as probable reason for problems you mention including small readership.
Yoruba Wikipedia has many extremely short articles even on basic
subjects. ( Odò (river), Erékùsù (Island), Omi (water), Òkun Atlántíkì
(Atlantic), Odò Niger (Niger River), Samuel Ajayi Crowther (first author
of a Yoruba grammar, first African Anglican bishop) are less than one or
even a half line of text.) It looks like much was written with an eye
on the ranking tables and the aim to have a large number of articles,
even if there is hardly content (Sáyẹ́nsì - science has 4 (!) words of
text). In 2013 there were 31,000 articles. Only 5,400 had more than 200
characters plus one reference. (cf
https://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesArticlesTotalAlt.htm). This is poor
quality and not interesting for coming back, recommending it to others
by using the text on a blog or linking to it.
As for google - I think it IS indexed but it seems not the very short
ones. I find that google search shows me the Yoruba wikipedia. I entered
the above words in search and got most of them. But very short entries
are not visible on top of google search list (at all??). Like I search
Sáyẹ́nsì = 4 words = 25 characters and it does NOT show. But I GET the
"Sáyẹ́nsì categories" which have more words and I GET "Sáyẹ́nsì
aládánidá" which has 16 words. This looks like a major reason for few
readers, because we get most visitors on wikipedia thru the search machines.
So if you want to boost yo.wikipedia and if you forgive me an advice:
forget about facebook, start with the list at
https://yo.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ẹ̀ka:Oluilu_ipinle_Naijiria
(Category:State capitals in Nigeria) and put some content into these
1-liners, many of which until now do not show on google. Once you make
them 5-liners, they start to be helpful and will be visible on the
search machines. And then go to this list of 100 basic articles for any
wikipedia and see that they get 5-liners:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Vital_articles/Level/2 .
(General rule: first sweat, then genius!)
I add a word for our co-readers in the foundation: for many small and
growing wikipedias the ranking list on Meta is a temptation to trick
themselves up. We have the situation that everybody has different
categories for stubs vs. articles and the rankings: Meta official count,
Meta list of 1000 articles every Wikipedia should have, the
10,000-list, the count of stubs on wikistats, and finally the de-stub
definition here at african-wikimedians (some or many of the successes
are maybe not destubbed by Meta-criteria) . Eric Zachte probably saw the
problem in his numbers years ago and so did the "alternative article
count" which kept the tiny articles out, but it never was taken up and
is not continued. I think it would be helpful to integrate it into the
regular statistic count and convince the guys who do lists to agree on
common criteria. The state of Yo-wiki looks to me like a result of
giving in to the temptation and it had its reward by shooting up in the
ranking - but what for?
Cheers, Ingo - Kipala
Am 02.12.2016 um 19:55 schrieb
african-wikimedians-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org:
Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 14:48:57 +0000
From: "Olatunde Isaac"<reachout2isaac(a)gmail.com>
To: "Mailing list for African Wikimedians"
<african-wikimedians(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: Re: [African Wikimedians] African-Wikimedians Digest, Vol 8,
Issue 136 African languages wikipedias
Dear Kipala,
Thanks for the clarification. I agree with your analysis and I'm sure it would be
helpful in moving forward to achieving our goal of making knowledge available in all
languages.
Below are the two major problems I have identified with Yoruba Wikipedia:
1. Yoruba Wikipedia is not indexed on Google and possibly on other search engines too. I
discovered this sometimes in July and I informally discussed the problem with a Steward on
facebook. Unfortunately, he has no idea of how to solve the problem. Yoruba Wikipedia like
the English Wikipedia is a digital encyclopedia. There is no way its contents could be
read if not indexed on Google or other search engines. I believe once this is resolved,
there would be a significant difference. I will discuss the problem with our engineering
team at the Foundation this week.
2. Yoruba is a major language in Nigeria but only 1 of 10 people are aware of its
existence. I recently launched the "Yoruba Wikipedia" page on facebook to create
awareness about it. In fact, I discovered recently that Yoruba language scholars and
students are not even aware of anything called "Yoruba Wikipedia". I believe
this can be resolved with outreach to Yoruba language department of academic institutions
in Nigeria.
Furthermore, I would appreciate any advice and recommendation in solving the highlighted
problems above.
Best, Isaac