Hello,
From time to time I ask myself (and others) what is a "regular
contributor" to a Wikipedia language edition. According to "Tell us about your Wikipedia" the definitions are quite different. At eo.WP I once checked a week long (in this August) who was making edits, and I calculated a "regular contributor" if someone * made at least one edit in that week * obviously speaks Esperanto (is no "foreign helper" like someone who does Interwiki linking) * made his first edit at least six months ago * made at least ten edits at all My result was: 71, compared to 141 "active users" and 50 "very active users" (Wikimedia Statistics, May 2008). What do you think about this definition? Kind regards Ziko van Dijk
Hoi, What is the point to the question, are regular contributors entitled to wear a halo or will they get wings to go with the halo ? Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 5:52 PM, Ziko van Dijk zvandijk@googlemail.comwrote:
Hello, From time to time I ask myself (and others) what is a "regular contributor" to a Wikipedia language edition. According to "Tell us about your Wikipedia" the definitions are quite different. At eo.WP I once checked a week long (in this August) who was making edits, and I calculated a "regular contributor" if someone
- made at least one edit in that week
- obviously speaks Esperanto (is no "foreign helper" like someone who
does Interwiki linking)
- made his first edit at least six months ago
- made at least ten edits at all
My result was: 71, compared to 141 "active users" and 50 "very active users" (Wikimedia Statistics, May 2008). What do you think about this definition? Kind regards Ziko van Dijk
-- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
More to the point: What is the point to your agressive reply? If you're not interested in this thread then you are not obliged to be snarky about it. -Liam
On 22/10/2008, at 4:10, "Gerard Meijssen" gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, What is the point to the question, are regular contributors entitled to wear a halo or will they get wings to go with the halo ? Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 5:52 PM, Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk@googlemail.com
wrote:
Hello, From time to time I ask myself (and others) what is a "regular contributor" to a Wikipedia language edition. According to "Tell us about your Wikipedia" the definitions are quite different. At eo.WP I once checked a week long (in this August) who was making edits, and I calculated a "regular contributor" if someone
- made at least one edit in that week
- obviously speaks Esperanto (is no "foreign helper" like someone who
does Interwiki linking)
- made his first edit at least six months ago
- made at least ten edits at all
My result was: 71, compared to 141 "active users" and 50 "very active users" (Wikimedia Statistics, May 2008). What do you think about this definition? Kind regards Ziko van Dijk
-- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
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Liam Wyatt wrote:
More to the point: What is the point to your agressive reply? If you're not interested in this thread then you are not obliged to be snarky about it. -Liam
I don't think Gerard is trying to be aggressive. The point is, everyone has a different understanding of "regular". It is inherently subjective, and there is no point in trying to agree on a definition. It makes more sense just to say explicitly, e.g.
"This study will focus on contributors who made more than 50 edits in the last year" [or whatever].
on a case by case basis.
Matt Flaschen
Hoi, When you divide people up in groups, when you single out the ones "most valuable", you in effect divide the community. Whatever you base your metrics on, there will be sound arguments to deny the point of view. When it is about the number of edits, it is clear to the pure encyclopedistas that most of the policy wonks have not supported what is the "real" aim of the project.
When you label groups of people, you divide them and it is exactly the egalitarian aspect that makes the community thrive. It is when people put themselves apart when friction makes an appearance. A good example is the speed used for mindless speedy deletions as was documented in an episode of "Not the Wikipedia Weekly".
So it is not that I am not interested, it is that I find it a fundamentally bad idea that I am "snarky" about it.. Thanks, GerardM
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/snarky
2008/10/22 Liam Wyatt liamwyatt@gmail.com
More to the point: What is the point to your agressive reply? If you're not interested in this thread then you are not obliged to be snarky about it. -Liam
On 22/10/2008, at 4:10, "Gerard Meijssen" gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, What is the point to the question, are regular contributors entitled to wear a halo or will they get wings to go with the halo ? Thanks, GerardM
On Tue, Oct 21, 2008 at 5:52 PM, Ziko van Dijk < zvandijk@googlemail.com zvandijk@googlemail.com> wrote:
Hello, From time to time I ask myself (and others) what is a "regular contributor" to a Wikipedia language edition. According to "Tell us about your Wikipedia" the definitions are quite different. At eo.WP I once checked a week long (in this August) who was making edits, and I calculated a "regular contributor" if someone
- made at least one edit in that week
- obviously speaks Esperanto (is no "foreign helper" like someone who
does Interwiki linking)
- made his first edit at least six months ago
- made at least ten edits at all
My result was: 71, compared to 141 "active users" and 50 "very active users" (Wikimedia Statistics, May 2008). What do you think about this definition? Kind regards Ziko van Dijk
-- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.orgWiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
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2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
Hoi, When you divide people up in groups, when you single out the ones "most valuable", you in effect divide the community. Whatever you base your metrics on, there will be sound arguments to deny the point of view. When it is about the number of edits, it is clear to the pure encyclopedistas that most of the policy wonks have not supported what is the "real" aim of the project.
When you label groups of people, you divide them and it is exactly the egalitarian aspect that makes the community thrive.
But this isn't about labeling people for the rest of time and saying that this is how they are defined *on Wikipedia* -- it's about saying how do you study people who regularly contribute to Wikipedia, and as a part of that how do you define the group that you are studying, which is an important question for any research study.
Given that it's impossible to study every contributor to the project in every study, and since many researchers are interested in why people who spend a lot of time or effort working on Wikipedia do so (and what exactly it is they do), this is a very relevant question for this list.
--phoebe
A statistician once told me that it is ok to divide people into groups and to collect statistics on those groups. However, it is not ok to apply those statistics to individuals in that group. There be racism and much other dysfunctional reasoning. -- Ward
__________________ Ward Cunningham
On Oct 22, 2008, at 8:30 AM, phoebe ayers wrote:
2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com Hoi, When you divide people up in groups, when you single out the ones "most valuable", you in effect divide the community. Whatever you base your metrics on, there will be sound arguments to deny the point of view. When it is about the number of edits, it is clear to the pure encyclopedistas that most of the policy wonks have not supported what is the "real" aim of the project.
When you label groups of people, you divide them and it is exactly the egalitarian aspect that makes the community thrive.
But this isn't about labeling people for the rest of time and saying that this is how they are defined *on Wikipedia* -- it's about saying how do you study people who regularly contribute to Wikipedia, and as a part of that how do you define the group that you are studying, which is an important question for any research study.
Given that it's impossible to study every contributor to the project in every study, and since many researchers are interested in why people who spend a lot of time or effort working on Wikipedia do so (and what exactly it is they do), this is a very relevant question for this list.
--phoebe
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Hoi, I missed that this was the research mailing list.. my fault. Consequently my answer was not appropriate. With this in mind, it is interesting to learn how the spread is in particularly the smaller projects. In my opinion there must be a certain amount of productive people in order to get to a community that does not have one person who is the "bus factor".
Having someone who drives the bus is really important. I wonder how you can point this person out. I think that someone who is just editing is important but it is not all that builds a community. Thanks, GerardM
On the Volapuk wikipedia Smeira was really important. When he left, I understand that activity collapsed.
2008/10/22 phoebe ayers phoebe.ayers@gmail.com
2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
Hoi, When you divide people up in groups, when you single out the ones "most valuable", you in effect divide the community. Whatever you base your metrics on, there will be sound arguments to deny the point of view. When it is about the number of edits, it is clear to the pure encyclopedistas that most of the policy wonks have not supported what is the "real" aim of the project.
When you label groups of people, you divide them and it is exactly the egalitarian aspect that makes the community thrive.
But this isn't about labeling people for the rest of time and saying that this is how they are defined *on Wikipedia* -- it's about saying how do you study people who regularly contribute to Wikipedia, and as a part of that how do you define the group that you are studying, which is an important question for any research study.
Given that it's impossible to study every contributor to the project in every study, and since many researchers are interested in why people who spend a lot of time or effort working on Wikipedia do so (and what exactly it is they do), this is a very relevant question for this list.
--phoebe
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
You have a very similar effect in larger Wikipedias. In those ones, there is no very active, "single bus"-like contributor, but a core of very active users concentrating about 85% of the total number of edits per month.
It seems that in these languages, though, there is a generational relay in which new active users jump into the core to substitute those who eventually give up, for any reason. So, the concentration becomes stable after a couple of years (aprox.) and the encyclopedia is able to continue growing.
Best.
F.
--- El jue, 23/10/08, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com escribió:
De: Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor" Para: "Research into Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: jueves, 23 octubre, 2008 10:27 Hoi, I missed that this was the research mailing list.. my fault. Consequently my answer was not appropriate. With this in mind, it is interesting to learn how the spread is in particularly the smaller projects. In my opinion there must be a certain amount of productive people in order to get to a community that does not have one person who is the "bus factor".
Having someone who drives the bus is really important. I wonder how you can point this person out. I think that someone who is just editing is important but it is not all that builds a community. Thanks, GerardM
On the Volapuk wikipedia Smeira was really important. When he left, I understand that activity collapsed.
2008/10/22 phoebe ayers phoebe.ayers@gmail.com
2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen
Hoi, When you divide people up in groups, when you
single out the ones "most
valuable", you in effect divide the
community. Whatever you base your
metrics on, there will be sound arguments to deny
the point of view. When it
is about the number of edits, it is clear to the
pure encyclopedistas that
most of the policy wonks have not supported what
is the "real" aim of the
project.
When you label groups of people, you divide them
and it is exactly the
egalitarian aspect that makes the community
thrive.
But this isn't about labeling people for the rest
of time and saying that
this is how they are defined *on Wikipedia* --
it's about saying how do you
study people who regularly contribute to Wikipedia,
and as a part of that
how do you define the group that you are studying,
which is an important
question for any research study.
Given that it's impossible to study every
contributor to the project in
every study, and since many researchers are interested
in why people who
spend a lot of time or effort working on Wikipedia do
so (and what exactly
it is they do), this is a very relevant question for
this list.
--phoebe
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Regarding this, I have had heard different stories about contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded that, while 85% of the **edits** are done by a small core of contributors, if you take a random page and select a sentence from it, this sentence is more likely to be the result of edits by contributors from the "long tail" than core contributors. I forget the reference for that study though.
Does someone on this list have solid information about this? I think it's a fairly crucial piece of information that we should have a clear handle on as a research community.
Alain
-----Original Message----- From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki- research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Felipe Ortega Sent: November 13, 2008 5:33 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor"
You have a very similar effect in larger Wikipedias. In those ones, there is no very active, "single bus"-like contributor, but a core of very active users concentrating about 85% of the total number of edits per month.
It seems that in these languages, though, there is a generational relay in which new active users jump into the core to substitute those who eventually give up, for any reason. So, the concentration becomes stable after a couple of years (aprox.) and the encyclopedia is able to continue growing.
Best.
F.
--- El jue, 23/10/08, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com escribió:
De: Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor" Para: "Research into Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: jueves, 23 octubre, 2008 10:27 Hoi, I missed that this was the research mailing list.. my fault. Consequently my answer was not appropriate. With this in mind, it is interesting to learn how the spread is in particularly the smaller projects. In my opinion there must be a certain amount of productive people in order to get to a community that does not have one person who is the "bus factor".
Having someone who drives the bus is really important. I wonder how you can point this person out. I think that someone who is just editing is important but it is not all that builds a community. Thanks, GerardM
On the Volapuk wikipedia Smeira was really important. When he left, I understand that activity collapsed.
2008/10/22 phoebe ayers phoebe.ayers@gmail.com
2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen
Hoi, When you divide people up in groups, when you
single out the ones "most
valuable", you in effect divide the
community. Whatever you base your
metrics on, there will be sound arguments to deny
the point of view. When it
is about the number of edits, it is clear to the
pure encyclopedistas that
most of the policy wonks have not supported what
is the "real" aim of the
project.
When you label groups of people, you divide them
and it is exactly the
egalitarian aspect that makes the community
thrive.
But this isn't about labeling people for the rest
of time and saying that
this is how they are defined *on Wikipedia* --
it's about saying how do you
study people who regularly contribute to Wikipedia,
and as a part of that
how do you define the group that you are studying,
which is an important
question for any research study.
Given that it's impossible to study every
contributor to the project in
every study, and since many researchers are interested
in why people who
spend a lot of time or effort working on Wikipedia do
so (and what exactly
it is they do), this is a very relevant question for
this list.
--phoebe
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
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Hello all,
I have written a blog post on preferential attachment. It could interest you:
http://www.samarkande.com/blog/2008/10/09/wikipedia-et-lattachement-preferen...
The post is in French, sorry; but you will find in it links to Englis pages like this one: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:Wikipedia_Signpost/2008-08-11/Gr...
And here is another link concerning participation (by the famous Jakob Nielsen): http://www.useit.com/alertbox/participation_inequality.html
Cheers,
—
Emilie Ogez Marketing & Communication Manager
T: (+33) 01.45.42.40.90 Mob: (+33) 06.23.41.43.68 E: Emilie.Ogez@xwiki.com http://www.xwiki.com http://www.wisestamp.com/ Chat: Skype: ogez.emilie Contact Me: [image: Linkedin] http://www.linkedin.com/pub/2/b53/128[image: Facebook]http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/profile.php?id=564738683&ref=profile[image: Plaxo]http://www.plaxo.com/profile/show/77311292653?pk=136b7a032cd7d4ff113634e890ce08305df8e7cf[image: Twitter] http://twitter.com/eogez[image: Friendfeed]http://friendfeed.com/eogez
--- @ WiseStamp Signature. http://www.wisestamp.com Get it nowhttp://www.wisestamp.com
2008/11/14 Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca
Regarding this, I have had heard different stories about contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded that, while 85% of the **edits** are done by a small core of contributors, if you take a random page and select a sentence from it, this sentence is more likely to be the result of edits by contributors from the "long tail" than core contributors. I forget the reference for that study though.
Does someone on this list have solid information about this? I think it's a fairly crucial piece of information that we should have a clear handle on as a research community.
Alain
-----Original Message----- From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki- research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Felipe Ortega Sent: November 13, 2008 5:33 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor"
You have a very similar effect in larger Wikipedias. In those ones, there is no very active, "single bus"-like contributor, but a core of very active users concentrating about 85% of the total number of edits per month.
It seems that in these languages, though, there is a generational relay in which new active users jump into the core to substitute those who eventually give up, for any reason. So, the concentration becomes stable after a couple of years (aprox.) and the encyclopedia is able to continue growing.
Best.
F.
--- El jue, 23/10/08, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com escribió:
De: Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor" Para: "Research into Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: jueves, 23 octubre, 2008 10:27 Hoi, I missed that this was the research mailing list.. my fault. Consequently my answer was not appropriate. With this in mind, it is interesting to learn how the spread is in particularly the smaller projects. In my opinion there must be a certain amount of productive people in order to get to a community that does not have one person who is the "bus factor".
Having someone who drives the bus is really important. I wonder how you can point this person out. I think that someone who is just editing is important but it is not all that builds a community. Thanks, GerardM
On the Volapuk wikipedia Smeira was really important. When he left, I understand that activity collapsed.
2008/10/22 phoebe ayers phoebe.ayers@gmail.com
2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen
Hoi, When you divide people up in groups, when you
single out the ones "most
valuable", you in effect divide the
community. Whatever you base your
metrics on, there will be sound arguments to deny
the point of view. When it
is about the number of edits, it is clear to the
pure encyclopedistas that
most of the policy wonks have not supported what
is the "real" aim of the
project.
When you label groups of people, you divide them
and it is exactly the
egalitarian aspect that makes the community
thrive.
But this isn't about labeling people for the rest
of time and saying that
this is how they are defined *on Wikipedia* --
it's about saying how do you
study people who regularly contribute to Wikipedia,
and as a part of that
how do you define the group that you are studying,
which is an important
question for any research study.
Given that it's impossible to study every
contributor to the project in
every study, and since many researchers are interested
in why people who
spend a lot of time or effort working on Wikipedia do
so (and what exactly
it is they do), this is a very relevant question for
this list.
--phoebe
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
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Desilets, Alain wrote:
Regarding this, I have had heard different stories about contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded that, while 85% of the **edits** are done by a small core of contributors, if you take a random page and select a sentence from it, this sentence is more likely to be the result of edits by contributors from the "long tail" than core contributors. I forget the reference for that study though.
Does someone on this list have solid information about this? I think it's a fairly crucial piece of information that we should have a clear handle on as a research community.
Alain
It was a research by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
Platonides wrote:
Desilets, Alain wrote:
Regarding this, I have had heard different stories about contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded that, while 85% of the **edits** are done by a small core of contributors, if you take a random page and select a sentence from it, this sentence is more likely to be the result of edits by contributors from the "long tail" than core contributors. I forget the reference for that study though.
Does someone on this list have solid information about this? I think it's a fairly crucial piece of information that we should have a clear handle on as a research community.
Alain
It was a research by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
I led a study last year that found that the long tail was even longer than it usually is (i.e., the "elite" contributors contribute even more than they would be expected to).
Specifically, the 0.1% of editors who edited the most times contributed about half the "value" of Wikipedia, when value is measured by words times views.
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~reid/papers/group282-priedhorsky.pdf
End of shameless plug. ;)
Reid
Interesting. So, in summary:
- Most edits done by a small core - But, most of the text created by the long tail - However, most of the text that people actually read, was created by the small core
Is that a good summary of what we know about this question?
Alain
-----Original Message----- From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki- research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Reid Priedhorsky Sent: November 16, 2008 9:50 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor"
Platonides wrote:
Desilets, Alain wrote:
Regarding this, I have had heard different stories about contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded that, while 85% of the **edits** are done by a small core of contributors, if you take a random page and select a sentence from it, this sentence is more likely to be the result of edits by contributors from the "long
tail"
than core contributors. I forget the reference for that study
though.
Does someone on this list have solid information about this? I
think
it's a fairly crucial piece of information that we should have a clear handle on as a research community.
Alain
It was a research by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
I led a study last year that found that the long tail was even longer than it usually is (i.e., the "elite" contributors contribute even
more
than they would be expected to).
Specifically, the 0.1% of editors who edited the most times
contributed
about half the "value" of Wikipedia, when value is measured by words times views.
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~reid/papers/group282-priedhorsky.pdf
End of shameless plug. ;)
Reid
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--- El lun, 17/11/08, Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca escribió:
De: Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor" Para: "Research into Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: lunes, 17 noviembre, 2008 3:00 Interesting. So, in summary:
- Most edits done by a small core
- But, most of the text created by the long tail
- However, most of the text that people actually read, was
created by the small core
Is that a good summary of what we know about this question?
I think so :).
F.
Alain
-----Original Message----- From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wiki-
research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
Reid Priedhorsky
Sent: November 16, 2008 9:50 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
Platonides wrote:
Desilets, Alain wrote:
Regarding this, I have had heard different
stories about
contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded
that, while 85% of the
**edits** are done by a small core of
contributors, if you take a
random page and select a sentence from it,
this sentence is more
likely to be the result of edits by
contributors from the "long
tail"
than core contributors. I forget the
reference for that study
though.
Does someone on this list have solid
information about this? I think
it's a fairly crucial piece of
information that we should have a
clear handle on as a research community.
Alain
It was a research by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
I led a study last year that found that the long tail
was even longer
than it usually is (i.e., the "elite"
contributors contribute even more
than they would be expected to).
Specifically, the 0.1% of editors who edited the most
times contributed
about half the "value" of Wikipedia, when
value is measured by words
times views.
http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~reid/papers/group282-priedhorsky.pdf
End of shameless plug. ;)
Reid
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Interesting. So, in summary:
- Most edits done by a small core
- But, most of the text created by the long tail
- However, most of the text that people actually read, was created
by
the small core
Is that a good summary of what we know about this question?
I think so :).
BTW, what is the status of anonymous edits in those studies?
Are anonymous edits excluded from these studies altogether?
If they are included, is anonymous treated as a single highly productive "user", or is it treated as being part of the long tail?
Alain
It was a difficult issue.
We finally decided to filtered out all annonymous users, consistently, in all our studies (and also in the results I will present in my Ph.D. thesis).
NAT and proxies prevent us to trace down individual users correctly, since the database only stores de IP address, and many "real" users may be hidden behind the same IP.
The problem may be the same for logged users (one real user with multiple accounts) but this is less common, and even discouraged due to possible suspicious behaviors:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Sock_puppetry
Cheers,
F.
--- El lun, 17/11/08, Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca escribió:
De: Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Asunto: RE: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor" Para: glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es, "Research into Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: lunes, 17 noviembre, 2008 4:14
Interesting. So, in summary:
- Most edits done by a small core
- But, most of the text created by the long tail
- However, most of the text that people actually
read, was created by
the small core
Is that a good summary of what we know about this
question?
I think so :).
BTW, what is the status of anonymous edits in those studies?
Are anonymous edits excluded from these studies altogether?
If they are included, is anonymous treated as a single highly productive "user", or is it treated as being part of the long tail?
Alain
I understand the difficulty of dealing with anonymous edits, because many of them might be edits from registered users who simply did not bother to log on for that one edit.
However, I think it is worth looking at how the conclusions might be affected under different scenarios for labelling those anonymous users.
For example, one might assume that the bulk of anonymous edits are made by infrequent contributors who are part of the long tail, as opposed to the members of the core. Does that change anything to the conclusion that most of the value is produced by a small core? If the answer is that even this does not change the conclusions, then case is closed. But if turns out that the conclusion is sensitive to how you label anonymous, then it seems to me that the next research that needs to be carried out, is to try and characterise the degree to which anons are, or are not registered users who are part of the core.
Alain
Desilets, Alain wrote:
I understand the difficulty of dealing with anonymous edits, because many of them might be edits from registered users who simply did not bother to log on for that one edit.
However, I think it is worth looking at how the conclusions might be affected under different scenarios for labelling those anonymous users.
For example, one might assume that the bulk of anonymous edits are made by infrequent contributors who are part of the long tail, as opposed to the members of the core. Does that change anything to the conclusion that most of the value is produced by a small core? If the answer is that even this does not change the conclusions, then case is closed. But if turns out that the conclusion is sensitive to how you label anonymous, then it seems to me that the next research that needs to be carried out, is to try and characterise the degree to which anons are, or are not registered users who are part of the core.
Alain
Anonymous are not part of the core. People in the small core do have accounts. They may have started as ips, but there're too many advantages on registering for regular users. Yes, it may be an edit by a long term user whose session timeouted, but he will log in for the next one. Also, he may be in the core on a different wiki (and editing anonymusly on a foreign one)*.
Long-term wikipedians editing anonymously are long-term on another one or banned users coming with a different hat.
Other reasons could be edits on insecure computers or people afraid of being recognised.
*Addtion of SUL on wikimedia wikis will mitigate this.
Disclaimer: These are my personal observations. So don't take it as a formal study. :)
Desilets, Alain schrieb:
Interesting. So, in summary:
- Most edits done by a small core
- But, most of the text created by the long tail
- However, most of the text that people actually read, was created by
the small core
Is that a good summary of what we know about this question?
Oh... that's pretty, I want to show that around! Care to, err, blog it?
-- daniel
Desilets, Alain schrieb:
Interesting. So, in summary:
- Most edits done by a small core
- But, most of the text created by the long tail
- However, most of the text that people actually read, was created
by
the small core
Is that a good summary of what we know about this question?
Oh... that's pretty, I want to show that around! Care to, err, blog
it?
Yes, it's pretty, but I have no idea if it's true yet ;-). Still trying to get a handle on that question based on what the experts on this list are saying.
One thing that struck me this AM is that, while most of Wikipedia MAY have been written by a small core, it is doubtful that you would have been able to recruit that small core without a massively collaborative platform. In other words, the magic of Wikipedia is that it is able to engage millions of people into creating it, some of whom will become part of that core.
Alain
PS: I don't have a blog yet. Shame on me ;-).
--- El lun, 17/11/08, Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca escribió:
One thing that struck me this AM is that, while most of Wikipedia MAY have been written by a small core, it is doubtful that you would have been able to recruit that small core without a massively collaborative platform. In other words, the magic of Wikipedia is that it is able to engage millions of people into creating it, some of whom will become part of that core.
You're right, Alain, is the same effect that we have identified long ago in other massive collaborative projects (but not at the same level of success, I suspect) like Open Source development projects.
This is only a replication of the same "onion model" identified by Crowston and Howison in:
http://freesoftware.mit.edu/papers/crowstonhowison.pdf
We have detected still other interesting similarities. Again I have to refer to my following thesis for that (I still need 3 more weeks and a couple of revisions from my advisor :S).
Best,
F.
Alain
PS: I don't have a blog yet. Shame on me ;-).
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
On Monday 17 November 2008, Daniel Kinzler wrote:
- Most edits done by a small core
- But, most of the text created by the long tail
- However, most of the text that people actually read, was created by
the small core
Is that a good summary of what we know about this question?
Oh... that's pretty, I want to show that around! Care to, err, blog it?
With Felipe's help, I made an attempt that was not as "pretty" as the above [1].
[1]:http://reagle.org/joseph/blog/culture/wikipedia/contribution-ortega
In fact, it's quite ugly! Here's my current citation heavy summary of the research, still non-too-pretty:
[[ Oddly, two seemingly contrary popular theories were being used to explain Wikipedia at the same time: is the crowd or the elite doing a majority of the work? Wales preferred the latter argument, concluding from his admittedly quick and ``amateurish" research in December of 2005 that ``half the edits by logged in users belong to just 2.5% of logged in users." \acite{Wales2005wew2} Yet this has been challenged and the question of contributors, the types of contribution, and even whether these have changed over stages of Wikipedia's development continues to be an active area of research and discussion. \acites[Wales conclusion has been confirmed by some, e.g. ][]{Voss2005mw}[but has since been complicated when one asks the question of what is meant by a contribution, such as][]{Swartz2006www,Priedhorskyetal.2007}[a further complication is the answer may have changed as Wikipedia matures, as seen in][]{Ball2007}[recently, some researchers concluded that ``elite" contributions are less powerful relative to the long tail of small contributors, see][]{Kitturetal.2007pfv}[though this conclusion is questioned and the discrepancy between high contributing and low contributing editors is argued to still be significant when one changes how the categories of ``elite" and ``bourgeoisie" are constituted for the analysis, such as in][]{OrtegaandGonzalez-Barahona2007,OrtegaandGonzalez-Barahona2008}. ]]
From the way that some of you have been carrying the discussion, it seems as
if some here feel comfortable deriving generalizable claims that culd ring true across the Wikiverse, as if the very substance of certain Wikipedia articles wouldn't have an inherent and significant bearing on the demographic composition and communicative dynamics of online collaboration. I would urge others, as some have lightly alluded to already, to stay conscientious of idiosyncrasies that may exist across a multiplicity of Wikipedias. Since, I am somewhat out of the loop, I would be appreciativei if someone were able to corroborate this idea of cultures of knowledge production that vary from realm to realm in Wikipedia.
There are also the real world, cultural variables which can be reproduced inside Wikipedia. Take for example the study which found that French Wikipedians were much less comfortable deleting others' contributions.
http://jcmc.indiana.edu/vol12/issue1/pfeil.html
Sincerely,
Said Hamideh
Dear All,
I am a Graduate Student working on interfaces which help editors do their job better on Wikipedia. I have been working on a project which includes a Survey that is to be completed by experienced editors on Wikipedia.
My question: Is it fine to post on this list and Invite editors to participate in my study? Or is there a more formal method to go about it? Looking forward to your views and responses.
Avanidhar Chandrasekaran
GroupLens Research, university of Minnesota
Thx. That's not the study I had seen (it was a more formal scientific paper), but it has similar conclusions.
Does anyone know of a more formal scientific paper (not that it matters to me, but some of my colleagues put more trust in that sort of publications than in blog posts).
-----Original Message----- From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto:wiki- research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Platonides Sent: November 15, 2008 10:36 AM To: wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor"
Desilets, Alain wrote:
Regarding this, I have had heard different stories about
contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded that, while 85% of the
**edits** are done by a small core of contributors, if you take a random page and select a sentence from it, this sentence is more
likely
to be the result of edits by contributors from the "long tail" than core contributors. I forget the reference for that study though.
Does someone on this list have solid information about this? I think
it's a fairly crucial piece of information that we should have a clear handle on as a research community.
Alain
It was a research by Aaron Swartz http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
--- El vie, 14/11/08, Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca escribió:
De: Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Asunto: RE: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor" Para: glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es, "Research into Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: viernes, 14 noviembre, 2008 2:32 Regarding this, I have had heard different stories about contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded that, while 85% of the **edits** are done by a small core of contributors, if you take a random page and select a sentence from it, this sentence is more likely to be the result of edits by contributors from the "long tail" than core contributors. I forget the reference for that study though.
Does someone on this list have solid information about this? I think it's a fairly crucial piece of information that we should have a clear handle on as a research community.
Hi, Alain. Yes, the study is by Aaron Schwartz. It was a base premise in our last paper at HICSS 08, comparing his statement to the theory of Jimmy Wales about the core of very active users.
Actually, both are right (more or less :) ). If you look at it from the "per_user" perspective, the core can be identified very precisely.
But your question is focused on "per_article" statistics. It's logical to expect so, since the distribution of distinct authors per article follows a stepped power-law, and you have a lot of articles in the larger editions. If you pick an article at random, chances are that you will, most probably, pick one with few editors.
Best,
Felipe.
Alain
-----Original Message----- From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wiki-
research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
Felipe Ortega
Sent: November 13, 2008 5:33 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
You have a very similar effect in larger Wikipedias.
In those ones,
there is no very active, "single bus"-like
contributor, but a core of
very active users concentrating about 85% of the total
number of edits
per month.
It seems that in these languages, though, there is a
generational relay
in which new active users jump into the core to
substitute those who
eventually give up, for any reason. So, the
concentration becomes
stable after a couple of years (aprox.) and the
encyclopedia is able to
continue growing.
Best.
F.
--- El jue, 23/10/08, Gerard Meijssen
escribió:
De: Gerard Meijssen
Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
Para: "Research into Wikimedia content and
communities"
wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: jueves, 23 octubre, 2008 10:27 Hoi, I missed that this was the research mailing
list.. my fault.
Consequently my answer was not appropriate. With
this in mind, it is
interesting to learn how the spread is in
particularly the smaller
projects. In my opinion there must be a certain
amount of productive
people in order to get to a community that does
not have one person
who is the "bus factor".
Having someone who drives the bus is really
important. I wonder how
you can point this person out. I think that
someone who is just
editing is important but it is not all that
builds a community.
Thanks, GerardM
On the Volapuk wikipedia Smeira was really
important. When he left, I
understand that activity collapsed.
2008/10/22 phoebe ayers
2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen
Hoi, When you divide people up in groups,
when you
single out the ones "most
valuable", you in effect divide the
community. Whatever you base your
metrics on, there will be sound
arguments to deny
the point of view. When it
is about the number of edits, it is
clear to the
pure encyclopedistas that
most of the policy wonks have not
supported what
is the "real" aim of the
project.
When you label groups of people, you
divide them
and it is exactly the
egalitarian aspect that makes the
community
thrive.
But this isn't about labeling people for
the rest
of time and saying that
this is how they are defined *on Wikipedia*
--
it's about saying how do you
study people who regularly contribute to
Wikipedia,
and as a part of that
how do you define the group that you are
studying,
which is an important
question for any research study.
Given that it's impossible to study
every
contributor to the project in
every study, and since many researchers are
interested
in why people who
spend a lot of time or effort working on
Wikipedia do
so (and what exactly
it is they do), this is a very relevant
question for
this list.
--phoebe
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Thx. Do you have the URL, or title? I can't find it on the web.
-----Original Message----- From: Felipe Ortega [mailto:glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es] Sent: November 15, 2008 12:43 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities; Desilets, Alain Subject: RE: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor"
--- El vie, 14/11/08, Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca escribió:
De: Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Asunto: RE: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor" Para: glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es, "Research into Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: viernes, 14 noviembre, 2008 2:32 Regarding this, I have had heard different stories about contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded that, while 85% of the **edits** are done by a small core of contributors, if you take a random page and select a sentence from it, this sentence is more likely to be the result of edits by contributors from the "long tail" than core contributors. I forget the reference for that study though.
Does someone on this list have solid information about this? I think it's a fairly crucial piece of information that we should have a
clear
handle on as a research community.
Hi, Alain. Yes, the study is by Aaron Schwartz. It was a base premise in our last paper at HICSS 08, comparing his statement to the theory of Jimmy Wales about the core of very active users.
Actually, both are right (more or less :) ). If you look at it from the "per_user" perspective, the core can be identified very precisely.
But your question is focused on "per_article" statistics. It's logical to expect so, since the distribution of distinct authors per article follows a stepped power-law, and you have a lot of articles in the larger editions. If you pick an article at random, chances are that you will, most probably, pick one with few editors.
Best,
Felipe.
Alain
-----Original Message----- From: wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wiki-
research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of
Felipe Ortega
Sent: November 13, 2008 5:33 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
You have a very similar effect in larger Wikipedias.
In those ones,
there is no very active, "single bus"-like
contributor, but a core of
very active users concentrating about 85% of the total
number of edits
per month.
It seems that in these languages, though, there is a
generational relay
in which new active users jump into the core to
substitute those who
eventually give up, for any reason. So, the
concentration becomes
stable after a couple of years (aprox.) and the
encyclopedia is able to
continue growing.
Best.
F.
--- El jue, 23/10/08, Gerard Meijssen
escribió:
De: Gerard Meijssen
Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
Para: "Research into Wikimedia content and
communities"
wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: jueves, 23 octubre, 2008 10:27 Hoi, I missed that this was the research mailing
list.. my fault.
Consequently my answer was not appropriate. With
this in mind, it is
interesting to learn how the spread is in
particularly the smaller
projects. In my opinion there must be a certain
amount of productive
people in order to get to a community that does
not have one person
who is the "bus factor".
Having someone who drives the bus is really
important. I wonder how
you can point this person out. I think that
someone who is just
editing is important but it is not all that
builds a community.
Thanks, GerardM
On the Volapuk wikipedia Smeira was really
important. When he left, I
understand that activity collapsed.
2008/10/22 phoebe ayers
2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen
Hoi, When you divide people up in groups,
when you
single out the ones "most
valuable", you in effect divide the
community. Whatever you base your
metrics on, there will be sound
arguments to deny
the point of view. When it
is about the number of edits, it is
clear to the
pure encyclopedistas that
most of the policy wonks have not
supported what
is the "real" aim of the
project.
When you label groups of people, you
divide them
and it is exactly the
egalitarian aspect that makes the
community
thrive.
But this isn't about labeling people for
the rest
of time and saying that
this is how they are defined *on Wikipedia*
--
it's about saying how do you
study people who regularly contribute to
Wikipedia,
and as a part of that
how do you define the group that you are
studying,
which is an important
question for any research study.
Given that it's impossible to study
every
contributor to the project in
every study, and since many researchers are
interested
in why people who
spend a lot of time or effort working on
Wikipedia do
so (and what exactly
it is they do), this is a very relevant
question for
this list.
--phoebe
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Sure, we have started a great migration of our website, so the old links does not work, yet.
You can grab it from here:
http://gsyc.es/~jfelipe/tmp/Ineq_Wikipedia.pdf
Best.
F.
--- El lun, 17/11/08, Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca escribió:
De: Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Asunto: RE: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor" Para: glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es, "Research into Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org Fecha: lunes, 17 noviembre, 2008 2:36 Thx. Do you have the URL, or title? I can't find it on the web.
-----Original Message----- From: Felipe Ortega [mailto:glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es] Sent: November 15, 2008 12:43 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities;
Desilets, Alain
Subject: RE: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
--- El vie, 14/11/08, Desilets, Alain
escribió:
De: Desilets, Alain
Asunto: RE: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
Para: glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es, "Research
into Wikimedia content and
communities"
wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Fecha: viernes, 14 noviembre, 2008 2:32 Regarding
this, I have had
heard different stories about contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded that,
while 85% of the
**edits** are done by a small core of
contributors, if you take a
random page and select a sentence from it, this
sentence is more
likely to be the result of edits by contributors
from the "long tail"
than core contributors. I forget the reference
for that study though.
Does someone on this list have solid information
about this? I think
it's a fairly crucial piece of information
that we should have a
clear
handle on as a research community.
Hi, Alain. Yes, the study is by Aaron Schwartz. It was
a base premise
in our last paper at HICSS 08, comparing his statement
to the theory of
Jimmy Wales about the core of very active users.
Actually, both are right (more or less :) ). If you
look at it from the
"per_user" perspective, the core can be
identified very precisely.
But your question is focused on
"per_article" statistics. It's logical
to expect so, since the distribution of distinct
authors per article
follows a stepped power-law, and you have a lot of
articles in the
larger editions. If you pick an article at random,
chances are that you
will, most probably, pick one with few editors.
Best,
Felipe.
Alain
-----Original Message----- From:
wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wiki-
research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On
Behalf Of
Felipe Ortega
Sent: November 13, 2008 5:33 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and
communities
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
You have a very similar effect in larger
Wikipedias.
In those ones,
there is no very active, "single
bus"-like
contributor, but a core of
very active users concentrating about 85% of
the total
number of edits
per month.
It seems that in these languages, though,
there is a
generational relay
in which new active users jump into the core
to
substitute those who
eventually give up, for any reason. So, the
concentration becomes
stable after a couple of years (aprox.) and
the
encyclopedia is able to
continue growing.
Best.
F.
--- El jue, 23/10/08, Gerard Meijssen
escribió:
De: Gerard Meijssen
Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l]
"Regular
contributor"
Para: "Research into Wikimedia
content and
communities"
wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Fecha: jueves, 23 octubre, 2008 10:27
Hoi, I missed that this was
the research mailing
list.. my fault.
Consequently my answer was not
appropriate. With
this in mind, it is
interesting to learn how the spread is
in
particularly the smaller
projects. In my opinion there must be a
certain
amount of productive
people in order to get to a community
that does
not have one person
who is the "bus factor".
Having someone who drives the bus is
really
important. I wonder how
you can point this person out. I think
that
someone who is just
editing is important but it is not all
that
builds a community.
Thanks, GerardM
On the Volapuk wikipedia Smeira was
really
important. When he left, I
understand that activity collapsed.
2008/10/22 phoebe ayers
2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen
> Hoi, > When you divide people up in
groups,
when you
single out the ones "most
> valuable", you in effect
divide the
community. Whatever you base your
> metrics on, there will be
sound
arguments to deny
the point of view. When it
> is about the number of edits,
it is
clear to the
pure encyclopedistas that
> most of the policy wonks have
not
supported what
is the "real" aim of the
> project. > > When you label groups of
people, you
divide them
and it is exactly the
> egalitarian aspect that makes
the
community
thrive.
But this isn't about labeling
people for
the rest
of time and saying that
this is how they are defined *on
Wikipedia*
--
it's about saying how do you
study people who regularly
contribute to
Wikipedia,
and as a part of that
how do you define the group that
you are
studying,
which is an important
question for any research study.
Given that it's impossible to
study
every
contributor to the project in
every study, and since many
researchers are
interested
in why people who
spend a lot of time or effort
working on
Wikipedia do
so (and what exactly
it is they do), this is a very
relevant
question for
this list.
--phoebe
Wiki-research-l mailing list
Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Solved a slight problem with permissions.
It should work now, sorry.
Best,
F
--- El lun, 17/11/08, Felipe Ortega glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es escribió:
De: Felipe Ortega glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular contributor" Para: "Research into Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org, "Desilets, Alain" Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca Fecha: lunes, 17 noviembre, 2008 3:02 Sure, we have started a great migration of our website, so the old links does not work, yet.
You can grab it from here:
http://gsyc.es/~jfelipe/tmp/Ineq_Wikipedia.pdf
Best.
F.
--- El lun, 17/11/08, Desilets, Alain Alain.Desilets@nrc-cnrc.gc.ca escribió:
De: Desilets, Alain
Asunto: RE: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
Para: glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es, "Research into
Wikimedia content and communities" wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Fecha: lunes, 17 noviembre, 2008 2:36 Thx. Do you have the URL, or title? I can't find
it on
the web.
-----Original Message----- From: Felipe Ortega
[mailto:glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es]
Sent: November 15, 2008 12:43 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and
communities;
Desilets, Alain
Subject: RE: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
--- El vie, 14/11/08, Desilets, Alain
escribió:
De: Desilets, Alain
Asunto: RE: [Wiki-research-l] "Regular
contributor"
Para: glimmer_phoenix@yahoo.es,
"Research
into Wikimedia content and
communities"
wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Fecha: viernes, 14 noviembre, 2008 2:32
Regarding
this, I have had
heard different stories about contributors.
I seem to recall one study that concluded
that,
while 85% of the
**edits** are done by a small core of
contributors, if you take a
random page and select a sentence from it,
this
sentence is more
likely to be the result of edits by
contributors
from the "long tail"
than core contributors. I forget the
reference
for that study though.
Does someone on this list have solid
information
about this? I think
it's a fairly crucial piece of
information
that we should have a
clear
handle on as a research community.
Hi, Alain. Yes, the study is by Aaron Schwartz.
It was
a base premise
in our last paper at HICSS 08, comparing his
statement
to the theory of
Jimmy Wales about the core of very active users.
Actually, both are right (more or less :) ). If
you
look at it from the
"per_user" perspective, the core can be
identified very precisely.
But your question is focused on
"per_article" statistics. It's logical
to expect so, since the distribution of distinct
authors per article
follows a stepped power-law, and you have a lot
of
articles in the
larger editions. If you pick an article at
random,
chances are that you
will, most probably, pick one with few editors.
Best,
Felipe.
Alain
-----Original Message----- From:
wiki-research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org
[mailto:wiki-
research-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org]
On
Behalf Of
Felipe Ortega
Sent: November 13, 2008 5:33 PM To: Research into Wikimedia content and
communities
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l]
"Regular
contributor"
You have a very similar effect in
larger
Wikipedias.
In those ones,
there is no very active, "single
bus"-like
contributor, but a core of
very active users concentrating about
85% of
the total
number of edits
per month.
It seems that in these languages,
though,
there is a
generational relay
in which new active users jump into the
core
to
substitute those who
eventually give up, for any reason. So,
the
concentration becomes
stable after a couple of years (aprox.)
and
the
encyclopedia is able to
continue growing.
Best.
F.
--- El jue, 23/10/08, Gerard Meijssen
escribió:
De: Gerard Meijssen
Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l]
"Regular
contributor"
Para: "Research into
Wikimedia
content and
communities"
wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Fecha: jueves, 23 octubre, 2008
10:27
Hoi, I missed that this was
the research mailing
list.. my fault.
Consequently my answer was not
appropriate. With
this in mind, it is
interesting to learn how the
spread is
in
particularly the smaller
projects. In my opinion there must
be a
certain
amount of productive
people in order to get to a
community
that does
not have one person
who is the "bus factor".
Having someone who drives the bus
is
really
important. I wonder how
you can point this person out. I
think
that
someone who is just
editing is important but it is not
all
that
builds a community.
Thanks, GerardM
On the Volapuk wikipedia Smeira
was
really
important. When he left, I
understand that activity
collapsed.
2008/10/22 phoebe ayers
> 2008/10/21 Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com > >> Hoi, >> When you divide people up
in
groups,
when you
single out the ones "most >> valuable", you in
effect
divide the
community. Whatever you base your >> metrics on, there will be
sound
arguments to deny
the point of view. When it >> is about the number of
edits,
it is
clear to the
pure encyclopedistas that >> most of the policy wonks
have
not
supported what
is the "real" aim of the >> project. >> >> When you label groups of
people, you
divide them
and it is exactly the >> egalitarian aspect that
makes
the
community
thrive. > > > But this isn't about
labeling
people for
the rest
of time and saying that > this is how they are defined
*on
Wikipedia*
--
it's about saying how do you > study people who regularly
contribute to
Wikipedia,
and as a part of that > how do you define the group
that
you are
studying,
which is an important > question for any research
study.
> > Given that it's
impossible to
study
every
contributor to the project in > every study, and since many
researchers are
interested
in why people who > spend a lot of time or effort
working on
Wikipedia do
so (and what exactly > it is they do), this is a
very
relevant
question for
this list. > > --phoebe > > >
> Wiki-research-l mailing list >
Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
>
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
> >
Wiki-research-l mailing list
Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
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Dear Han-Teng,
Thank you for the substantial answer, which helps me to go on.
My problem is that my technical skills are limited, and I am also looking for methods that can easily be applied by all Wikipedia researchers (and to all WPs). There is no problem to tell how many "regular contributors" vls.WP has, because they are only three guys who know each other well.
I have counted with the help of "Recent Changes", and looked closer at those Wikipedians who did at least one edit in one specific week. Otherwise I would not have known where to look. Maybe I should look longer that a week (like three months and then drop the six-months-ago-first-edit-criterion), but that would mean a lot of more work, at least in those bigger Wikipedias.
I have chosen a minimum of 10 edits because Wikimedia Statistics does so for "Wikipedians". It seems enough to see wether a person (usually an I.P.) shows interest only in one specific article he wants to set right, but is not interested in editing after that. By the way, if I would shorten the six months (first edit) to three, the number of regular contributors would raise from 71 to 80. May be suitable as well.
I consider only speakers of the language concerned because only they can contribute sence having text (it does not matter whether they contribute a lot of content, but that they can do). The Foreign Helpers are very important, but secondary. They would not "exist" if speakers of the language had not created content etc. One cannot do interwiki linking and anti-vandalism if there is no WP or no article.
Ziko
2008/10/22 Han-Teng Liao (OII) han-teng.liao@oii.ox.ac.uk:
Put the philosophical questions aside, "analytical" categories (rather
than
social categories) should be linked to your research questions.
Analytical
categories should thus not be universal in this sense, but rather are tied back to your research questions.
I guess it is better to say, "I develop a way to define a 'regular contributor'....in eo.WP" rather than "I calculated a..." because it is
not
a pure math calculation but a definition with your own making (and the following credits AND responsibility).
The below is a point-to-point critique and suggestions...
- made at least one edit in that week
--It seems arbitrary to come up with a number within a certain time frame. Again, if you can come up with a distribution of edits over contributors, either through previous study or your study, that the contributors who
match
your profile have made 75% of the new edits in the past month (the time frame issue still needs to be sorted out about the frequency of edits), it will be much convincing....
- obviously speaks Esperanto (is no "foreign helper" like someone who
does Interwiki linking) --If your research question is about actual content contributor in the strict sense, then you might "exclude" those foreign helpers. However,
you
have take that as limitation because you might lose those who provide foreign links then have real impact on the content. To my limited experience in Chinese Wikipedia, these happen quiet often in entries and issues that involve East Asian or Sino-US context.
- made his first edit at least six months ago
--Again, it seems arbitrary. If you can come up a distribution of users' contribution over time (i.e. frequency), you might be able to develop a matrix that can include certain amount of people that you call "regular contributors). You have to acknowledge that you exclude the newbies with this because you, again, cite previous research or use common sense, suggesting most of the newbies are not becoming "regular contributors". Still if you do so, you have to follow up on your research to see whether
it
is true that those newbies do become "regular contributors" will not have significant impact on your results and analysis.
- made at least ten edits at all
--Again, it seems arbitrary. Find the overall profile. Define your questions. Determine the selection threshold and be ready to defend your picks with previous research or common sense.
Ziko van Dijk wrote:
Hello,
From time to time I ask myself (and others) what is a "regular
contributor" to a Wikipedia language edition. According to "Tell us about your Wikipedia" the definitions are quite different. At eo.WP I once checked a week long (in this August) who was making edits, and I calculated a "regular contributor" if someone
- made at least one edit in that week
- obviously speaks Esperanto (is no "foreign helper" like someone who
does Interwiki linking)
- made his first edit at least six months ago
- made at least ten edits at all
My result was: 71, compared to 141 "active users" and 50 "very active users" (Wikimedia Statistics, May 2008). What do you think about this definition? Kind regards Ziko van Dijk
-- Liao,Han-Teng DPhil student at the OII(web) needs you(blog) _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
-- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde
Dear Ziko, No worries about limitations. The rule is usually simple. Acknowledge them or overcome them, but do not hide them. Still, I am not sure if your goal is a method to be applied by all Wikipedia researchers, you can do without strong empirical data. A universal method requires strong evidence, robust mechanism, or compelling story. May I suggest you if you know vls.WP version so well, you might want to start a model from that and collect necessary data for that particular version. Do not assume you will find no problem in the process. Since your methods seem to be very quantitative, you can try to start small from that. The time-edit distribution (71->80) explanation seems plausible, and that is exactly what I have suggested earlier about determining the threshold from the actual distribution. You might not have the whole distribution at this moment, but it sounds much better if you at least provide a concrete example to explain why you pick that number. Still, your definition will be much more definitive if you have solid overall data, previous study, etc. The more supporting material you have, the stronger the threshold number that you pick. (you then can change "may be" into "more likely") Again, as for the foreign helpers, I do think it depends on contexts and the questions you are asking. Try to think how do you apply that model into minority language or dialect on other Wikipedia projects. It is not as simple as you imagine to be, such as Latin, Hakka, etc. Also, since the machine-translated content across Wikipedia, though not allowed, is still quiet common. You have to define what do you mean by foreign helpers or native contributors. It is not totally impossible for a foreign helper to have a native account. Some foreign helpers may read but does not write, so their contribution pattern may be different. Having said that, I guess on this point you can simply say that it is not of your research interest and treat them as outliers (as in quantitative methods). Do remember to document that you do so as you do. Some people get offended, I guess, because you seem to make a hasty generalization and a strong definition without enough evidence. The first version you propose "I calculate...." is very problematic in this regard. Research is always a balance between making things forward and solid steps. The suggestions that I made are not designed to slow you down or stop you, but rather a warm reminder that you jump too fast. Reagle's research uses the self-reported category of "active users" can provide some dimension on self-perception. It might be interesting to see how the two dimensions (perceived and edit frequency) match or mismatch in the future. It is through reviewing previous work that you can make solid advance, though sometimes it is felt to be a drag.....
hanteng
Ziko van Dijk wrote:
Dear Han-Teng,
Thank you for the substantial answer, which helps me to go on.
My problem is that my technical skills are limited, and I am also looking for methods that can easily be applied by all Wikipedia researchers (and to all WPs). There is no problem to tell how many "regular contributors" vls.WP has, because they are only three guys who know each other well.
I have counted with the help of "Recent Changes", and looked closer at those Wikipedians who did at least one edit in one specific week. Otherwise I would not have known where to look. Maybe I should look longer that a week (like three months and then drop the six-months-ago-first-edit-criterion), but that would mean a lot of more work, at least in those bigger Wikipedias.
I have chosen a minimum of 10 edits because Wikimedia Statistics does so for "Wikipedians". It seems enough to see wether a person (usually an I.P.) shows interest only in one specific article he wants to set right, but is not interested in editing after that. By the way, if I would shorten the six months (first edit) to three, the number of regular contributors would raise from 71 to 80. May be suitable as well.
I consider only speakers of the language concerned because only they can contribute sence having text (it does not matter whether they contribute a lot of content, but that they can do). The Foreign Helpers are very important, but secondary. They would not "exist" if speakers of the language had not created content etc. One cannot do interwiki linking and anti-vandalism if there is no WP or no article.
Ziko
2008/10/22 Han-Teng Liao (OII) <han-teng.liao@oii.ox.ac.uk mailto:han-teng.liao@oii.ox.ac.uk>:
Put the philosophical questions aside, "analytical" categories
(rather than
social categories) should be linked to your research questions.
Analytical
categories should thus not be universal in this sense, but rather
are tied
back to your research questions.
I guess it is better to say, "I develop a way to define a 'regular contributor'....in eo.WP" rather than "I calculated a..." because it
is not
a pure math calculation but a definition with your own making (and the following credits AND responsibility).
The below is a point-to-point critique and suggestions...
- made at least one edit in that week
--It seems arbitrary to come up with a number within a certain time
frame.
Again, if you can come up with a distribution of edits over
contributors,
either through previous study or your study, that the contributors
who match
your profile have made 75% of the new edits in the past month (the time frame issue still needs to be sorted out about the frequency of
edits), it
will be much convincing....
- obviously speaks Esperanto (is no "foreign helper" like someone who
does Interwiki linking) --If your research question is about actual content contributor in the strict sense, then you might "exclude" those foreign helpers.
However, you
have take that as limitation because you might lose those who provide foreign links then have real impact on the content. To my limited experience in Chinese Wikipedia, these happen quiet often in entries and issues that involve East Asian or Sino-US context.
- made his first edit at least six months ago
--Again, it seems arbitrary. If you can come up a distribution of
users'
contribution over time (i.e. frequency), you might be able to develop a matrix that can include certain amount of people that you call "regular contributors). You have to acknowledge that you exclude the newbies
with
this because you, again, cite previous research or use common sense, suggesting most of the newbies are not becoming "regular contributors". Still if you do so, you have to follow up on your research to see
whether it
is true that those newbies do become "regular contributors" will not
have
significant impact on your results and analysis.
- made at least ten edits at all
--Again, it seems arbitrary. Find the overall profile. Define your questions. Determine the selection threshold and be ready to defend
your
picks with previous research or common sense.
Ziko van Dijk wrote:
Hello,
From time to time I ask myself (and others) what is a "regular
contributor" to a Wikipedia language edition. According to "Tell us about your Wikipedia" the definitions are quite different. At eo.WP I once checked a week long (in this August) who was making edits, and I calculated a "regular contributor" if someone
- made at least one edit in that week
- obviously speaks Esperanto (is no "foreign helper" like someone who
does Interwiki linking)
- made his first edit at least six months ago
- made at least ten edits at all
My result was: 71, compared to 141 "active users" and 50 "very active users" (Wikimedia Statistics, May 2008). What do you think about this definition? Kind regards Ziko van Dijk
-- Liao,Han-Teng DPhil student at the OII(web) needs you(blog) _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
mailto:Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
-- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
Hello,
I have distinguished four ways of counting Wikipedians: - Wikimedia Statistics, with "Wikipedians", "active" and "very active users"; like often, Zachte's Statistics are great, but easily misleading. -Looking at user pages with babel lists; but not all active people have babel lists (or user pages or are registered), and some people's only edit at all is creating a user page with a babel list. Often there are many babel lists indicating level zero, sometimes even more than native speakers. - Asking Wikipedians about what they know or what they estimate. For that, a definition is important, of course, especially for the bigger WPs. The small ones have few fluctuation. - Counting them according to the edits people make.
I have tried to outline a workable definition, as I explained. My observations at Recent Changes show that in many tiny WPs (I call them Micro-WPs) most of the activity is vandalism, countervandalism and bot activity, mostly interwiki linking. The interwiki linking relates usually to "geographical stubs". This is true also for nearly all human "Foreign helpers": They took a picture of their home town, put it in Commons, and integrate it into articles of all language editions of that town (and the like). So, without the bot generated pseudo content there would hardly be any activity at all.
In my definition it is not important whether a foreign helper is a native speaker, he can also contribute with a lower level. If necessary, I look at the kind of edits. In nearly all cases it was very obvious whether the edit was made knowing the language or not. (Certainly if considered only editors with at least 10 edits.) For example, I am not a native speaker of Dutch, and do not often contribute to nl.WP, but according to my edits and my definition I am a "regular contributor" of nl.WP, not a Foreign helper.
Take vo.WP for example. According to WM Statistics, it has ca. 16 "very active users" a month. According to the babel lists, two persons indicate "level 2", and three "level" 1. 58 incidate "zero". Recent changes show that content contributions come only from the five people "knowing" Volapük.
My own concern with my definition is that it I should raise the minimum number of edits of a regular contributor. Also the period of observation should be longer. But that would make it more work to do the observation; counting ten edits is faster than using the "user edit counter". Maybe a developer could create a tool that simplifies the work, with a human being only to be needed for telling who is a content contributor and not a Foreign helper.
Ziko
P.S.: I must say that I find some reactions on this mailing list a little bit strange. I am simply asking what you think about my definition of a regular contributor, trying to get a better picture of Wikipedia language editions in comparison.
I am willing to explain what I mean by this or that expression, and I stand open for all kind of suggestions to improve the definition. (Yes, a definition is finally subjective and depends on the researcher's interests.) Although I have become familiar with a number of language editions, I believe that the members of this mailing list know al lot about the issue and have ideas; and I received some good ideas for which I am grateful.
But I do not see where I am "dividing the community" or "imagine it too simple". Of course I present things first in a short version, that does not mean that I have not thought them through before asking others. (Maybe I understood some remarks wrongly, and vice versa.)
2008/10/22 Han-Teng Liao (OII) han-teng.liao@oii.ox.ac.uk
Dear Ziko, No worries about limitations. The rule is usually simple. Acknowledge them or overcome them, but do not hide them. Still, I am not sure if your goal is a method to be applied by all Wikipedia researchers, you can do without strong empirical data. A universal method requires strong evidence, robust mechanism, or compelling story. May I suggest you if you know vls.WP version so well, you might want to start a model from that and collect necessary data for that particular version. Do not assume you will find no problem in the process. Since your methods seem to be very quantitative, you can try to start small from that. The time-edit distribution (71->80) explanation seems plausible, and that is exactly what I have suggested earlier about determining the threshold from the actual distribution. You might not have the whole distribution at this moment, but it sounds much better if you at least provide a concrete example to explain why you pick that number. Still, your definition will be much more definitive if you have solid overall data, previous study, etc. The more supporting material you have, the stronger the threshold number that you pick. (you then can change "may be" into "more likely") Again, as for the foreign helpers, I do think it depends on contexts and the questions you are asking. Try to think how do you apply that model into minority language or dialect on other Wikipedia projects. It is not as simple as you imagine to be, such as Latin, Hakka, etc. Also, since the machine-translated content across Wikipedia, though not allowed, is still quiet common. You have to define what do you mean by foreign helpers or native contributors. It is not totally impossible for a foreign helper to have a native account. Some foreign helpers may read but does not write, so their contribution pattern may be different. Having said that, I guess on this point you can simply say that it is not of your research interest and treat them as outliers (as in quantitative methods). Do remember to document that you do so as you do. Some people get offended, I guess, because you seem to make a hasty generalization and a strong definition without enough evidence. The first version you propose "I calculate...." is very problematic in this regard. Research is always a balance between making things forward and solid steps. The suggestions that I made are not designed to slow you down or stop you, but rather a warm reminder that you jump too fast. Reagle's research uses the self-reported category of "active users" can provide some dimension on self-perception. It might be interesting to see how the two dimensions (perceived and edit frequency) match or mismatch in the future. It is through reviewing previous work that you can make solid advance, though sometimes it is felt to be a drag.....
hanteng
Ziko van Dijk wrote:
Dear Han-Teng,
Thank you for the substantial answer, which helps me to go on.
My problem is that my technical skills are limited, and I am also looking for methods that can easily be applied by all Wikipedia researchers (and to all WPs). There is no problem to tell how many "regular contributors" vls.WP has, because they are only three guys who know each other well.
I have counted with the help of "Recent Changes", and looked closer at those Wikipedians who did at least one edit in one specific week. Otherwise I would not have known where to look. Maybe I should look longer that a week (like three months and then drop the six-months-ago-first-edit-criterion), but that would mean a lot of more work, at least in those bigger Wikipedias.
I have chosen a minimum of 10 edits because Wikimedia Statistics does so for "Wikipedians". It seems enough to see wether a person (usually an I.P.) shows interest only in one specific article he wants to set right, but is not interested in editing after that. By the way, if I would shorten the six months (first edit) to three, the number of regular contributors would raise from 71 to 80. May be suitable as well.
I consider only speakers of the language concerned because only they can contribute sence having text (it does not matter whether they contribute a lot of content, but that they can do). The Foreign Helpers are very important, but secondary. They would not "exist" if speakers of the language had not created content etc. One cannot do interwiki linking and anti-vandalism if there is no WP or no article.
Ziko
2008/10/22 Han-Teng Liao (OII) <han-teng.liao@oii.ox.ac.uk mailto:han-teng.liao@oii.ox.ac.uk>:
Put the philosophical questions aside, "analytical" categories
(rather than
social categories) should be linked to your research questions.
Analytical
categories should thus not be universal in this sense, but rather
are tied
back to your research questions.
I guess it is better to say, "I develop a way to define a 'regular contributor'....in eo.WP" rather than "I calculated a..." because it
is not
a pure math calculation but a definition with your own making (and the following credits AND responsibility).
The below is a point-to-point critique and suggestions...
- made at least one edit in that week
--It seems arbitrary to come up with a number within a certain time
frame.
Again, if you can come up with a distribution of edits over
contributors,
either through previous study or your study, that the contributors
who match
your profile have made 75% of the new edits in the past month (the time frame issue still needs to be sorted out about the frequency of
edits), it
will be much convincing....
- obviously speaks Esperanto (is no "foreign helper" like someone who
does Interwiki linking) --If your research question is about actual content contributor in the strict sense, then you might "exclude" those foreign helpers.
However, you
have take that as limitation because you might lose those who provide foreign links then have real impact on the content. To my limited experience in Chinese Wikipedia, these happen quiet often in entries
and
issues that involve East Asian or Sino-US context.
- made his first edit at least six months ago
--Again, it seems arbitrary. If you can come up a distribution of
users'
contribution over time (i.e. frequency), you might be able to develop a matrix that can include certain amount of people that you call "regular contributors). You have to acknowledge that you exclude the newbies
with
this because you, again, cite previous research or use common sense, suggesting most of the newbies are not becoming "regular contributors". Still if you do so, you have to follow up on your research to see
whether it
is true that those newbies do become "regular contributors" will not
have
significant impact on your results and analysis.
- made at least ten edits at all
--Again, it seems arbitrary. Find the overall profile. Define your questions. Determine the selection threshold and be ready to defend
your
picks with previous research or common sense.
Ziko van Dijk wrote:
Hello,
From time to time I ask myself (and others) what is a "regular
contributor" to a Wikipedia language edition. According to "Tell us about your Wikipedia" the definitions are quite different. At eo.WP I once checked a week long (in this August) who was making edits, and I calculated a "regular contributor" if someone
- made at least one edit in that week
- obviously speaks Esperanto (is no "foreign helper" like someone who
does Interwiki linking)
- made his first edit at least six months ago
- made at least ten edits at all
My result was: 71, compared to 141 "active users" and 50 "very active users" (Wikimedia Statistics, May 2008). What do you think about this definition? Kind regards Ziko van Dijk
-- Liao,Han-Teng DPhil student at the OII(web) needs you(blog) _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
mailto:Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
-- Ziko van Dijk NL-Silvolde
Wiki-research-l mailing list Wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
-- *Liao http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%E5%BB%96,Han http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%E6%BC%A2-Teng http://zhongwen.com/cgi-bin/zipux2.cgi?b5=%E9%A8%B0* DPhil student at the OII http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/hanteng/about/(web) needs you http://people.oii.ox.ac.uk/hanteng/(blog)
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Ziko van Dijk wrote:
My own concern with my definition is that it I should raise the minimum number of edits of a regular contributor. Also the period of observation should be longer. But that would make it more work to do the observation; counting ten edits is faster than using the "user edit counter". Maybe a developer could create a tool that simplifies the work, with a human being only to be needed for telling who is a content contributor and not a Foreign helper.
Well, on the user table there are the number of user edits and registering time, which would really filter it.
(Note that some people registration is much earlier than real edit beginning, specially with SUL automatic account creations. Plus, if the first edit just creates a user page and there're no edits on 5 months, it may not really count. OTOH, an edit in talk or project should be as relevant as one on main. So perhaps exclude edits on User: and User talk?)
On Tuesday 21 October 2008, Ziko van Dijk wrote:
::Archived at: http://marc.info/?i=dcb629f40810210852i22347d92qe56f078b6e7dbc38@mail.gmail....
Hello,
From time to time I ask myself (and others) what is a "regular
contributor" to a Wikipedia language edition.
How categories are constituted are central to the findings one claims. (As Han-Teng said, these are analytical categories and we are researchers and on a research list, meaning we're not making judgements of worth, but trying to understand a phenomenon.) If one looks at the whole line of research on "elite v. bourgeoisie" it turns out that researchers' finding differ based on how they define "contribution" (small tweaks, winnowing, talk page usage, integration/flow edits) and the classes of users (elite and bourgeoisie) -- this latter point about classes of users can be seen in (Ortega and Gonzalez-Barahona 2007, Ortega and Gonzalez-Barahona 2008). But, as a (not-very-active) Wikipedian, I'm grateful for all such contributions.
In my usage of "active" users [1] and admins [2], I rely upon the natives' categorization ;).
[1]:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:About&oldid=21649628... [2]:http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:List_of_administrators&a...
Ziko's definition sounds appropriate to me and I think it's a good question as this community at some point might want to move towards consistent definitions for such things.
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