<p dir="ltr">Most likely, it is the absolute number of random searches in billions</p>
<div class="gmail_quote">On Mar 19, 2016 6:01 PM, "Andrew Gray" <<a href="mailto:andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk">andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk</a>> wrote:<br type="attribution"><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr">Hi Alex,<div><br></div><div>Stupid question - is that "3.36% of all random-article searches were on Latvian WP", or "3.36% of all searches (pageviews?) on the Latvian WP were through random-article"?</div><div><br></div><div>Andrew.</div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On 19 March 2016 at 21:34, Alex Druk <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:alex.druk@gmail.com" target="_blank">alex.druk@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div dir="ltr"><span style="font-size:16px">Mark J. Nelson writes:</span><br><div><span style="font-size:16px">>Specifically, a small slice of content, mainly English Wikipedia</span><br style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-size:16px">>articles on pop culture, recent news events, and U.S. politics,</span><br style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-size:16px">>contribute a disproportionate share of views. (A weekly top-25 list for</span><br style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-size:16px">>enwiki is at </span><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Top_25_Report" rel="noreferrer" style="font-size:16px" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Top_25_Report</a><span style="font-size:16px"> ). So</span><br style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-size:16px">>if you're measuring aggregate numbers, you're measuring mainly that</span><br style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-size:16px">>specific type of content. If the goal is really simply to reach as many</span><br style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-size:16px">>people as possible, have high page views and unique visitor counts,</span><br style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-size:16px">>etc., then this subset of articles is really the only important part of</span><br style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-size:16px">>Wikimedia's mission--- articles on, say, mathematics, don't contribute</span><br style="font-size:16px"><span style="font-size:16px">>anything to moving the needle if that's the metric.</span><br style="font-size:16px"></div><div><span style="font-size:16px"><br></span></div><div><span style="font-size:16px">One should also consider the fact that significant number of users use Wikipedia as entertainment. As an example of such use is random searches. </span>On all Wikipedia sites number of
random searches in 2014 exceeded 1 billion. Here is a simple graph illustrated this:</div><div><img src="cid:ii_15390cc0259955e1" alt="Inline image 1" width="562" height="414"><br></div><div><br></div><div>~~Alex</div>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom:6pt"></p>
</div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 1:00 PM, <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:wiki-research-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">wiki-research-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Send Wiki-research-l mailing list submissions to<br>
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Today's Topics:<br>
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1. Re: unique visitors (Mark J. Nelson)<br>
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Message: 1<br>
Date: Fri, 18 Mar 2016 20:57:45 +0100<br>
From: Mark J. Nelson <<a href="mailto:mjn@anadrome.org" target="_blank">mjn@anadrome.org</a>><br>
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities<br>
<<a href="mailto:wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org" target="_blank">wiki-research-l@lists.wikimedia.org</a>><br>
Subject: Re: [Wiki-research-l] unique visitors<br>
Message-ID: <<a href="mailto:87zitvzhhi.fsf@mjn.anadrome.org" target="_blank">87zitvzhhi.fsf@mjn.anadrome.org</a>><br>
Content-Type: text/plain<br>
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phoebe ayers <<a href="mailto:phoebe.wiki@gmail.com" target="_blank">phoebe.wiki@gmail.com</a>> writes:<br>
<br>
> I wonder if there's a qualitative project somewhere in here about<br>
> *types* of use -- e.g. if I'm using WP on my phone & my work pc is<br>
> that really equivalent use? Perhaps I am using them for different<br>
> kinds of information seeking, e.g. looking up terms related to work vs<br>
> looking up info on movie stars -- does this different kind of use<br>
> matter for how we construct and present information, or count "use"?<br>
<br>
Beyond the issue of devices, I think this is important in part because<br>
the raw traffic counts (and reach numbers and similar) paint a very<br>
specific story of what Wikimedia is doing and is successful at. (And<br>
what you measure influences what you tend to optimize for.)<br>
<br>
Specifically, a small slice of content, mainly English Wikipedia<br>
articles on pop culture, recent news events, and U.S. politics,<br>
contribute a disproportionate share of views. (A weekly top-25 list for<br>
enwiki is at <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Top_25_Report" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Top_25_Report</a> ). So<br>
if you're measuring aggregate numbers, you're measuring mainly that<br>
specific type of content. If the goal is really simply to reach as many<br>
people as possible, have high page views and unique visitor counts,<br>
etc., then this subset of articles is really the only important part of<br>
Wikimedia's mission--- articles on, say, mathematics, don't contribute<br>
anything to moving the needle if that's the metric.<br>
<br>
-Mark<br>
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End of Wiki-research-l Digest, Vol 127, Issue 15<br>
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</font></span></blockquote></div><span><font color="#888888"><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div>Thank you.<br><br>Alex Druk<br><a href="mailto:alex.druk@gmail.com" target="_blank">alex.druk@gmail.com</a><br><a href="tel:%28775%29%20237-8550" value="+17752378550" target="_blank">(775) 237-8550</a> Google voice</div>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div>- Andrew Gray<br> <a href="mailto:andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk" target="_blank">andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk</a></div>
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