Listeria, motivation and the Sharif of Mecca

Awn ar-Rafiq was the Sharif of Mecca from 1882 to 1905. Doesn't he look splendid in his regalia?

The Sharif of Mecca was a high placed functionary of the Ottoman Empire for many years and as such there is a Listeria list for the Sharif of Mecca. The point of these lists is that the quality of the information we maintain about the Ottoman Empire is not of a high quality. The Ottoman Empire existed longer than the Roman Empire, covered a larger expanse  and it is not yet one hundred years ago when it came to an end.

I looked into lists of functionaries on several Wikipedias and they are not consistent. So I created Listeria lists and as people add things to Wikidata, these lists are updated.. that is the theory and I am happy that this functionality has been restored.

The best bit is when other people take an interest as well. A new functionary is added; ولي الدين رفعت باشا and he will get his place in the list .. Google translates it into "Wali al-Din Rifat Pasha" and hey we can bring things to the next level.

Lists like these should be stable and they do entice cooperation. It is why I am so grateful that Magnus spend some time reviving the functionality.

Thanks,

       GerardM

#Wikidata - motivation; thank you #Magnus

I added a Baratunde A. Cola to Wikidata because he won the Alan T. Waterman Award. This month a Wikipedia article was written and I wanted to add some data to the item.

I did not because functionality that is key to me was broken. A new property was added and all the work that I had done on categories no longer showed in Reasonator. There was no willingness to consider the consequential loss of functionality and the result was a dip in my motivation.

Wikidata is important to me and I asked Magnus if he would help out and change Reasonator. He did.

Now I have added information to Mr Cola based on his categories. It matters that a category like this one reflects all the people known to have played in the Vanderbilt Commodores football team.

The issue is that at Wikidata, we have lost sight of these collaborative aspects. Everybody does his own thing and we hardly consider why. It is why user stories are so important; they tell you why something is done and what the benefit is.  In the end without a benefit there is no reason to do it.
Thanks,
      GerardM

It is all about #presentation

The edit screen of #Wikipedia' is similar to the standard screen of #Wikidata: it is ugly and it does not present the data well. Look for instance at the two screen shots. The same data about the "office held" by Mohammed V of Morocco is available in both screen shots.

The screen shot above is the standard screen of Wikidata for Mohamed V. The screen shot below is the same data formatted by "reasonator".

There are issues with the reasonator. When you compare the data you will miss the second term in office as Sultan of Morocco. There are other bits of information that are formatted in a weird way. But that is not really important. What is important is that proof of concept tools like the reasonator and the geneawiki motivate me to enrich an item with statements.

PS I really got into the reasonator when I learned how to add a picture.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Indian grandmother

When you #google for "Indian grandmother", the first image you get is the one you see to the right. It is also a lovely answer to the question "what is in it for me" after it has been suggested that people contribute to Wikipedia.

This answer is actually used for real and can be read on the India mailing list. I am sure this Indian grandmother is happy with her Indian grandson.
Thanks,
     GerardM

#Statistics do motivate at #translatewiki.net

AnakngAraw provided us with proof that statistics motivate. She is one of our hardest workers and localises for a Tagalog public. Her complaint was that the daily updates of statistics did not happen any more.

Keeping our community happy is really important for us and even though Siebrand is really busy making a difference at the Wikimedia Chapter conference in Berlin, he found the time to look into it.

One of the affected statistics is the "group statistics", it show what percentage of defined groups are localised in a language for MediaWiki. Statistics like this are generated by a pywikipedia bot and the software was broken. With a quick hack it is fixed locally and our numbers are up to date again.
Thanks,
      GerardM

Tooting the horn with #statistics

Statistics serve many purposes. One of them is the analysis of what goes on and with the other we can show the world what goes right.

The motto of the Wikimedia Foundation is "Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment." When the statistics show that people are increasingly turning to Wikipedia, it is good news. When more localisations at translatewiki.net make it the 48th biggest wiki, it is good news.

It is good news when statistics can be influenced over time by our actions.

Good statistics show that our work is relevant and that motivates. When we get more traffic, it motivates. When we watch the localisation complete, it motivates. The most important task for statistics is to provide credible information and use it to motivate.

Motivating statistics are repetitive; you set them up and let them run. The key thing for them to work is presentation, automation and timeliness. When statistical analysis shows that we have not as many newbies and regulars, it does not motivate, statistics with the number of people in the Russian incubator do on many levels.

The challenge is not so much in doing an initial analysis; many people are poring over the raw numbers, it is in packaging them, automating them and finally getting them onto stats.wikimedia.org.

When the statistics show flukes, it is when our developers and our community have to be agile. Being agile and keep the MediaWiki development show on the road.
Thanks,
    GerardM

Motivating is best done by making it fun

Research shows that the top motivation for contributing to Wikipedia are motivation and fun. Fun is the biggest motivator but as importantly, only fun has the potential to increase contributions.

The good news is what motivates us, bringing free knowledge to every man, woman and child does not stand in the way of having fun. The use of free software does not stand in the way of having fun.

So lets have more fun.

What can we do to make Wikipedia more fun. We can provide the kind of data that is meaningful to individuals like how much their articles are read. We can make communication among us easier. There is so much we can do and have fun.

Making things more fun will have us weigh secondary priorities differently. We will still need reliable servers and backups, great usability. We will still aim to double our reach as it is one of our strategic goals and you know, we are not the only ones for whom fun is important. It is one of the reasons why Wikia for instance is doing so well..
Thanks,
      GerardM

A numbers game

Many Wikipedians are not that positive about celebrating high numbers of pages.. For translatewiki.net it we think it is a bit different. More pages means more localisations and that is good. I read this on IRC..

[21:46]

<Nikerabbit>

we are 25k pages away from one million pages

To put that into perspective: the summer rally brought us some 35k pages, so when will we celebrate ?
Thanks,
      GerardM

Twitter

At the Open Translation Tools 2007 conference, I got the impression that I was the only one who did not twitter. So I started a Twitter account and, untill today I posted only two tweets. To my amazement I have already eight people following me and, this makes me reconsider Twitter.

So, I will experiment a little bit more with tweeting. My aim will be to mostly tweet about things that I would also blog about.. But I can tweet that I have phoned a GLAM or some such...
Thanks,
     GerardM

Payment where payment is due

I was looking for a picture that illustrates "payment" and I found a picture of Judas being paid for his betrayal as one of the top results. It can be argued that this event was essential because without it Jesus would not have died on the cross.

Many people believe that payment is anathema to the Wiki spirit. Payment is believed to be incompatible with a Neutral Point Of View and consequently many people are ready to fight whenever there is even a suggestion of payment.

For me it is obvious that payments are not only made with money. The Wiki coinage is very much acknowledgment, attention, time and reputation. Our best people have a vision on what our world is or should be. They realise their vision because of an intrinisc motivation. This is why an Incubator, a Wiktionary and a translatewiki.net independently develop their own policies even software. People invest in these projects much of themselves and their return is first and foremost the growth and the quality of their project.

Sue Gartner shares what she considers relevant in her reader. This post she shared had me thinking about the subject of payment. I think that the WMF is making a great move by opening up the possibility for people to propose projects that may get funding. The financial aspect is important but in reality the most important coin the WMF has is attention, motivation and encouragement. WMF people like Brion are often in a position where they make the difference between something happening or not happening. Their time is a precious commodity because it is so highly valued and in short supply.

As the the time of the WMF staff is considered to be this valuable, improving the effectiveness of their time is the best investment the WMF can make.
Thanks,
      GerardM