We're planning to set up 4 data displays in the Wikimedia Foundation office - I'm thinking at least 19" screens, maybe larger. The intent here is not to appear "hip", but to make the office environment more interesting for visitors, such as potential donors. This creates conversation pieces and memorable moments - which is important for cultivating relationships.
I'd like to request your comments on what kinds of displays we could set up. Some initial ideas:
- Real-time recent changes. This should be relatively straightforward using the IRC feeds. Most effort here will go into prettification, I think. What would be a good IRC client to show multiple channels at once?
- Show random articles. Not particularly creative, but should also be fairly easy to do using some scripting. Would be nice to show stuff from projects beyond WP.
- Show articles matching to current searches. How difficult would it be to capture search data for this?
- Show the actual search strings. I don't love this one, because Google already does this, but it might be interesting content-wise.
- Show traffic data. What would be interesting displays here? Can we show bandwidth usage in real-time?
- Show images as they are being uploaded. Do we have anything like that already? If not, how hard would it be to implement?
- Data displays of developmental indicators - e.g. Gapminder data on Internet access, literacy, etc. Is there anything like this that we could do with relatively little effort? Any volunteers to put something together?
- Geomapping of access - some visualization of the primary clusters where traffic is coming from, based on sampling. I imagine this could be quite tricky - but might be a cool long-term project for a volunteer?
- Visualization of edit patterns, similar to: http://abeautifulwww.com/2007/05/20/visualizing-the-power-struggle-in-wikipe...
Other ideas / comments?
On 14/02/2008, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
Other ideas / comments?
Featured images, cycling every 10 seconds. Click on it to get a list of the last few displayed.
This is a great idea, 'cos 19" LCDs are ridiculously cheap both to buy and run, and you could probably get as many not too old second-hand ones as you needed donated! So if you get an excess of monitors, just use them as outsize digital picture frames - THAT will keep the office looking interesting. And give it that MovieOS look.
- d.
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote: [snip]
- Show articles matching to current searches. How difficult would it
be to capture search data for this?
Capturing search data for this isn't hard. It's all sent via HTTP gets and shows up in the squid logs.
If you come up with a *solid* way of scrubbing private data (i.e. someone accidentally pastes in a confidential message in the search box) please post it since it would be very nice and useful to make search data available to the general public if we could resolve that issue.
- Show traffic data. What would be interesting displays here? Can we
show bandwidth usage in real-time?
Reload these every five minutes: http://www.nedworks.org/~mark/reqstats/reqstats-daily.png http://www.nedworks.org/~mark/reqstats/trafficstats-daily.png
- Show images as they are being uploaded. Do we have anything like
that already? If not, how hard would it be to implement?
On upload ... eh.. Vandalism might make that rather fun. Instead you could just display uploads in upload time order but delayed a couple of weeks to give people a chance to delete the worse of the stuff. You'll still get random nudity and pornography from time to time but it would have 99.99% less goatse.
Really though a random rotation of featured pictures might likely be both better and safer.
- Geomapping of access - some visualization of the primary clusters
where traffic is coming from, based on sampling. I imagine this could be quite tricky - but might be a cool long-term project for a volunteer?
It wouldn't be too tricky. I'll add making such a display using the toolserver access logs as a proof-of-concept on my todo list unless someone else does it first. It'll probably be a couple of weeks.
An additional suggestion:
http://peep.sourceforge.net/intro.html
:)
I'd suggest that anything setup for the office be done as self-reloading webpages displayed in a full screen browser and made available to the general public. Other people might like to leave them running.
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 1:30 PM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
If you come up with a *solid* way of scrubbing private data (i.e. someone accidentally pastes in a confidential message in the search box) please post it since it would be very nice and useful to make search data available to the general public if we could resolve that issue.
Well, if you only post the *top* search queries, accidental pasting of confidential messages isn't really going to be a problem (when was the last time *you* accidentally pasted the same message 50,000 times in a row?). Of course, it might be prone to manipulation if someone felt mischievous, depending on how many searches per unit time it takes to get on the list, but that's true for almost anything statistical like that.
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 5:19 PM, Simetrical Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com wrote:
Well, if you only post the *top* search queries, accidental pasting of confidential messages isn't really going to be a problem (when was the last time *you* accidentally pasted the same message 50,000 times in a row?). Of course, it might be prone to manipulation if someone felt mischievous, depending on how many searches per unit time it takes to get on the list, but that's true for almost anything statistical like that.
Do we consider it mischievous when "Sex", "Anal Sex", "Masturbation", and other related topics show up in the list (as they are bound to do)? I've seen the Wikicharts list, and the things that the average Wikipedia reader are searching for are really not the kinds of things we want listed on a big screen in a business office.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 5:38 PM, Andrew Whitworth wknight8111@gmail.com wrote:
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 5:19 PM, Simetrical Simetrical+wikilist@gmail.com wrote:
Well, if you only post the *top* search queries, accidental pasting of confidential messages isn't really going to be a problem (when was the last time *you* accidentally pasted the same message 50,000 times in a row?). Of course, it might be prone to manipulation if someone felt mischievous, depending on how many searches per unit time it takes to get on the list, but that's true for almost anything statistical like that.
Do we consider it mischievous when "Sex", "Anal Sex", "Masturbation", and other related topics show up in the list (as they are bound to do)? I've seen the Wikicharts list, and the things that the average Wikipedia reader are searching for are really not the kinds of things we want listed on a big screen in a business office.
--Andrew Whitworth
Google seems to be able to do it.
http://www.google.com/corporate/culture.html
"What makes it special is the toggle switch that allows you to view points of light representing real time searches rising from the surface of the globe toward space, color coded by language."
I'm not sure we could have the same visual effects ;), but Google must have some way to filter the porn searches, etc.
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 6:02 PM, Matthew Gruen wikigracenotes@gmail.com wrote:
Google seems to be able to do it.
http://www.google.com/corporate/culture.html
"What makes it special is the toggle switch that allows you to view points of light representing real time searches rising from the surface of the globe toward space, color coded by language."
Yeah, I've heard of that visualization before (I would love to see it in person). What that does is show points on the globe where search queries originate from, it doesnt show the textual contents of those searches. If we did something like that, we wouldn't need to worry about the dirty and inappropriate things that people were searching for.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 12:47 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
- Show random articles. Not particularly creative, but should also be
fairly easy to do using some scripting. Would be nice to show stuff from projects beyond WP.
Interesting idea. Would be a little weird for places like WV, WS, and WB where any random "article" is probably a subpage in the middle of a book/course. Still, it would be a good way to showcase content from around the various projects.
- Show traffic data. What would be interesting displays here? Can we
show bandwidth usage in real-time?
I can't remember the name of the website (anybody have a link), but somebody used google maps to show where edits were being made from to en.wp. It was a cool display, and really gave you a good idea of who was editing wikipedia, where they were editing from, and what kinds of subjects got edited the most. I vote for this, if you can get it working reasonably well.
- Show images as they are being uploaded. Do we have anything like
that already? If not, how hard would it be to implement?
Every couple minutes, an image of hardcore pornography would flash on the screen, followed by a flurry of block/delete entries on the IRC monitor. Good for a light-hearted laugh, bad for business.
--Andrew Whitworth
Andrew Whitworth writes:
Interesting idea. Would be a little weird for places like WV, WS, and WB where any random "article" is probably a subpage in the middle of a book/course. Still, it would be a good way to showcase content from around the various projects. --Andrew Whitworth
There's "random book" feature for Wikibooks --VasilievVV
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 3:35 PM, VasilievVV vasilvv@gmail.com wrote:
Andrew Whitworth writes:
Interesting idea. Would be a little weird for places like WV, WS, and WB where any random "article" is probably a subpage in the middle of a book/course. Still, it would be a good way to showcase content from around the various projects. --Andrew Whitworth
There's "random book" feature for Wikibooks
The "Random Book" feature is a bit of a hack-job javascript, not part of the server software. It performs an AJAX load of a page where all books (or, all books which are categorized alphabetically) are listed, extracts a single link from that list, and sets the browser to display that location. It's not a great implementation, and definitely shouldn't be used for a situation like this.
--Andrew Whitworth
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 3:47 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
- Show random articles. Not particularly creative, but should also be
fairly easy to do using some scripting. Would be nice to show stuff from projects beyond WP.
- Show articles matching to current searches. How difficult would it
be to capture search data for this?
- Data displays of developmental indicators - e.g. Gapminder data on
Wikiwix have an interesting search system that I think can be "plagiarized": search for Wikipedia content, get Wikipedia snippets and Wikisource + Wiktionary suggestions to read: http://www.wikiwix.com/index.php?art=true&action=something&boolop=an...
Erik Moeller wrote:
- Show images as they are being uploaded. Do we have anything like
that already? If not, how hard would it be to implement?
You could use Special:Newimages or make an app which downloads and show them in the screen (i have done the first before, might try the latter).
- Geomapping of access - some visualization of the primary clusters
where traffic is coming from, based on sampling. I imagine this could be quite tricky - but might be a cool long-term project for a volunteer?
Other ideas / comments?
I was going to propose edit locating but Andrew already mentioned it. It's quite impressive, seeing in google maps where are edits coming from. Now if we could only found where it was...
Remember to have this funny tools disable when the screen saver starts*, wmf shouldn't promote some 'expensive' queries... ;-)
*Although it's better being THE screensaver
- Geomapping of access - some visualization of the primary clusters
where traffic is coming from, based on sampling. I imagine this could be quite tricky - but might be a cool long-term project for a volunteer?
Other ideas / comments?
I was going to propose edit locating but Andrew already mentioned it. It's quite impressive, seeing in google maps where are edits coming from. Now if we could only found where it was...
that would be http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/index.html then?
regards
mark
Mark (Markie) wrote:
I was going to propose edit locating but Andrew already mentioned it. It's quite impressive, seeing in google maps where are edits coming from. Now if we could only found where it was...
that would be http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/index.html then?
regards
mark
Right :)
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 5:47 PM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
We're planning to set up 4 data displays in the Wikimedia Foundation office - I'm thinking at least 19" screens, maybe larger. The intent here is not to appear "hip", but to make the office environment more interesting for visitors, such as potential donors. This creates conversation pieces and memorable moments - which is important for cultivating relationships.
I have hacked something based on my "Commons sum-it-up" tool. It starts on a Wikipedia page and prints the first paragraph. Then, it follows the language links and does the same to all of these.
Use
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/summarizer.php?basedon=en&title=Wikipe...
for a spefic title, and
http://tools.wikimedia.de/~magnus/summarizer.php?baseon=en&title=randomt...
for a randomly chosen title. It will reload a new random title after 5 seconds once it's through.
Magnus
On 2/15/08, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
We're planning to set up 4 data displays in the Wikimedia Foundation office - I'm thinking at least 19" screens, maybe larger. The intent here is not to appear "hip", but to make the office environment more interesting for visitors, such as potential donors. This creates conversation pieces and memorable moments - which is important for cultivating relationships.
Attempt to detect frenetic activity on article talk pages. Show discussion and article.
Attempt to detect frenetic constructive (ie, not edit war) activity on articles. Show article with changes highlighted? (maybe not so easy...)
Display pages linked from [[wikipedia:did you know]].
Display some form of the wikicharts - what are people searching for?
Use some of those lists of topics we don't (yet) have, generate charts - see progress marching along.
Draw boxes for the most basic categories of like "people", "places" etc. Trawl recent changes and show bubbles falling into the boxes as people either add categories or create new stubs.
Actually, a simple very active display showing the names of newly created stubs in an attractive fashion would be cool. Or also capture other basic actions like big expansions of articles (adding say 2000 bytes in a single edit), deleting an article, promoting an item to FA/FP etc...
I like whiz bang heads up displays...:)
Steve
On 15/02/2008, Steve Bennett stevagewp@gmail.com wrote:
Attempt to detect frenetic constructive (ie, not edit war) activity on articles. Show article with changes highlighted? (maybe not so easy...)
Wikirage spots this stuff. (Wikirage is not officially WMF-supported, but they get a link on Special:Statistics on en:wp!)
Display some form of the wikicharts - what are people searching for?
Preferably text!
Use some of those lists of topics we don't (yet) have, generate charts
- see progress marching along.
19" monitors for the purpose of looking nice for visitors need pictures. Dynamic graphs! Text is dull.
- d.
On 2/16/08, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
Display some form of the wikicharts - what are people searching for?
Preferably text!
Use some of those lists of topics we don't (yet) have, generate charts
- see progress marching along.
19" monitors for the purpose of looking nice for visitors need pictures. Dynamic graphs! Text is dull.
Err, you confuse me. You want text or you want graphics? My first suggestion is text (though I note the wikicharts seem to be down?), the second is graphical...?
Steve
On Thu, Feb 14, 2008 at 9:47 AM, Erik Moeller erik@wikimedia.org wrote:
- Real-time recent changes. This should be relatively straightforward
using the IRC feeds. Most effort here will go into prettification, I think. What would be a good IRC client to show multiple channels at once?
If you can get some process to print to stdout, then you can hook that into xscreensaver for its nicer visual effects in displaying text.
At LiveJournal I did this with the new entry feed and the "phosphor" screen saver, which produced a screen that made it look as if people were typing the new entries in realtime. (For what it's worth, this eventually became part of the xscreensaver distribution: http://linux.die.net/man/6/ljlatest . That man page also references other screen savers to try for text display.)
Hey all,
wow, this thread generated lots of good ideas, and I'll do some more reading in it later. For a fundraising and networking event we hosted yesterday in our office, I set up the following:
1) Colorful big screen showing real-time recent changes from the largest Wikipedias, using irssi and irc.wikimedia.org;
2) Firefox being controlled by a shell script to display random pages from several Wikipedias and some sister projects;
3) Firefox being controlled by a shell script to display Wikipedia articles about the March 4 Democratic primaries;
4) WikipediaVision: http://www.lkozma.net/wpv/
We'll have a permanent installation, and I'll probably keep 1) and 2) as they are, and replace 3) and 4). The real-time RC display is amazing to people -- so more stuff like that would be very cool.
wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org