How do you intend to get the data you need to pick a page?
For something like this to work properly traditionally I'd expect it would involve storing personal information that currently isn't stored. Something that would require controversial changes to Wikimedia's privacy policy. Have you talked to anyone about this?
On Mon, 22 Apr 2013 09:54:15 -0700, Cheng Xing cxing561@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Wikimedia Developers,
My name is Cheng Xing, and I'm interested in working with Wikimedia for GSoC this summer. I sent the email below to the mailing list few days ago, but it didn't seem like it went through, so here it is again.
Thank you for your time!
Sincerely, Cheng ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Cheng Xing" cxing561@gmail.com Date: Apr 18, 2013 5:40 PM Subject: [Google Summer of Code '13] Project Idea - "Inspire Me" Button To: wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Hi Wikimedia Developers,
My name is Cheng Xing, and I am a freshman in Cornell University College of Engineering planning to pursue a major in Computer Science and minor in Electrical and Computer Engineering.
The gist of my idea is this: Create a magical "Inspire Me" button in the homepage of Wikimedia sites so that it directs the user to a page that he/she is most likely interested in. In other words, it's a page recommender system.
For example, if a programmer clicks the "Inspire Me" button on Wikipedia, articles such as the Whitespace programming language, Rubber Duck Debugging, etc. would show up. Things that the user probably doesn't know about, that would probably interest the user, will show up by clicking that button. Very occasionally there'd be random things like Stitches, which the user might know nothing about, but might actually be interesting.
I got this idea from three different places: Pandora, XKCD, and my own Wikiholic-ness. Pandora, for its impressive recommender system that uses user accounts and likes/dislikes to track recommendation data; XKCD, for its entertainment through their "Random" button; and lastly, my own Wikiholic-ness, for its eagerness to find random interesting things on Wikipedia.
I think the best part of Wikimedia is its ability to inspire people from all over the world, and it has achieved this by simply presenting information to the masses. In my opinion, a tool that filters and recommends information to users would be much more inspirational. Just imagine how many people all over the world can find their dreams this way.
I realize that this could become quite a big project, so if I get the chance to work on this, I will do a small part (possibly the basic infrastructure of the system) for GSoC, and I am more than willing to continue to contribute after that.
I have some ideas of how this recommender systems would work, but this email is pretty long as it is. Please send me questions and comments! I really appreciate it.
Sincerely, Cheng _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l