[Foundation-l] Where do our readers come from?

[Mark Williamson]

I think there are two main factors influencing this:

# Fluency of the Internet-using population of a country in English. In a
country like Japan, basic English is widespread but real reading
comprehension on the level necessary for reading WP articles is not (as far
as I know at least). Scandinavians, on the other hand, fall at the other end
of the spectrum - according to Wikipedia, 89% of Swedes have a "working
knowledge" of English.

# Quality of the native Wikipedia - if I can speak some English, would it be
worth it to me to look for articles in English instead of my native language
due to greater quality or completeness of the English Wikipedia? If I'm
German, I have much less motivation to read articles in English than if my
native language is Burmese. Of course, this is in purely relative terms -
people in Arab countries preferring English to Arabic for Wikipedia does not
mean that the Arabic Wikipedia is of poor quality, it just means that users
feel that the English Wikipedia is a more reliable or complete resource in
some way.

Mark

On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 2:40 AM, Andre Engels <andreengels at gmail.com> wrote:

> On Thu, Jan 14, 2010 at 5:27 AM, Erik Zachte <erikzachte at infodisiac.com>
> wrote:
> > Today I released 4 new reports, which all focus on:
> >
> > Where do our readers come from?
> >
> >
> >
> >  <http://tinyurl.com/yhdej3j> http://tinyurl.com/yhdej3j
>
> Going through the countries, another remarkable result in my opinion
> is the Ukraine - Ukrainian is not a small language by any means, yet
> Wikipedia visitors tend to be drawn to the Russian Wikipedia instead.
>
> Also, the Q3-Q4 comparison for most countries shows a shift from
> English to the 'vernacular'. Do you have data on this from a longer
> period of time? That is, is this part of an ongoing shift, or is it a
> seasonal effect (perhaps having to do with Q3 containing the school
> holidays in most countries?
>
> To quantify this, I have taken the 50 largest countries, excluding
> languages where English is the main language (United States, United
> Kingdom, Canada, Australia, India, Philippines, Singapore, Ireland,
> New Zealand, South Africa). For all countries I have compared the
> percentage going to the main language Wikipedia and those going to the
> English Wikipedia (in the Ukrainian case: the Russian Wikipedia), and
> also the 'swing' (in the way the term is used in UK politics, see
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swing_%28United_Kingdom%29) from English
> to the local language (or in the reverse direction, if it is
> negative). For countries such as Spain and Belgium which have more
> than one local language, the similar data with all local languages are
> also given.
>
> Japan: Japanese 92.2% over English (swing -0.4%)
> Germany: German 72.2% over English (swing 1.5%)
> France: French 67.5% over English (swing 4.1%)
> Poland: Polish 71.5% over English (swing 4.0%)
> Italy: Italian 71.5% over English (swing 4.7%)
> Mexico: Spanish 71.5% over English (swing 3.4%)
> Brazil: Portuguese 67.7% over English (swing 1.1%)
> Spain: Spanish 60.3% over English (swing 7.0%) - vernaculars 64.4%
> over English (swing 8.6%)
> Netherlands: Dutch 10.4% over English (swing 6.6%)
> Russia: Russian 70.2% over English (swing 4.9%)
> Sweden: Swedish 13.8% over English (swing 8.1%)
> Switzerland: German 36.6% over English (swing 2.1%) - vernaculars
> 55.0% over English (swing 2.7%)
> Austria: German 65.1% over English (swing -1.1%)
> Finland: Finnish 24.7% over English (swing 2.2%) - vernaculars 26.8%
> over English (swing 2.8%)
> China: Chinese 4.8% over English (swing -7.3%)
> Turkey: Turkish 48.7% over English (swing 11.7%)
> Belgium: Dutch 9.5% over English (swing 9.2%) - vernaculars 40.1% over
> English (swing 9.6%)
> Argentina: Spanish 66.2% over English (swing 1.2%)
> Norway: Norwegian (Bokmal) 0.9% UNDER English (swing 14.4%) -
> vernaculars 0.1% over English (swing 14.5%)
> Colombia: Spanish 56.3% over English (swing -3.8%)
> Czech Republic: Czech 44.3% over English (swing 10.2%)
> Hong Kong: Chinese equal to English (swing 1.0%) - vernaculars 1.4%
> over English (swing 1.2%)
> Taiwan: Chinese 45.5% over English (swing 3.7%) - vernaculars 45.7%
> over English (swing 3.7%)
> Chile: Spanish 60.6% over English (swing -2.0%)
> Israel: Hebrew 10.9% over English (swing 3.9%) - vernaculars 12.8%
> over English (swing 3.9%)
> Indonesia: Indonesian 10.2% over English (swing 8.5%) - vernaculars
> 11.3% over English (swing 8.4%)
> Portugal: Portuguese 11.9% over English (swing 2.2%)
> South Korea: Korean 2.7% over English (swing 12.8%)
> Malaysia: Malay 74.5% UNDER English (swing -1.0%)
> Peru: Spanish 74.5% over English (swing 2.1%)
> Venezuela: Spanish 77.5% over English (swing 11.1%)
> Ukraine: Ukrainian 56.6% UNDER RUSSIAN (swing 4.4%)
> Romania: Romanian 21.7% UNDER English (swing 12.6%) - vernaculars
> 18.5% UNDER English (swing 13.4%)
> Thailand: Thai 18.9% over English (swing -3.5%)
> Denmark: Danish 12.3% UNDER English (swing 10.7%)
> Hungary: Hungarian 23.8% over English (swing 6.1%)
> Uruguay: Spanish 72.4% over English (swing 1.1%)
> Vietnam: Vietnamese 31.0% over English (swing 8.8%)
> Greece: Greek 42.1% UNDER English (swing 9.0%)
> Bulgaria: Bulgarian 1.4% over English (swing 8.9%)
> United Arab Emirates: Arabic 66.8% UNDER English (swing 5.4%)
> Egypt: Arabic 18.5% UNDER English (swing 11.3%)
> Lithuania: Lithuanian 9.3% UNDER English (swing -6.4%) - vernaculars
> 9.3% under English (swing -6.6%)
> Iran: Persian 0.6% UNDER English (swing 0.5%)
>
> --
> André Engels, andreengels at gmail.com
>
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