Grants:IdeaLab/Backlogs

Inspire campaign

Backlogs

Is the work actually being done, or is it piling up?

themenot sure

idea creator• MER-C

this project needs...

contact email

researcher

volunteer

created on18:51, 23 July 2018 (UTC)

Project idea

What Wikimedia project(s) and specific areas will you be evaluating?

Is this project measuring a specific space on a project (e.g. deletion discussions), or the project as a whole?
The project as a whole.

Describe your idea. How might it be implemented?

Provide details about the method or process of how you will evaluate your community or collect data. Does your idea involve private or personally identifying information? Take a look at the Privacy Policy for Wikimedia’s guidelines in this area.
The idea is simply to measure amount of maintenance and administrative work that needs to be done, relative to the size of the project. The key information is to see how this develops with time. (This requires historical category member counts, which I think requires a full database dump and parsing revisions.) Some example metrics include:

• Is the number of articles being tagged {{cleanup}} etc. rising as a number of total articles over time? How long does it take for a monthly batch of articles to be cleaned up? How does this compare with the number of active editors?
• How many AFDs are pending at a single time? What is the relist rate?
• How many admin tasks are pending? How long does it take to get a sockfarm investigated and blocked? How many sockfarms are pending investigation? How does this compare with the number of active editors/admins/checkusers?
• How long does it take to get a spammer/vandal blocked? What is the number of spammers/vandals awaiting admin attention (moving average)?

Are there experienced Wikimedians who can help implement this project?

If applicable, please list groups or usernames of individuals who you can work with on this project, and what kind of work they will do.

How would your measurement idea help your community make better decisions?

After you are finished measuring or evaluating your Wikimedia project, how do you expect that information to be used to benefit the project?
The data can point to areas which may need prioritization re: technological improvements or policy tweaks.

Do you think you can implement this idea? What support do you need?

Do you need people with specific skills to complete this idea? Are there any financial needs for this project? If you can’t implement this project, can you scale down your project so it is doable?
This requires a full database dump and the computational means to analyse it. I neither have the time nor the CPU/storage to accomplish the project.

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Endorsements

• It actually reads like a metric rather than a general complaint about the... For lack of a better term, community. SmoothPorcupine (talk) 18:08, 27 July 2018 (UTC)

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Would a grant from the Wikimedia Foundation help make your idea happen? You can expand this idea into a grant proposal.

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No funding needed?

Does your idea not require funding, but you're not sure about what to do next? Not sure how to start a proposal on your local project that needs consensus? Contact Chris Schilling on-wiki at I JethroBT (WMF) (talk · contribs) or via e-mail at cschillingwikimedia.org for help!