Wikimedia-l April 2010

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81 participants
59 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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[Foundation-l] Ancient Greek reconstructed an analysis of a proposal for a new Wikipedia
by Gerard Meijssen 20 Sep '11

20 Sep '11

Hoi, There is a request for a Wikipedia in Ancient Greek. This request has so far been denied. A lot of words have been used about it. Many people maintain their positions and do not for whatever reason consider the arguments of others. In my opinion their are a few roadblocks. - Ancient Greek is an ancient language - the policy does not allow for it - Text in ancient Greek written today about contemporary subjects require the reconstruction of Ancient Greek. - it requires the use of existing words for concepts that did not exist at the time when the language was alive - neologisms will be needed to describe things that did not exist at the time when the language was alive - modern texts will not represent the language as it used to be - Constructed and by inference reconstructed languages are effectively not permitted We can change the policy if there are sufficient arguments, when we agree on a need. When a text is written in reconstructed ancient Greek, and when it is clearly stated that it is NOT the ancient Greek of bygone days, it can be obvious that it is a great tool to learn skills to read and write ancient Greek but that it is in itself not Ancient Greek. Ancient Greek as a language is ancient. I have had a word with people who are involved in the working group that deals with the ISO-639, I have had a word with someone from SIL and it is clear that a proposal for a code for "Ancient Greek reconstructed" will be considered for the ISO-639-3. For the ISO-639-6 a code is likely to be given because a clear use for this code can be given. We can apply for a code and as it has a use bigger then Wikipedia alone it clearly has merit. With modern texts clearly labelled as distinct from the original language, it will be obvious that innovations a writers needs for his writing are legitimate. This leaves the fact that constructed and reconstructed languages are not permitted because of the notion that mother tongue users are required. In my opinion, this has always been only a gesture to those people who are dead set against any and all constructed languages. In the policies there is something vague "*it must have a reasonable degree of recognition as determined by discussion (this requirement is being discussed by the language subcommittee <http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Language_subcommittee>)."* It is vague because even though the policy talks about a discussion, it is killed off immediately by stating "The proposal has a sufficient number of living native speakers to form a viable community and audience." In my opinion, this discussion for criteria for the acceptance of constructed or reconstructed languages has not happened. Proposals for objective criteria have been ignored. In essence, to be clear about it: - We can get a code for reconstructed languages. - We need to change the policy to allow for reconstructed and constructed languages We need to do both in order to move forward. The proposal for objective criteria for constructed and reconstructed languages is in a nutshell: - The language must have an ISO-639-3 code - We need full WMF localisation from the start - The language must be sufficiently expressive for writing a modern encyclopaedia - The Incubator project must have sufficiently large articles that demonstrate both the language and its ability to write about a wide range of topics - A sufficiently large group of editors must be part of the Incubator project Thanks, GerardM

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[Foundation-l] Office hours next Thursday, November 19
by Cary Bass 20 Jul '10

20 Jul '10

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 Hello all! Next Thursday's office hours will feature Véronique Kessler, the Foundation's Chief Financial Officer. If you don't know Naoko, you can get to know her at <http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/V%C3%A9ronique_Kessler>. Office hours on Thursday are from 2100 to 2200 UTC (3:00 PM - 4:00 PM PDT). If you do not have an IRC client, there are two ways you can come chat using a web browser: First is using the Wikizine chat gateway at <http://chatwikizine.memebot.com/cgi-bin/cgiirc/irc.cgi>. Type a nickname, select irc.freenode.net from the top menu and #wikimedia-office from the following menu, then login to join. Also, you can access Freenode by going to http://webchat.freenode.net/, typing in the nickname of your choice and choosing wikimedia-office as the channel. You may be prompted to click through a security warning. It should be all right. Please feel free to forward (and translate!) this email to any other relevant email lists you happen to be on. Also note, this is Veronique's first foray into IRC, so lets show her how welcoming we can be! :-) - -- Cary Bass Volunteer Coordinator, Wikimedia Foundation Support Free Knowledge: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.9 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org/ iEYEARECAAYFAksDQcwACgkQyQg4JSymDYl+wACcCsTgIUtThC4agEUwC9533olx 61cAn1titMJqMmNt4GESgoQ9U5sQMFM7 =1DvA -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Foundation Form 990 Now Posted
by Veronique Kessler 19 Jul '10

19 Jul '10

Dear All, Please note that the 2008 Form 990 which covers fiscal year July 1, 2008 through June 30, 2009 has been posted to the Wikimedia Foundation website at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:WMF_2008_2009_Form_990.pdf Also posted are questions and answers which can be found at: http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Form_2008_Questions_and_Answers Of course I am available to answer questions as well. Veronique

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[Foundation-l] Strategic Planning Office Hours
by Philippe Beaudette 21 Jun '10

21 Jun '10

Hi everyone, The next strategic planning office hours are: Wednesday, 04:00-05:00 UTC, which is: -Tuesday (8-9pm PST) -Tuesday (11pm-12am EST) There has been a lot of tremendous work on the strategy wiki the past few months, and Task Forces are finishing up their work. Office hours will be a great opportunity to discuss the work that's happened as well as the work to come. As always, you can access the chat by going to https://webchat.freenode.net and filling in a username and the channel name (#wikimedia-strategy). You may be prompted to click through a security warning. It's fine. More details at: http://strategy.wikimedia.org/wiki/IRC_office_hours Thanks! Hope to see many of you there. ____________________ Philippe Beaudette Facilitator, Strategy Project Wikimedia Foundation philippe(a)wikimedia.org mobile: 918 200-WIKI (9454) Imagine a world in which every human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge. Help us make it a reality! http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Donate

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[Foundation-l] Wikimedia Announcement list is active
by Jay Walsh 17 May '10

17 May '10

Hi all, A few weeks ago there was much discussion about establishing an announcement-only email list that would be used as a 'push-only' list where important announcements from the Foundation, chapters, or other representatives could be directed. Anyone could subscribe to this list and keep up to date on important events and information. We now have this list up and running (I spent a little more time than I had planned testing stuff) and it's ready for subscribers: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimediaannounce-l We've created a page with general information about this list and how it will be moderated here: meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_list/Wikimedia_Announce Initially we'll be sending all major news from the WMF here so news can be shared in one place: new staff, new programs, career opportunities, milestones, calls for response, reports from staff or the board, etc etc. And of course we want this to be a place where similar news and information can be disseminated from our community. Rather than overwhelm this new list with too many rules and guidelines, I'm happy to have suggestions for posts sent directly to me, or to the 'communications(a)wikimedia.org' proxy email address, or you can just write to the list address with your suggestion and we'll work with you to get it posted. Let's see how the traffic looks before thinking too much about what's wrong or right for the list - but ultimately readers will want to get relevant, good information and have advance notice of important happenings. As we work out the kinks I'll be happy to bring on some other volunteer moderators to keep things moving as quickly as possible. Foundation staff will begin to send information to this list as a default (new staff, major announcements, good news etc), although we will continue to share news on the pre-existing lists for the time being. Of course this shouldn't preclude any discussion about news and events. We expect to continue to converse about news and events on the other mailing lists as well. Anyone can submit relevant announcements for the list as well. Refer to the meta page for the basic guidelines. We will also point email updates from the Foundation blog to the WikimediaAnnounce-l. The strategy is to provide a single list where public announcements can be collected, preventing missed information for people who participate on one list and not another. You'll note that right now all replies to this list (if people are inclined to reply) will go directly to Foundation-l. We'll see how successful this is, or if it causes confusion for subscribers. Please share other thoughts or opportunities - on the meta page or on this list. And please also encourage others to widely subscribe to this list. Post to village pumps, on projects, etc. Thanks! -- Jay Walsh Head of Communications WikimediaFoundation.org blog.wikimedia.org +1 (415) 839 6885 x 609, @jansonw

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[Foundation-l] Possible project
by cool-RR 01 May '10

01 May '10

Hello all! This is my first time on any Wikimedia mailing list, so please forgive me if I'm actually posting on the wrong list or something. I'm a programmer, and recently I've been using a nice little service, which is run by a few independent programmers. The trouble is that it's a kind of service which potential users would like to know that it will be maintained well for a few years in the future, and these independent programmers can't guarantee something like that. Then I thought, this project has a spirit similar to Wikimedia's projects, so maybe Wikimedia would want to adopt it or sponsor it? I think it will require little maintenance effort. Do note that this project is not a wiki exactly. I have not yet said what this project it, cause I'm not even sure I'm on the right mailing list. Is this a good place to discuss this matter? (Also, please 'cc' me in any replies, because I don't get mail delivered from this list.) Best Wishes, Ram Rachum.

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[Foundation-l] Flagged Protection update for April 29
by William Pietri 30 Apr '10

30 Apr '10

As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update. We continue to work on UI display issues and on getting up a Labs version of the German Wikipedia. We're pretty close to release, and we believe only minor UI issues remain. If you'd like to verify that for yourself, start here: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page To see the in-progress and upcoming work, it's listed in our tracker, under Current and Backlog: http://www.pivotaltracker.com/projects/46157 We expect to release to labs again next week, and each week thereafter until this goes live on the English Wikipedia. William

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Re: [Foundation-l] [WikiEN-l] Flagged Protection update for April 29
by William Pietri 30 Apr '10

30 Apr '10

On 04/29/2010 06:32 PM, Tim Starling wrote: > William Pietri wrote: > >> As requested, here's the weekly Flagged Protection update. >> >> >> We continue to work on UI display issues and on getting up a Labs >> version of the German Wikipedia. We're pretty close to release, and we >> believe only minor UI issues remain. >> > Between this update and the last one, the only commits made to the > FlaggedRevs extension were localisation updates imported from > translatewiki.net. But your language here implies that something > actually happened this week. Could you perhaps be more specific as to > what sort of work was done? > Sure. The resolution to the apparent paradox is that not all useful work immediately results in commits. In particular, the major UI issue being worked on can be seen on this page: http://flaggedrevs.labs.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hurricane_Vince_%282005%29 In the upper right, you'll note a lock icon with (+) next to it. The UI mavens involved, Howie and Parul, feel that the current version isn't consistent with the direction the usability team has for the interface, so they're trying to come up with something that looks and works better. However, getting something that satisfies them and also looks and works properly in all browsers has been a challenge. I understand the Usability Initiative developers have offered technical assistance with that. This is pretty typical pre-release fit-and-finish stuff. I know it can be frustrating for project stakeholders, as it appears like not much is happening, but given the scale at which Wikipedia works and the importance of this project being well received, I think we're better off taking a bit longer for a solid user experience, especially the bit that appears on article pages. I know some additional work was done on cleaning up names, labels, and text in the interface; if you're curious about exactly what went on, I can ask. My understanding is that is almost done, though. William

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Wikimedia-l April 2010