Getting any reliable estimates on our community has always been difficult. However, recently, in official Wikimedia Foundation announcements and such (ex. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Letter/en?utm_source=2008_jimmy_l...) the number "a global community of more than 150,000 volunteers" appeared. I would very much like to now - what date is it based on?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians gives 8.5 million registered accounts. Of course many of those are duplicates, but then there are many unregistered contributors... still, my own guesstimate would be at at least half a million - if not several millions - of people who had edited Wikipedia (in any language, ove the past ~8 years). This guesstimate is based on analysis of a small sample of editors I know and how many accounts they've created (which for a vast majority is ONE). Sure, there are sockpuppet vandals, but... do we really have 150,000 volunteers, maybe as much legitimate socks/bots, and over 8 millions vandal sockpuppet accounts???
-- Piotr Konieczny
It may come from http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm - which is from 2006 and only for the English Wikipedia. According to that site, there are slightly over 150,000 registered contributors who have made at least ten edits on en.wp. That number jumps to about 300,000 when all languages are included (http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaZZ.htm), but again, that is from late 2006.
Stuart Geiger
On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 11:56 AM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote:
Getting any reliable estimates on our community has always been difficult. However, recently, in official Wikimedia Foundation announcements and such (ex. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Letter/en?utm_source=2008_jimmy_l...) the number "a global community of more than 150,000 volunteers" appeared. I would very much like to now - what date is it based on?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians gives 8.5 million registered accounts. Of course many of those are duplicates, but then there are many unregistered contributors... still, my own guesstimate would be at at least half a million - if not several millions - of people who had edited Wikipedia (in any language, ove the past ~8 years). This guesstimate is based on analysis of a small sample of editors I know and how many accounts they've created (which for a vast majority is ONE). Sure, there are sockpuppet vandals, but... do we really have 150,000 volunteers, maybe as much legitimate socks/bots, and over 8 millions vandal sockpuppet accounts???
-- Piotr Konieczny
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 1:50 PM, Stuart Geiger sgeiger@gmail.com wrote:
It may come from http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm - which is from 2006 and only for the English Wikipedia. According to that site, there are slightly over 150,000 registered contributors who have made at least ten edits on en.wp. That number jumps to about 300,000 when all languages are included (http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaZZ.htm), but again, that is from late 2006.
Stuart Geiger
For English Wikipedia, we have more recent stats: [[Wikipedia:Editing frequency]], which is basically an update of the active userbase through late 2008.
I've written a bit about this. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Ragesoss/Editing_frequency_stats and http://ragesossscholar.blogspot.com/2008/12/wikipedia-blogging-outside-wiki-...
-Sage (User:Ragesoss)
Piotr Konieczny wrote:
Getting any reliable estimates on our community has always been difficult. However, recently, in official Wikimedia Foundation announcements and such (ex. http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Letter/en?utm_source=2008_jimmy_l...) the number "a global community of more than 150,000 volunteers" appeared. I would very much like to now - what date is it based on?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians gives 8.5 million registered accounts. Of course many of those are duplicates, but then there are many unregistered contributors... still, my own guesstimate would be at at least half a million - if not several millions - of people who had edited Wikipedia (in any language, ove the past ~8 years).
No doubt, millions of people have edited some version of Wikipedia, with constructive intent.
This guesstimate is based on analysis of a small sample of
editors I know and how many accounts they've created (which for a vast majority is ONE). Sure, there are sockpuppet vandals, but... do we really have 150,000 volunteers, maybe as much legitimate socks/bots, and over 8 millions vandal sockpuppet accounts???
I'm not at all clear how you arrived at the figure "8 millions vandal sockpuppet accounts", nor what you mean by it. However, it doesn't follow from the figures you've cited. Rather, I believe most of the 8.5 million user accounts are simply inactive. Someone made an edit, constructive or not, then left, and did not return with that account (at least not yet).
Matt Flaschen
Matthew Flaschen wrote:
I'm not at all clear how you arrived at the figure "8 millions vandal sockpuppet accounts", nor what you mean by it. However, it doesn't follow from the figures you've cited. Rather, I believe most of the 8.5 million user accounts are simply inactive. Someone made an edit, constructive or not, then left, and did not return with that account (at least not yet).
For me, such editors are part of our community of volunteers. Only accounts used for non-constructive edits wouldn't be part of it, hence logic dictates they would be vandal-only accounts.
Of course, we may dispute whether all volunteers are a part of community; but the main point here is whether the current official Wikimedia Foundation number of "a global community of more than 150,000 volunteers" isn't a serious under estimation?
Do we know the global edit redistribution per users? I.e. how many users made 0 edits, how many made 1, how many made 10,000... a graph would be quite useful.
-- Piotr
Piotr Konieczny wrote:
Matthew Flaschen wrote:
I'm not at all clear how you arrived at the figure "8 millions vandal sockpuppet accounts", nor what you mean by it. However, it doesn't follow from the figures you've cited. Rather, I believe most of the 8.5 million user accounts are simply inactive. Someone made an edit, constructive or not, then left, and did not return with that account (at least not yet).
For me, such editors are part of our community of volunteers.
Okay, that's your definition of "community of volunteers". Lots of people have their own definiton of volunteer and/or active user (as was recently discussed here). But clearly what the stat means is that there are/were 150,000 active users (for some value of active), which it is calling a community of volunteers. It is not trying to denigrate those who contribute rarely; it's just making a different point.
Of course, we may dispute whether all volunteers are a part of community; but the main point here is whether the current official Wikimedia Foundation number of "a global community of more than 150,000 volunteers" isn't a serious under estimation?
Again, no, once you understand the meaning of the phrase.
Do we know the global edit redistribution per users? I.e. how many users made 0 edits, how many made 1, how many made 10,000... a graph would be quite useful.
This can be calculated from the dumps. I haven't seen any with that level of granularity.
Matt Flaschen
Do we know the global edit redistribution per users?
I.e. how many users
made 0 edits, how many made 1, how many made 10,000...
a graph would be
quite useful.
I've done so in my thesis. Sorry to say that I'm still finishing it, so I hope it will be published in short. I've focused on logged authors in the top ten Wikipedias, and for all versions it seems to follow and upper truncated Pareto distribution. I've done the same with mane other parameters (articles per author, authors per article, and so forth).
We have discover a bunch of more interesting things, so please allow me a few more days and I'll post the figures on our website and on WikiXRay page.
Best,
Felipe.
This can be calculated from the dumps. I haven't seen any with that level of granularity.
Matt Flaschen
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
A lot of registered accounts make 0 edits. This makes them neither a contributor nor a vandal - White Cat
On Wed, Dec 24, 2008 at 6:56 PM, Piotr Konieczny piokon@post.pl wrote:
Getting any reliable estimates on our community has always been difficult. However, recently, in official Wikimedia Foundation announcements and such (ex.
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate/Letter/en?utm_source=2008_jimmy_l... ) the number "a global community of more than 150,000 volunteers" appeared. I would very much like to now - what date is it based on?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedians gives 8.5 million registered accounts. Of course many of those are duplicates, but then there are many unregistered contributors... still, my own guesstimate would be at at least half a million - if not several millions - of people who had edited Wikipedia (in any language, ove the past ~8 years). This guesstimate is based on analysis of a small sample of editors I know and how many accounts they've created (which for a vast majority is ONE). Sure, there are sockpuppet vandals, but... do we really have 150,000 volunteers, maybe as much legitimate socks/bots, and over 8 millions vandal sockpuppet accounts???
-- Piotr Konieczny
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Agreed, 0 edits accounts are normal.
If you're if a university or a dorm, and don't want to have the bright orange talk bar illuminating every week (because of other people's vandalism on that IP), a permanently logged-in account does a world of good. Similarly, there's people that are easily annoyed by the fundraising message bar, which can be dismissed, only if you have an account.
Nick/user:zanimum
2009/1/6 White Cat wikipedia.kawaii.neko@gmail.com:
A lot of registered accounts make 0 edits. This makes them neither a contributor nor a vandal
- White Cat
On Wed, Jan 7, 2009 at 5:18 PM, Nicholas Moreau nicholasmoreau@gmail.com wrote:
Agreed, 0 edits accounts are normal.
Please keep in mind that depending on which tool you use to calculate the number of edits of a given account, you might miss edits in articles that have been deleted since then.
I would not right now dispute the claim that the majority of 0edit-accounts are actually accounts that have never edited.
Mathias
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