Talk:Learning and Evaluation/Wikimetrics

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Soft launch feedback about WikiMetrics[edit]

Please post your feedback here. Think positive first - what worked, what do you like? And then share any problems, concerns and struggles. Try to think positively (appreciative inquiry!) about how this tool can improve, grow and benefit you and your fellow community members. SarahStierch (talk) 17:20, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Project specific metrics[edit]

I had a crack at adding a student cohort from the University of Wollongong contributing to Wikinews. While the tool looks potentially very useful in some regards, for Wikinews the two available metrics do not really work for the project. I'd love to be able to use it to simplify research like Research:Wikinews_Review_Analysis. We just would need some project customization. In our case (and a few other Wikinews projects using the review process), the best metric would actually be the total number of published articles. Size and total edits do not matter much because there is no inherent view on the total number of edits indicating success, or the article length correlating to the chances of an article getting published. How many articles did the person contribute to that got published? is the desired metric.--LauraHale (talk) 17:56, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Hi Laura, thanks a lot for your feedback. "Number of new pages" is on the list of priorities that we submitted to the WMF's analytics team yesterday. We'll also need it to measure the number of photos/media files that people upload to Commons (as that's counted as a new page creation). We'd like to have this metric implemented by September 5th – however, I've not heard back from the analytics team and I know they're super swamped. So, let's hope for the best :-) Thanks again, --Frank Schulenburg (talk) 18:22, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yes, unfortunately, Wiki Metrics involves metrics about user activity and contribution, not content itself. Content metrics are not in the current project plan for Wiki Metrics, although, yes, they are recognized as a potential tool development area. Please see the online module for further information on what is in the near future for Wiki Metrics. JAnstee (WMF) (talk) 18:22, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
While thinking about it, another useful metric would be how many times an article was submitted for publishing before it got published. This information is available on the talk page and in the article history. I can think of an array of other metrics that would be incredibly useful for us in terms of ongoing attempts to address writing problems by specific cohorts. So yeah, any customization that does not require extensive data mining by hand would be great. --LauraHale (talk) 17:59, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Thank you for sharing your thoughts on potential content metrics. We will be continually working to identify, prioritize, and develop capacity for assessment JAnstee (WMF) (talk) 18:22, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]
Yeah, thanks Laura! Keep it coming of course. You'll be hearing from me with a survey in the upcoming days for you to take about capacity building and needs assessments re: evaluation, so keep your eyes on your inbox. Also, knowing what are priority metrics for sister projects is really important, so it makes me happy to read your insider take about Wikinews. I had one more thing....on my mind...but I forgot! SarahStierch (talk) 18:29, 21 August 2013 (UTC)[reply]