Yes, I've seen X-tools and it's a good start in terms of breaking down
Articles vs Category vs Talk, but I was looking for something a bit more
nuanced in relation to the nature of edits to articles. For example, does
adding a category to an article count as an Article edit or a Category edit?
I'm guessing the former as that is the page that is changed.
As a complete aside, is it just me or do other people see Asian characters
where the word Article probably should be in the legend for the pie chart?
I'm assuming it's Article as I can't think of anything else that 91.3% of my
edits could have related to.
https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-ec/?user=Kerry_Raymond&project=en.wiki…
.org
Kerry
From: Pine W [mailto:wiki.pine@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, 4 August 2015 10:05 AM
To: Wiki Research-l <wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>rg>; Kerry Raymond
<kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] The Wikimedia Research Newsletter 5(7) is out
Hi Kerry,
IMO, edit count is a mediocre indicator of an editor's added value to
Wikimedia. I think that more prominent display of more sophisticated
measures for evaluating the value of an editor's contributions would be
helpful. Snuggle is a tool that helps with this, and awhile back I recall
discussing a research project with Aaron that would have involved assigning
value to edits or editors; I would still like that project to go forward.
Currently, more sophisticated editors can use a variety of techniques to
analyze the experience, skills, civility and "value" of other editors. Edit
count and the project spaces in which a user edits are just two of many
indicators.
Have you looked at X-tools?
https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-ec/?user=The_ed17
<https://tools.wmflabs.org/xtools-ec/?user=The_ed17&project=en.wikipedia.org
&project=en.wikipedia.org
Pine
On Aug 3, 2015 4:34 PM, "Kerry Raymond" <kerry.raymond(a)gmail.com
<mailto:kerry.raymond@gmail.com> > wrote:
How old is the account making an average edit?
What is this graph really telling us? While I understand what is being
plotted, I am not sure I know what it really means. Every year the age of
the "average editor" gets 6 months older. Of course as time passes, our
average editor gets older. That's an entirely natural effect. I think we
have to correct for that to really understand what this graph is telling us.
I think one of the other graphs "Average Account Age by Editor Class" maybe
tells the story better - not so much as a trend over time (again natural
aging is not adjusted for), but rather that at any point in time, the more
active you are, the longer you are likely to have been around.
My initial reaction to these graphs was "gosh, those extremely active
editors are really contributing a lot" but I am wondering how true that is.
I am guessing that genuine newbies don't add categories, don't add
maintenance templates, use TW, AWB, etc. I am guessing newbies are trying to
add/edit informational content (and fixing spelling, grammar and
punctuation). What are our 1000+ edits-per-month folks doing? Adding
content? Changing categories. What's the value to the Wikipedia of what they
do? Now I need to be a little bit careful here with the word "value" - it's
a bit loaded. How does the addition of content compare against a vandalism
revert or a recategorisation or fixing a date format (I'm running an AWB to
fix dates in Australian articles to DMY format at the moment)? Hmm. Clearly
if nobody adds content, the encyclopedia doesn't grow. Clearly if nobody
reverts vandalism, the content is far less reliable. Not so clear what the
consequences are about categorisation and date formats, useful but probably
not as useful as the other two which are primarily focussed on the
information content. What about an edit on a user talk page to help a
newbie? If that keeps the newbie engaged and more effective, there's a
multiplier effect above and beyond the contributions of the original editor.
Of course an interaction on a user talk page that discourages a newbie can
have a negative multiplier effect.
Notwithstanding sentiment issues, it would still be very nice to be able to
have some basic categorisation of the nature of edits. Article vs Talk vs
User Talk vs Project vs .. And then for articles is the diff about
informational content or "housekeeping". And then to know whether a
contributor's pattern of behaviour is changing over time and whether our
apparently very-productive-editors (by edit count) are being very productive
in the "front office", the "back office" or fending off the bad guys,
or
actually not adding that much value (but keeping up that important edit
count).
And interesting experiment (which I am sure we would not be allowed to run)
would be to not allow people to see edit counts and not see the list of
other users' contributions. It would be interesting to see if people's
behaviour changed if we took "edit counts" away as a status symbol. Would
some people be demotivated? Would behaviour towards others change if they
couldn't establish relative status via edit counts or extent of
contributions?
Kerry
From: <mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org>
wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:
<mailto:wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org>
wiki-research-l-bounces(a)lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
<mailto:masssly@ymail.com> masssly(a)ymail.com
Sent: Tuesday, 4 August 2015 6:18 AM
To: Wikimedia Research Mailing List <
<mailto:wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org>
wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Subject: [Wiki-research-l] The Wikimedia Research Newsletter 5(7) is out
The July 2015 issue of the Wikimedia Research Newsletter is out:
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/08/03/research-newsletter-july-2015/>
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2015/08/03/research-newsletter-july-2015/
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2015/July>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/2015/July
In this issue:
* 1 Wikipedia as an example of collective intelligence
* 2 #Wikipedia and Twitter
* 3 Briefly
* 3.1 How old is the account making an average edit?
* 3.2 Simplifying sentences by finding their equivalent on Simple
Wikipedia
... 3 publications were covered in this issue ...
Thanks to Piotr Konieczny and Kim Osman for contributing.
Masssly, Tilman Bayer and Dario Taraborelli
---
Wikimedia Research Newsletter
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/>
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Newsletter/
* Follow us on Twitter/Identi.ca: @WikiResearch
* Receive this newsletter by mail:
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/research-newsletter
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