[Wikimedia-l] "Big data" benefits and limitations (relevance: WMF editor engagement, fundraising, and HR practices)

[Martijn Hoekstra]

On Jan 3, 2013 11:01 AM, "Thomas Morton" <morton.thomas at googlemail.com>
wrote:
>
> On 3 January 2013 06:38, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>
> > You don't need "big data" to see what needs to be done.
>
>
> It might help; often it is surprising how statistical analysis can help
> narrow the focus of such efforts.
>
> For example; it is taken as a given that incivility drives away new users,
> but do we have hard statistical evidence to back that up?

We don't even have a proper working definition of civilty, stats of how
many times and how early in their editing life someone has been uncivil to
would be hard to come by.

And if that is a
> true situation, can we identify specifically what uncivil things are
> driving the most editors away (rudeness, templating, etc.).
>

Editor retention programmes have some data there. Check wp:wer on en.wiki.
how the data for the other projects match up I don't know.

> Although please lets do it without words like "big data", which makes me
> squirm :P

Can we make use of big microdata for future projects?

>
>
> Tom
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