[Foundation-l] Social networking (was: Analysis of lists statistics: community in decline)

[John Vandenberg]

On Tue, Nov 4, 2008 at 5:45 AM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Nov 3, 2008 at 6:54 PM, John Vandenberg <jayvdb at gmail.com> wrote:
>> "Social networking" invokes a much lower bar, as freedom of expression
>> is expected, and so any "content" that doesnt break the law is usually
>> permissible.  We have avoided these issues by having very high code of
>> user conduct, and a large part of that is due to contributors being
>> expected to not indulge in personal expression if that doesnt fit
>> within the project scope.
>
> This would be, of course, at the separate place, as an extension of
> user profiles. So, this wouldn't contaminate articles.
>
>> The APIs are already open; arnt they?
>>
>> If someone built a beta of a cool app that Wikipedians would use often
>> as part of their reading/contributing activities, I doubt WMF would
>> actively prevent it from pulling down the content it needs.
>>
>> Facebook apps are already possible.
>
> So, we are making business to Facebook.

YES.  This is why we license everything under a commercially friendly license.

> The point is to keep users at our site, not at some other site.

I hope not.  If someone wants to blog on a Tuesday, and not create any
articles, we do not need to fret that they have deserted us!

The Internet isnt us vs them.  If anything, it is us empowering other
websites with free content that they can use.

>> It is very strange that you would think of "Wikipedia" as the host of
>> those things.  The "Wikisource" and "Author" namespaces of Wikisource
>> are devoted to bibliographies, and Wikiversity is intended to host
>> personal and collaborative scientific work (OR).
>
> Wikipedia is the most useful place all over Wikimedia projects; at
> least for the majority of users. So, this was the starting point...

Wikipedia might be the most useful, but it has the *least potential*,
because most of the time, we find that the knowledge we can readily
dump into it ... is already there!  (at least in en.wp)

> But, of course, such application would be able and should include
> organization of work all over Wikimedia projects (as well as
> organization of *personal* references; not bibliographies of
> scientists).

The other projects have enormous potential, but it doesnt help when
the vast majority of our community are fixated on English Wikipedia.
Casual readers would probably have more "fun" over at Wikiversity or
Wikibooks, and _should_ be encouraged to go there.

One of the vital principles of why a wiki works is that we promote
*collaborative* pages.  A *personal* references page is fine, but it
becomes much more useful when others assist in the development of it.
We learn from each other.  If someone wants the page to be unmodified,
it can be in the users namespace, and it will probably be left alone.

>> We do need a continual stream of new contributors, but it is incorrect
>> to assume that we need more or less in order to be successful.  WMF is
>> already successful, and if the projects continue at the current rate,
>> they will be continue to be successful.  I dont think we should panic
>> if/when the bigger projects slow down and contributions start to
>> decline.  A good percentage of those people are probably moving to
>> other projects or languages.
>
> Continual stream of new contributors is decreasing and number of
> active and very active contributors is decreasing, too -- all over the
> Wikimedia projects (with very small number of exceptions). (This is, i
> think fourth or fifth time in the last couple of days that I am
> repeating it; I became boring to myself.)

I am not seeing this, and repeating it doesnt help.  I am seeing a
migration of active and very active users to other projects.  I'd like
to see stats about Commons, Wiktionary, Wikiversity, Wikisource, etc.
I would kill to see an update to the stats website, which is currently
very stale, using _May_ data.

http://stats.wikimedia.org/

I don't see any reason for alarm in the data that we do have.

http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikispecial/EN/ChartsWikipediaCOMMONS.htm
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikispecial/EN/ChartsWikipediaINCUBATOR.htm
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikispecial/EN/ChartsWikipediaSOURCES.htm
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wiktionary/EN/ChartsWikipediaZZ.htm
http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/ChartsWikipediaZZ.htm
http://wikisource.org/wiki/Wikisource:ProofreadPage_Statistics

--
John Vandenberg