Wikimedia-l January 2013

144 participants
129 discussions

[Foundation-l] Improving search in Wikipedia through quality and concept discovery
by Brian J Mingus 09 Sep '22

09 Sep '22

This paper (first reference) is the result of a class project I was part of almost two years ago for CSCI 5417 Information Retrieval Systems. It builds on a class project I did in CSCI 5832 Natural Language Processing and which I presented at Wikimania '07. The project was very late as we didn't send the final paper in until the day before new years. This technical report was never really announced that I recall so I thought it would be interesting to look briefly at the results. The goal of this paper was to break articles down into surface features and latent features and then use those to study the rating system being used, predict article quality and rank results in a search engine. We used the [[random forests]] classifier which allowed us to analyze the contribution of each feature to performance by looking directly at the weights that were assigned. While the surface analysis was performed on the whole english wikipedia, the latent analysis was performed on the simple english wikipedia (it is more expensive to compute). = Surface features = * Readability measures are the single best predictor of quality that I have found, as defined by the Wikipedia Editorial Team (WET). The [[Automated Readability Index]], [[Gunning Fog Index]] and [[Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level]] were the strongest predictors, followed by length of article html, number of paragraphs, [[Flesh Reading Ease]], [[Smog Grading]], number of internal links, [[Laesbarhedsindex Readability Formula]], number of words and number of references. Weakly predictive were number of to be's, number of sentences, [[Coleman-Liau Index]], number of templates, PageRank, number of external links, number of relative links. Not predictive (overall - see the end of section 2 for the per-rating score breakdown): Number of h2 or h3's, number of conjunctions, number of images*, average word length, number of h4's, number of prepositions, number of pronouns, number of interlanguage links, average syllables per word, number of nominalizations, article age (based on page id), proportion of questions, average sentence length. :* Number of images was actually by far the single strongest predictor of any class, but only for Featured articles. Because it was so good at picking out featured articles and somewhat good at picking out A and G articles the classifier was confused in so many cases that the overall contribution of this feature to classification performance is zero. :* Number of external links is strongly predictive of Featured articles. :* The B class is highly distinctive. It has a strong "signature," with high predictive value assigned to many features. The Featured class is also very distinctive. F, B and S (Stop/Stub) contain the most information. :* A is the least distinct class, not being very different from F or G. = Latent features = The algorithm used for latent analysis, which is an analysis of the occurence of words in every document with respect to the link structure of the encyclopedia ("concepts"), is [[Latent Dirichlet Allocation]]. This part of the analysis was done by CS PhD student Praful Mangalath. An example of what can be done with the result of this analysis is that you provide a word (a search query) such as "hippie". You can then look at the weight of every article for the word hippie. You can pick the article with the largest weight, and then look at its link network. You can pick out the articles that this article links to and/or which link to this article that are also weighted strongly for the word hippie, while also contributing maximally to this articles "hippieness". We tried this query in our system (LDA), Google (site:en.wikipedia.org hippie), and the Simple English Wikipedia's Lucene search engine. The breakdown of articles occuring in the top ten search results for this word for those engines is: * LDA only: [[Acid rock]], [[Aldeburgh Festival]], [[Anne Murray]], [[Carl Radle]], [[Harry Nilsson]], [[Jack Kerouac]], [[Phil Spector]], [[Plastic Ono Band]], [[Rock and Roll]], [[Salvador Allende]], [[Smothers brothers]], [[Stanley Kubrick]]. * Google only: [[Glam Rock]], [[South Park]]. * Simple only: [[African Americans]], [[Charles Manson]], [[Counterculture]], [[Drug use]], [[Flower Power]], [[Nuclear weapons]], [[Phish]], [[Sexual liberation]], [[Summer of Love]] * LDA & Google & Simple: [[Hippie]], [[Human Be-in]], [[Students for a democratic society]], [[Woodstock festival]] * LDA & Google: [[Psychedelic Pop]] * Google & Simple: [[Lysergic acid diethylamide]], [[Summer of Love]] ( See the paper for the articles produced for the keywords philosophy and economics ) = Discussion / Conclusion = * The results of the latent analysis are totally up to your perception. But what is interesting is that the LDA features predict the WET ratings of quality just as well as the surface level features. Both feature sets (surface and latent) both pull out all almost of the information that the rating system bears. * The rating system devised by the WET is not distinctive. You can best tell the difference between, grouped together, Featured, A and Good articles vs B articles. Featured, A and Good articles are also quite distinctive (Figure 1). Note that in this study we didn't look at Start's and Stubs, but in earlier paper we did. :* This is interesting when compared to this recent entry on the YouTube blog. "Five Stars Dominate Ratings" http://youtube-global.blogspot.com/2009/09/five-stars-dominate-ratings.html… I think a sane, well researched (with actual subjects) rating system is well within the purview of the Usability Initiative. Helping people find and create good content is what Wikipedia is all about. Having a solid rating system allows you to reorganized the user interface, the Wikipedia namespace, and the main namespace around good content and bad content as needed. If you don't have a solid, information bearing rating system you don't know what good content really is (really bad content is easy to spot). :* My Wikimania talk was all about gathering data from people about articles and using that to train machines to automatically pick out good content. You ask people questions along dimensions that make sense to people, and give the machine access to other surface features (such as a statistical measure of readability, or length) and latent features (such as can be derived from document word occurence and encyclopedia link structure). I referenced page 262 of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance to give an example of the kind of qualitative features I would ask people. It really depends on what features end up bearing information, to be tested in "the lab". Each word is an example dimension of quality: We have "*unity, vividness, authority, economy, sensitivity, clarity, emphasis, flow, suspense, brilliance, precision, proportion, depth and so on.*" You then use surface and latent features to predict these values for all articles. You can also say, when a person rates this article as high on the x scale, they also mean that it has has this much of these surface and these latent features. = References = - DeHoust, C., Mangalath, P., Mingus., B. (2008). *Improving search in Wikipedia through quality and concept discovery*. Technical Report. PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/6/68/DeHoustMangalat…> - Rassbach, L., Mingus., B, Blackford, T. (2007). *Exploring the feasibility of automatically rating online article quality*. Technical Report. PDF<http://grey.colorado.edu/mediawiki/sites/mingus/images/d/d3/RassbachPincock…>

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[Foundation-l] Fwd: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers
by GerardM 09 Aug '22

09 Aug '22

Hoi, I have asked and received permission to forward to you all this most excellent bit of news. The linguist list, is a most excellent resource for people interested in the field of linguistics. As I mentioned some time ago they have had a funding drive and in that funding drive they asked for a certain amount of money in a given amount of days and they would then have a project on Wikipedia to learn what needs doing to get better coverage for the field of linguistics. What you will read in this mail that the total community of linguists are asked to cooperate. I am really thrilled as it will also get us more linguists interested in what we do. My hope is that a fraction will be interested in the languages that they care for and help it become more relevant. As a member of the "language prevention committee", I love to get more knowledgeable people involved in our smaller projects. If it means that we get more requests for more projects we will really feel embarrassed with all the new projects we will have to approve because of the quality of the Incubator content and the quality of the linguistic arguments why we should approve yet another language :) NB Is this not a really clever way of raising money; give us this much in this time frame and we will then do this as a bonus... Thanks, GerardM ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: LINGUIST Network <linguist(a)linguistlist.org> Date: Jun 18, 2007 6:53 PM Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers To: LINGUIST(a)listserv.linguistlist.org LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831. Mon Jun 18 2007. ISSN: 1068 - 4875. Subject: 18.1831, All: Call for Participation: Wikipedia Volunteers Moderators: Anthony Aristar, Eastern Michigan U <aristar(a)linguistlist.org> Helen Aristar-Dry, Eastern Michigan U <hdry(a)linguistlist.org> Reviews: Laura Welcher, Rosetta Project <reviews(a)linguistlist.org> Homepage: http://linguistlist.org/ The LINGUIST List is funded by Eastern Michigan University, and donations from subscribers and publishers. Editor for this issue: Ann Sawyer <sawyer(a)linguistlist.org> ================================================================ To post to LINGUIST, use our convenient web form at http://linguistlist.org/LL/posttolinguist.html ===========================Directory============================== 1) Date: 18-Jun-2007 From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org > Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers -------------------------Message 1 ---------------------------------- Date: Mon, 18 Jun 2007 12:49:35 From: Hannah Morales < hannah(a)linguistlist.org > Subject: Wikipedia Volunteers Dear subscribers, As you may recall, one of our Fund Drive 2007 campaigns was called the "Wikipedia Update Vote." We asked our viewers to consider earmarking their donations to organize an update project on linguistics entries in the English-language Wikipedia. You can find more background information on this at: http://linguistlist.org/donation/fund-drive2007/wikipedia/index.cfm. The speed with which we met our goal, thanks to the interest and generosity of our readers, was a sure sign that the linguistics community was enthusiastic about the idea. Now that summer is upon us, and some of you may have a bit more leisure time, we are hoping that you will be able to help us get started on the Wikipedia project. The LINGUIST List's role in this project is a purely organizational one. We will: *Help, with your input, to identify major gaps in the Wikipedia materials or pages that need improvement; *Compile a list of linguistics pages that Wikipedia editors have identified as "in need of attention from an expert on the subject" or " does not cite any references or sources," etc; *Send out periodical calls for volunteer contributors on specific topics or articles; *Provide simple instructions on how to upload your entries into Wikipedia; *Keep track of our project Wikipedians; *Keep track of revisions and new entries; *Work with Wikimedia Foundation to publicize the linguistics community's efforts. We hope you are as enthusiastic about this effort as we are. Just to help us all get started looking at Wikipedia more critically, and to easily identify an area needing improvement, we suggest that you take a look at the List of Linguists page at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_linguists. M Many people are not listed there; others need to have more facts and information added. If you would like to participate in this exciting update effort, please respond by sending an email to LINGUIST Editor Hannah Morales at hannah(a)linguistlist.org, suggesting what your role might be or which linguistics entries you feel should be updated or added. Some linguists who saw our campaign on the Internet have already written us with specific suggestions, which we will share with you soon. This update project will take major time and effort on all our parts. The end result will be a much richer internet resource of information on the breadth and depth of the field of linguistics. Our efforts should also stimulate prospective students to consider studying linguistics and to educate a wider public on what we do. Please consider participating. Sincerely, Hannah Morales Editor, Wikipedia Update Project Linguistic Field(s): Not Applicable ----------------------------------------------------------- LINGUIST List: Vol-18-1831

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Quarterly reviews of high priority WMF initiatives
by Erik Moeller 16 Feb '15

16 Feb '15

Hi folks, to increase accountability and create more opportunities for course corrections and resourcing adjustments as necessary, Sue's asked me and Howie Fung to set up a quarterly project evaluation process, starting with our highest priority initiatives. These are, according to Sue's narrowing focus recommendations which were approved by the Board [1]: - Visual Editor - Mobile (mobile contributions + Wikipedia Zero) - Editor Engagement (also known as the E2 and E3 teams) - Funds Dissemination Committe and expanded grant-making capacity I'm proposing the following initial schedule: January: - Editor Engagement Experiments February: - Visual Editor - Mobile (Contribs + Zero) March: - Editor Engagement Features (Echo, Flow projects) - Funds Dissemination Committee We’ll try doing this on the same day or adjacent to the monthly metrics meetings [2], since the team(s) will give a presentation on their recent progress, which will help set some context that would otherwise need to be covered in the quarterly review itself. This will also create open opportunities for feedback and questions. My goal is to do this in a manner where even though the quarterly review meetings themselves are internal, the outcomes are captured as meeting minutes and shared publicly, which is why I'm starting this discussion on a public list as well. I've created a wiki page here which we can use to discuss the concept further: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings/Quarterly_r… The internal review will, at minimum, include: Sue Gardner myself Howie Fung Team members and relevant director(s) Designated minute-taker So for example, for Visual Editor, the review team would be the Visual Editor / Parsoid teams, Sue, me, Howie, Terry, and a minute-taker. I imagine the structure of the review roughly as follows, with a duration of about 2 1/2 hours divided into 25-30 minute blocks: - Brief team intro and recap of team's activities through the quarter, compared with goals - Drill into goals and targets: Did we achieve what we said we would? - Review of challenges, blockers and successes - Discussion of proposed changes (e.g. resourcing, targets) and other action items - Buffer time, debriefing Once again, the primary purpose of these reviews is to create improved structures for internal accountability, escalation points in cases where serious changes are necessary, and transparency to the world. In addition to these priority initiatives, my recommendation would be to conduct quarterly reviews for any activity that requires more than a set amount of resources (people/dollars). These additional reviews may however be conducted in a more lightweight manner and internally to the departments. We’re slowly getting into that habit in engineering. As we pilot this process, the format of the high priority reviews can help inform and support reviews across the organization. Feedback and questions are appreciated. All best, Erik [1] https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Vote:Narrowing_Focus [2] https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Fwd: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure
by Erik Moeller 09 Jul '13

09 Jul '13

FYI ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> Date: Mon, Nov 5, 2012 at 5:38 PM Subject: [Tech/Product] Engineering/Product org structure To: Staff All <wmfall(a)lists.wikimedia.org> Hi folks, consistent with Sue's narrowing focus mandate, I’ve been thinking & talking the last few weeks a fair bit with a bunch of different people about the future organizational structure of the engineering/product department. Long story short, if we want to scale the dept, and take seriously our identity as a tech org (as stated by Sue), it’s my view that we need to split the current department into an engineering dept and a product dept in about 6-8 months. To avoid fear and anxiety, and to make sure the plan makes sense, I want to start an open conversation now. If you think any of the below is a terrible idea, or have suggestions on how to improve the plan, I’d love to hear from you. I’ll make myself personally available to anyone who wants to talk more about it. (I'm traveling a bit starting tomorrow, but will be available via email during that time.) We can also discuss it at coming tech lunches and such. There’s also nothing private here, so I’m forwarding this note to wikitech-l@ and wikimedia-l@ as well. That said, there’s no urgency in this note, so feel free to set it aside for later. Here’s why I’m recommending to Sue that we create distinct engineering and product departments: - It’ll give product development and the user experience more visibility at the senior mgmt level, which means we’ll have more conversations at that level about the work that most of the organization actually does. Right now, a single dept of ~70 people is represented by 1 person across both engineering and product functions - me. That was fine when it was half the size. Right now it’s out of whack. - It’ll give us the ability to add Director-level leadership functions as appropriate without making my head explode. - I believe that separating the two functions is consistent with Sue’s recommendation to narrow our focus and develop our identity as an engineering organization. It will allow for more sustained effort in managing product priorities and greater advocacy for core platform issues (APIs, site performance, search, ops improvements, etc.) that are less visible than our feature priorities. A split dept structure wouldn’t affect the way we assemble teams -- we’d still pull from required functions (devs, product, UI/UX, etc.), and teams would continue to pursue their objectives fairly autonomously. It’s not all roses -- we might see more conflict between the two functions, more us vs. them thinking, and more communications breakdowns or forum shopping. But net I think the positives would outweigh the negatives, and there are ways to mitigate against the negatives. The way we’d get there: I’m prepared to resign from my engineering management responsibilities and to focus solely on my remaining role as VP of Product, as soon as a successor for VP of Engineering has been identified. We would start that hiring process probably in early 2013. I’m recommending to Sue that we seriously consider internal candidates for the VP of Engineering role, as we have a strong engineering management team in place today. So realistically we'd probably identify that person towards the end of the fiscal year. Obviously I can’t make any promises to you that in that brave new world, you’ll love whoever gets hired into the VP of Engineering role, so there’s some unavoidable uncertainty there. I’ll support Sue in the search, though, and I’m sure she’d appreciate feedback from you on the kind of person who you think would be ideal for the job. The VP of Product role would encompass a combination of functions. Howie and I would work with the department to figure out what makes sense as an internal structure. My opening view is that Analytics and User Experience are potential areas that may benefit from dedicated Director-level support roles. (Analytics is tricky because it includes a strong engineering piece, but also a research/analyst piece working closely with product.) The new structure would therefore be as follows: * VP of Engineering -> Directors of Engineering * VP of Product -> Director of Product Development, plus new Director-level functions (we've discussed UX/Design as a likely new leadership function, and Analytics as a _potential_ area to centralize here because it works so closely with product) Why Product? I’m happy to help the org in whatever way I can; I believe I’d be most useful to it in focusing there and helping build this relatively new organizational function. Based on my past experience, Howie & I make a great team. I know how engineering operates, which could help mitigate against some of the aforementioned issues. Plus, our product priorities generally already reflect lots of thought and consideration, and we have no intent of reopening questions like "Is Visual Editor the top product priority". I look forward to hearing your thoughts & discussing this further in coming weeks. All best, Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate -- Erik Möller VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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Wikimedia Foundation's non-disclosure agreement
by MZMcBride 11 Mar '13

11 Mar '13

Hi. As I understand it, many Wikimedia Foundation employees are required to sign a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Is there a copy of the current version of this non-disclosure agreement anywhere? I briefly checked Meta-Wiki and wikimediafoundation.org, but didn't see anything off-hand. (I did come across other interesting and somewhat related pages such as <https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Statement>, though.) MZMcBride

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Wikimania 2013 scholarship now accepting application
by Simon Shek 19 Feb '13

19 Feb '13

Hi all, Scholarship applications for Wikimania 2013 in Hong Kong are being accept. The application window is one month (through 22 February). Wikimania 2013 scholarship is an award given to an individual to enable them to attend Wikimania in Hong Kong from 7-11 August, 2013. Both types of scholarships will be available this year. Partial scholarships will cover travel expenses to Wikimania, capped at 50% of the estimated air fare from your nearest international airport according to [[wm2013:Getting to Hong Kong]]. Full scholarships will cover round-trip travel, dorms accommodations as arranged by the Wikimania Team, and registration for Wikimania 2013. Applicants will be rated on the following four dimensions: 1. Activity within Wikimedia (on-wiki and off-wiki) - 50% 2. Activity outside of Wikimedia and other free knowledge/software projects - 15% 3. Interest in Wikimania and the Wikimedia movement - 25% 4. Fluency of English language - 10% To learn more about Wikimania 2013 scholarships, please visit https://wikimania2013.wikimedia.org/wiki/Scholarships To apply for a scholarship, you can fill out the application form here: https://scholarship.wikimedia.hk If you have any question, email us at wikimania-shcolarship(a)wikimedia.org . Good luck! Simon Shek Community coordinator - Wikimania 2013 / Wikimedia Hong Kong wikimedia.hk

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Invitation to WMF January 2013 Metrics and Activities Meeting: Thursday, Feb. 7, 19:00 UTC
by Praveena Maharaj 07 Feb '13

07 Feb '13

Dear all, The next WMF metrics and activities will take place on Thursday, February 7, 2013 at 7:00 PM UTC (11 AM PST). The IRC channel is #wikimedia-office* *on irc.freenode.net and the meeting will be broadcast as a live YouTube stream. The current structure of the meeting is: * Review of key metrics including the monthly report card, but also specialized reports and analytics* Review of financials* Welcoming recent hires* Brief presentations on recent projects, with a focus on highest priority initiatives* Update and Q&A with the Executive Director, if available Please review https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Metrics_and_activities_meetings for further information about how to participate. We'll post IRC logs and the video recording publicly after the meeting. Thank you, Praveena -- Praveena Maharaj Executive Assistant to the VP of Engineering and Product Development +1 (415) 839 6885 ext. 6689 www.wikimedia.org

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WMF Board Agenda (Draft)
by Geoff Brigham 01 Feb '13

01 Feb '13

Please find below the draft WMF board agenda for the upcoming meetings on January 31-February 2, 2013. *== Thursday, January 31, 2013 == '''18:00 - 19:00''' - Governance Committee Meeting == Friday, February 1, 2013 == '''9:00 - 9:10''' - Greetings and Introductions '''9:10 - 10:00''' - Housekeeping * Affiliations Committee Charter (technical correction only) * Pledge of Personal Commitment (annual signing) * Discussion on a proposed Duty of Loyalty Policy for the Board (consisting of summary of existing duty of loyalty responsibilities) '''10:15 -12:15''' - Presentation on 2012-13 Year-to-Date and Planning for 2013-14 (Part I) '''12:15-14:00''' - ''Lunch'' '''14:00 - 15:30''' - Presentation on 2012-13 Year-to-Date and Planning for 2013-14 (Part II) '''15:30 - 16:00''' - Discussion on Board Term Limits '''16:15 - 16:45''' - Legal Presentation == Saturday, February 2, 2013 == '''9:00 - 11:00''' - Presentation on 2012-13 Year-to-Date and Planning for 2013-14 (Part III) '''11:15 - 12:15''' - Discussion on Affiliations Committee and WCA (Part I) '''12:15 - 13:15''' - ''Lunch'' '''13:15 - 14:15''' - Discussion on Affiliations Committee and WCA (Part II) '''14:15 - 14:30''' - Advisory Board: Term Renewals '''14:30 - 15:15''' - 2013 Board Agenda / Extend Executive Session '''15:30 - 16:30''' - Executive Session * -- Geoff Brigham General Counsel Wikimedia Foundation

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Wikimedia CH Living tradition in Switzerland project
by Charles Andrès 31 Jan '13

31 Jan '13

Dear all, In 2013 and 2014 Wikimedia CH will support the development of the content associated with the Living tradition in Switzerland http://www.lebendige-traditionen.ch/index.html?lang=en One of the goal will be to provide help to create the articles about each tradition. As a preparative work I'm looking for someone able to create infoboxes for Wikipedia DE IT FR and EN. Cheers Charles ___________________________________________________________ Charles ANDRES, Chairman "Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge – www.wikimedia.ch Skype: charles.andres.wmch IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch

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Our name in the stars (sort of)
by Andrew Gray 31 Jan '13

31 Jan '13

Interesting news: http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Main_belt_asteroid_No._274301_named_Wikipedia -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray(a)dunelm.org.uk

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Wikimedia-l January 2013