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

Thu Jan 14 13:40:48 UTC 2010

Hello,
Thank you for the numbers, Erik!
I wonder why 40 % of the visitors of ksh.WP (the dialect of Cologne) are
from Japan. And why 25 % of the visitors of eu.WP (Basque) are from Poland?
Kind regards
Ziko

2010/1/14 Mark Williamson <node.ue at gmail.com>

> 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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-- 
Ziko van Dijk
NL-Silvolde