[Foundation-l] Outdated manual

[Milos Rancic]

On 04/09/2011 11:37 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
> On 04/09/11 1:54 AM, Svip wrote:
>> On 9 April 2011 10:45, Federico Leva (Nemo)<nemowiki at gmail.com>  wrote:
>>> Milos Rancic, 09/04/2011 10:14
>>>> [1] http://www.alexa.com/siteinfo/wikipedia.org
>>> We've been using comScore data for years, now:
>>> http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Stu/comScore_data_on_Wikimedia
>>> Alexa is not a reliable source.
>> While Alexa may not be a reliable source, comScore does not provide
>> Wikipedia's position among Internet websites.  So using the wording
>> '5th place' is either relying on unreliable sources or made up.
>>
> The advantage of a term like "top ten" is that it allows for short term 
> variation between information sources and over time.

Not just that, but there are a number of issues related to sticking with
comScore and not having broader approach:

* Alexa may be unreliable, mostly for smaller sites, but:
** Wikipedia is not small site, as well as top ten sites aren't. Bigger
numbers give more relevant conclusions.
** It gives good clue of what the trends are. I remember that Wikipedia
was indeed at the fifth place in 2009 or so. And it shows drop from the
fifth place, which has relation with other observable trends.
** People are going to Alexa to check trends and ratings. We can dispute
reliability, but we can't dispute overall impression based on
differences between our source and Alexa.

* Baidu is on the 6th place on Alexa [1], counting Google at 1st,
Youtube at 4th and Blogger at 5th place. QQ is at 10th place counting
three Google's sites. And none of them is at the top 10 list on
comScore. Willing to hear reasons for that.

Saying that we are one of the "top ten" sites would save us from likely
wrong impression that we are trying to give false information because of
whatever reason.

[1] http://www.alexa.com/topsites