Dear "Foundation" members,
I'm a very recent newbie so I apologize in advance for asking questions that are already answered on Wikipedia. My only excuse is that I've not been able to find them. With a whole 24 hours of Wikipedia experience under my belt, I'm interested in the following points:
1. My first impression is that the priorities for adding or improving Wikipedia content are mainly "contributor-driven". I'm not sure whether this is correct. The statistics pages mainly show the growth in Wikipedia users and the content added during the past months & years. Do we also have some statistics showing things like hits per page and also "non-hits"? In other words, content that non-contributing users would like to have found but didn't? Have we carried out surveys amongst non-Wikipedians to find out what they (potentially) would be interested in finding out at Wikipedia? I guess I'm looking for some kind of handle to distinguish between what contributors would like to see improved and what non-contributors would like to see improved.
2. Is there any kind of policy or marketing group that adresses the issues in point 1.
Thanks in advance for your time and effort in answering this e-mail. Hopefully you can point me to the right pages and/or lists.
Idaho 2000
On 8/25/05, Mike Morrell idaho2000@hotmail.com wrote:
Do we also have some statistics showing things like hits per page and also "non-hits"? In other words, content that non-contributing users would like to have found but didn't?
Non contributors can request articles at pages like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requested_articles
Access statistics are available at http://www2.knams.wikimedia.org/logwood/logwood.php
We don't have any logs of what people searched for. This might be regarded a privacy violation if we did.
Have we carried out surveys amongst non-Wikipedians to find out what they (potentially) would be interested in finding out at Wikipedia?
Not that I know of, though there is a lot of ongoing research. See http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research
- Is there any kind of policy or marketing group that adresses the issues
in point 1.
Not really. The Research Network might be the closest thing to that: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Research_Network
Angela
On 27/08/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
We don't have any logs of what people searched for. This might be regarded a privacy violation if we did.
I don't think the enquirer meant anything more than "most searched-for terms" information. Both the BBC and Google publish that. If it's good enough for them...
Dan
On 8/27/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
On 27/08/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
We don't have any logs of what people searched for. This might be regarded a privacy violation if we did.
I don't think the enquirer meant anything more than "most searched-for terms" information. Both the BBC and Google publish that. If it's good enough for them...
They don't actually publish "most searched-for terms". They select often searched-for terms that look nice on their "recent searches" or zeitgeist pages. They're very selective in what's displayed there. It's harder for us to do this unless someone with access to that data (and I'm not sure it is even kept yet) would be willing to filter it in some way. I don't object to showing the most searched for terms, but users should be told in advance that this is happening. I'm not sure that would be so useful in terms of finding things that people are searching for that we don't have though since we're more likely to have pages (or not want them) on the things that are most searched for.
Angela.
On 27/08/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
They don't actually publish "most searched-for terms". They select often searched-for terms that look nice on their "recent searches" or zeitgeist pages. They're very selective in what's displayed there.
So when the BBC say "top searches" on this page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/pan/
they're just lying then?
Dan
On 27/08/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
So when the BBC say "top searches" on this page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/pan/
they're just lying then?
Ditto Google:
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist2004.html
A 1-10 list of "popular queries" is actually a made up list? And you know this how, Angela?
Dan
On 8/27/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
So when the BBC say "top searches" on this page:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/pan/
they're just lying then?
I'd call it filtering, not lying. The site has to be family-friendly (http://www.bbc.co.uk/search/familyfriendly.shtml) so they make an editorial judgement about what goes into that section. It could never be an automatically generated list of "top searches".
http://www.google.com/press/zeitgeist2004.html
A 1-10 list of "popular queries" is actually a made up list? And you know this how, Angela?
No, not a made up list. It's a list of "popular queries" which is what they call it. That is very different from a claim that those are "most searched for terms". They're popular ones, not the top ones.
Angela.
On 27/08/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
No, not a made up list. It's a list of "popular queries" which is what they call it. That is very different from a claim that those are "most searched for terms". They're popular ones, not the top ones.
I've e-mailed both Google and the BBC asking for clarification. I'll let you know what (if anything) I hear back.
Dan
On 28/08/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
On 27/08/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
No, not a made up list. It's a list of "popular queries" which is what they call it. That is very different from a claim that those are "most searched for terms". They're popular ones, not the top ones.
I've e-mailed both Google and the BBC asking for clarification. I'll let you know what (if anything) I hear back.
BBC reply:
Hi Dan, thanks for your email. The top searches are the most-searched-for terms over an hour long period.
Best regards,
The BBC Search Team
On 8/31/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
BBC reply:
Hi Dan, thanks for your email. The top searches are the most-searched-for terms over an hour long period
Extended BBC reply:
... "after we apply one filter, manual, to this list which removes duplications, massive spelling errors and offensive data."
Angela
On 01/09/05, Angela beesley@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/31/05, Dan Grey dangrey@gmail.com wrote:
BBC reply:
Hi Dan, thanks for your email. The top searches are the most-searched-for terms over an hour long period
Extended BBC reply:
... "after we apply one filter, manual, to this list which removes duplications, massive spelling errors and offensive data."
Sorry, I should've been clear. I forwarded the mail in its entirety. There was no "extended reply".
Dan
Angela wrote:
Sorry, I should've been clear. I forwarded the mail in its entirety. There was no "extended reply".
No, the extended reply was sent to me after I asked for one from the right people. :)
I should point out that Angela and I know people at the BBC; we spent two weeks there last fall. That's how Angela already knew the answer to this before you asked. :-)
--Jimbo
On 07/09/05, Jimmy Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
Angela wrote:
Sorry, I should've been clear. I forwarded the mail in its entirety. There was no "extended reply".
No, the extended reply was sent to me after I asked for one from the right people. :)
I should point out that Angela and I know people at the BBC; we spent two weeks there last fall. That's how Angela already knew the answer to this before you asked. :-)
--Jimbo
I'm just applying our usual standards of verifiability and no original research:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research#The_role_of_expe...
On the other hand, I can barely remember what this argument is about...
Dan
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