Hi all.
A number of Wikipedias have either already created, or are discussing, a more visible section on their Main Page to their local information about COVID-19. Some have chosen to highlight a section in their existing "In The News" equivalent or related ideas, some have chosen a sitenotice banner.
A few existing examples: * https://da.wikipedia.org * https://de.wikipedia.org/ * https://en.wikipedia.org/ * https://it.wikipedia.org/ * https://ko.wikipedia.org/ * https://nl.wikipedia.org/
Readers often turn to Wikipedia for neutral information in times of stress, and I think it's great that some communities are actively assisting like this. E.g. Enwiki is getting 900,000+ pageviews each day for their main article this week.[1][2]
1) Question: Does your language community do something else/unique that is worth sharing?
2) Suggestion: If not, you might like to start a discussion with your community about adapting one of these ideas above, yourselves.
3) Reminder: Please let people know if there's anything we can do to help, *particularly if your community is small* and doesn't have anyone available who can easily change things like Main Page design aspects. You can contact other editors for help at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech, or can contact the WMF Web team at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Reading/Web.
Best wishes to you all, --Quiddity
P.s. There are also some interesting notes being collated at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coronation and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19
[1] [This should be all one link. It's just 10 examples out of the many related articles.] < https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=a... |Coronavirus_disease_2019|Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2|Social_distancing|Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic|COVID-19_testing|Coronavirus|2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_by_country_and_territory|Misinformation_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic|Xenophobia_and_racism_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=this-year&pages=2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic%7CCoronavirus_disease_2019%7CSevere_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2%7CSocial_distancing%7CTimeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic%7CCOVID-19_testing%7CCoronavirus%7C2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_by_country_and_territory%7CMisinformation_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic%7CXenophobia_and_racism_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic
[2] See also https://tools.wmflabs.org/langviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=a... for just one example article, across many languages, out of the dozens-to-hundreds of related articles that many wikis already have.
At fawiki, this was brought up multiple times. I think there is interest in incorporating it into the "In The News" section (although we have not all the articles that enwiki has in that section. The idea of a site notice that would appear on all pages was mentioned but some (including myself) are against it. For one thing, site notices can be suppressed, and that can reduce their effectiveness. For another, site notices are meant to be about short-term wikimedia-only topics and using it for general informational purposes is debatable (today we do it for a pandemic, tomorrow for an election or political purpose? or fundraising for earthquake relief? it can quickly bubble up or at least lead to lots of length discussions about valid and invalid use cases; better disallow it outright)
Lastly, analysis of data from fawiki's main page (which gets ~50K views a day) shows that taking something to the main page only increases its daily page views by about a few hundred times a day. Those pages are topic of the day (like COVID-19 pages right now) will get most of their viewership through other mechanisms, mainly Google searches. To assume that Wikipedia's "main page" is the starting page for a large group of users, or when they go to find new information, seems to be inaccurate. Spending time on improving those articles and letting search engines guide the readers to those articles seems to be a better use of time.
I realize my POV may not be popular. I feel like everyone wants to do "something" right now, and putting stuff on the main page feels like a thing that can be done and fulfill one's self of accomplishment. But honestly, I think we're searching for the key where the light is.
Respectfully, Huji
On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 6:06 PM Nick Wilson (Quiddity) < nwilson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi all.
A number of Wikipedias have either already created, or are discussing, a more visible section on their Main Page to their local information about COVID-19. Some have chosen to highlight a section in their existing "In The News" equivalent or related ideas, some have chosen a sitenotice banner.
A few existing examples:
- https://da.wikipedia.org
- https://de.wikipedia.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/
- https://it.wikipedia.org/
- https://ko.wikipedia.org/
- https://nl.wikipedia.org/
Readers often turn to Wikipedia for neutral information in times of stress, and I think it's great that some communities are actively assisting like this. E.g. Enwiki is getting 900,000+ pageviews each day for their main article this week.[1][2]
- Question: Does your language community do something else/unique that is
worth sharing?
- Suggestion: If not, you might like to start a discussion with your
community about adapting one of these ideas above, yourselves.
- Reminder: Please let people know if there's anything we can do to help, *particularly
if your community is small* and doesn't have anyone available who can easily change things like Main Page design aspects. You can contact other editors for help at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech, or can contact the WMF Web team at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Reading/Web.
Best wishes to you all, --Quiddity
P.s. There are also some interesting notes being collated at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coronation and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19
[1] [This should be all one link. It's just 10 examples out of the many related articles.] < https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=a... |Coronavirus_disease_2019|Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2|Social_distancing|Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic|COVID-19_testing|Coronavirus|2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_by_country_and_territory|Misinformation_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic|Xenophobia_and_racism_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=this-year&pages=2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic%7CCoronavirus_disease_2019%7CSevere_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2%7CSocial_distancing%7CTimeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic%7CCOVID-19_testing%7CCoronavirus%7C2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_by_country_and_territory%7CMisinformation_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic%7CXenophobia_and_racism_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic
[2] See also https://tools.wmflabs.org/langviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=a... for just one example article, across many languages, out of the dozens-to-hundreds of related articles that many wikis already have.
Wikitech-ambassadors mailing list Wikitech-ambassadors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors
In reading my quickly typed up email, I see I made several typos! If anything is unclear I am happy to explain. Sorry; I guess relying on spell checkers is not enough for me :)
On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 8:05 PM Huji Lee huji.huji@gmail.com wrote:
At fawiki, this was brought up multiple times. I think there is interest in incorporating it into the "In The News" section (although we have not all the articles that enwiki has in that section. The idea of a site notice that would appear on all pages was mentioned but some (including myself) are against it. For one thing, site notices can be suppressed, and that can reduce their effectiveness. For another, site notices are meant to be about short-term wikimedia-only topics and using it for general informational purposes is debatable (today we do it for a pandemic, tomorrow for an election or political purpose? or fundraising for earthquake relief? it can quickly bubble up or at least lead to lots of length discussions about valid and invalid use cases; better disallow it outright)
Lastly, analysis of data from fawiki's main page (which gets ~50K views a day) shows that taking something to the main page only increases its daily page views by about a few hundred times a day. Those pages are topic of the day (like COVID-19 pages right now) will get most of their viewership through other mechanisms, mainly Google searches. To assume that Wikipedia's "main page" is the starting page for a large group of users, or when they go to find new information, seems to be inaccurate. Spending time on improving those articles and letting search engines guide the readers to those articles seems to be a better use of time.
I realize my POV may not be popular. I feel like everyone wants to do "something" right now, and putting stuff on the main page feels like a thing that can be done and fulfill one's self of accomplishment. But honestly, I think we're searching for the key where the light is.
Respectfully, Huji
On Tue, Mar 17, 2020 at 6:06 PM Nick Wilson (Quiddity) < nwilson@wikimedia.org> wrote:
Hi all.
A number of Wikipedias have either already created, or are discussing, a more visible section on their Main Page to their local information about COVID-19. Some have chosen to highlight a section in their existing "In The News" equivalent or related ideas, some have chosen a sitenotice banner.
A few existing examples:
- https://da.wikipedia.org
- https://de.wikipedia.org/
- https://en.wikipedia.org/
- https://it.wikipedia.org/
- https://ko.wikipedia.org/
- https://nl.wikipedia.org/
Readers often turn to Wikipedia for neutral information in times of stress, and I think it's great that some communities are actively assisting like this. E.g. Enwiki is getting 900,000+ pageviews each day for their main article this week.[1][2]
- Question: Does your language community do something else/unique that
is worth sharing?
- Suggestion: If not, you might like to start a discussion with your
community about adapting one of these ideas above, yourselves.
- Reminder: Please let people know if there's anything we can do to
help, *particularly if your community is small* and doesn't have anyone available who can easily change things like Main Page design aspects. You can contact other editors for help at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Tech, or can contact the WMF Web team at https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Reading/Web.
Best wishes to you all, --Quiddity
P.s. There are also some interesting notes being collated at https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Coronation and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/COVID-19
[1] [This should be all one link. It's just 10 examples out of the many related articles.] < https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=a... |Coronavirus_disease_2019|Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2|Social_distancing|Timeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic|COVID-19_testing|Coronavirus|2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_by_country_and_territory|Misinformation_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic|Xenophobia_and_racism_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic https://tools.wmflabs.org/pageviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=all-access&agent=user&range=this-year&pages=2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic%7CCoronavirus_disease_2019%7CSevere_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2%7CSocial_distancing%7CTimeline_of_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic%7CCOVID-19_testing%7CCoronavirus%7C2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_by_country_and_territory%7CMisinformation_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic%7CXenophobia_and_racism_related_to_the_2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic
[2] See also https://tools.wmflabs.org/langviews/?project=en.wikipedia.org&platform=a... for just one example article, across many languages, out of the dozens-to-hundreds of related articles that many wikis already have.
Wikitech-ambassadors mailing list Wikitech-ambassadors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors
Hi Huji,
On Wed, 18 Mar 2020 at 05:36, Huji Lee huji.huji@gmail.com wrote:
Lastly, analysis of data from fawiki's main page (which gets ~50K views a day) shows that taking something to the main page only increases its daily page views by about a few hundred times a day.
There's room for misinterpretation of the phrase "... its daily page views by about a few hundred times a day ...". It could be read in the following ways:
1. "... its daily page view increases by a few 100x ..." which means that if the current page view is 10000 then putting a link in the main page leads to a page view of 1000000 (this is a significant increase!). 2. "... its daily page view increases by a few 100 views ..." which means that if the current page view is 10000 then putting a link in the main page leads to a page view of 10100 (not so significant).
I believe you meant the second one.
Those pages are topic of the day (like COVID-19 pages right now) will get most of their viewership through other mechanisms, mainly Google searches. To assume that Wikipedia's "main page" is the starting page for a large group of users, or when they go to find new information, seems to be inaccurate. Spending time on improving those articles and letting search engines guide the readers to those articles seems to be a better use of time.
FWIW, as a person who just follows the Wikipedia communities from the outside, I would say that your POV seems to be valid. Focusing on content and letting the search engines do the rest is a valid claim.
That said, I also believe that it's a good idea to have a links to COVID related articles in the main page for several reasons. It aids better reach (definitely what we want). It's aids quick access to the related articles. As it's curated, it's more likely to point to the top articles related to the epidemic and very less likely to point to spam articles that might spring up at these times. Just my opinion.
-- Sivaraam
Yes, I meant the second one. This graph shows it better: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Page_views_when_articles_go_on_fawik...
Huji
On Wed, Mar 18, 2020 at 3:11 AM Kaartic Sivaraam < kaarticsivaraam91196@gmail.com> wrote:
Hi Huji,
On Wed, 18 Mar 2020 at 05:36, Huji Lee huji.huji@gmail.com wrote:
Lastly, analysis of data from fawiki's main page (which gets ~50K views
a day) shows that taking something to the main page only increases its daily page views by about a few hundred times a day.
There's room for misinterpretation of the phrase "... its daily page views by about a few hundred times a day ...". It could be read in the following ways:
- "... its daily page view increases by a few 100x ..." which means
that if the current page view is 10000 then putting a link in the main page leads to a page view of 1000000 (this is a significant increase!). 2. "... its daily page view increases by a few 100 views ..." which means that if the current page view is 10000 then putting a link in the main page leads to a page view of 10100 (not so significant).
I believe you meant the second one.
Those pages are topic of the day (like COVID-19 pages right now) will
get most of their viewership through other mechanisms, mainly Google searches. To assume that Wikipedia's "main page" is the starting page for a large group of users, or when they go to find new information, seems to be inaccurate. Spending time on improving those articles and letting search engines guide the readers to those articles seems to be a better use of time.
FWIW, as a person who just follows the Wikipedia communities from the outside, I would say that your POV seems to be valid. Focusing on content and letting the search engines do the rest is a valid claim.
That said, I also believe that it's a good idea to have a links to COVID related articles in the main page for several reasons. It aids better reach (definitely what we want). It's aids quick access to the related articles. As it's curated, it's more likely to point to the top articles related to the epidemic and very less likely to point to spam articles that might spring up at these times. Just my opinion.
-- Sivaraam
Wikitech-ambassadors mailing list Wikitech-ambassadors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors
I do not believe that the statement is subject to misinterpretation. #2 is the only reasonable interpretation.
Finell
-----Original Message----- From: Wikitech-ambassadors wikitech-ambassadors-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org On Behalf Of Kaartic Sivaraam Sent: Wednesday, March 18, 2020 12:10 AM To: Coordination of technology deployments across languages/projects wikitech-ambassadors@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikitech-ambassadors] Helping readers find relevant articles about COVID-19 - share and ask
Hi Huji,
On Wed, 18 Mar 2020 at 05:36, Huji Lee huji.huji@gmail.com wrote:
Lastly, analysis of data from fawiki's main page (which gets ~50K views a day) shows that taking something to the main page only increases its daily page views by about a few hundred times a day.
There's room for misinterpretation of the phrase "... its daily page views by about a few hundred times a day ...". It could be read in the following ways:
1. "... its daily page view increases by a few 100x ..." which means that if the current page view is 10000 then putting a link in the main page leads to a page view of 1000000 (this is a significant increase!). 2. "... its daily page view increases by a few 100 views ..." which means that if the current page view is 10000 then putting a link in the main page leads to a page view of 10100 (not so significant).
I believe you meant the second one.
Those pages are topic of the day (like COVID-19 pages right now) will get most of their viewership through other mechanisms, mainly Google searches. To assume that Wikipedia's "main page" is the starting page for a large group of users, or when they go to find new information, seems to be inaccurate. Spending time on improving those articles and letting search engines guide the readers to those articles seems to be a better use of time.
FWIW, as a person who just follows the Wikipedia communities from the outside, I would say that your POV seems to be valid. Focusing on content and letting the search engines do the rest is a valid claim.
That said, I also believe that it's a good idea to have a links to COVID related articles in the main page for several reasons. It aids better reach (definitely what we want). It's aids quick access to the related articles. As it's curated, it's more likely to point to the top articles related to the epidemic and very less likely to point to spam articles that might spring up at these times. Just my opinion.
-- Sivaraam
_______________________________________________ Wikitech-ambassadors mailing list Wikitech-ambassadors@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-ambassadors
On 18 March 2020 23:03:04 GMT+05:30, Steven Finell Finell@StevenFinell.com wrote:
I do not believe that the statement is subject to misinterpretation. #2 is the only reasonable interpretation.
Well, I happened to know about the following definition for times[1]:
times (mathematics) multiplied by
Thus I happened to misinterpret it.
[1]: https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/times
wikitech-ambassadors@lists.wikimedia.org