Learning patterns/Number of articles created or improved in Wikimedia projects

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Number of articles created or improved in Wikimedia projects

problemEdits, files, and bytes contributed and other metrics may not totally represent the significance of content contributions that involve creating or improving many pages.

solutionReport the number of articles (or other content pages) created or contributed to by members of your project.

creator• EGalvez (WMF)

created on26 August, 2014

Global Metrics This learning pattern one of seven Global metrics. To get started with Global metrics, read the learning pattern Calculating global metrics. To learn what's behind Global metrics, read the overview page.

What problem does this solve?

This learning pattern is for the global metric on the number of articles created or improved in Wikimedia projects.

Context

Creating new information resources is one of the most important ways to contribute to a Wikimedia project. Reporting on the number of articles created or improved over the course of a project provides a perspective on a project's contribution that is distinct from and complementary to measures like edits, bytes added, etc. It also provides you with another opportunity to demonstrate the impact of your project.

What is the solution?

Articles Created + Articles Improved

Articles created and/or articles improved are two different numbers combined into one. Articles created can be found using Wikimetrics, while Articles improved can be found using an event page. Follow the steps below to find both.

Articles Created

To obtain the number of articles created, you just need to use Wikimetrics

Wikimetrics

1. Get usernames
See the Global metrics learning pattern for information about gathering lists of usernames
2. Review Wikimetrics Learning Module and Upload your Cohort
If you have not done so already, Take the Wikimetrics Learning module When you upload your cohort, make sure your cohort is set up for analyzing the Wikimedia projects edited for your event. Check off CentralAuth when uploading your cohort to get data from all WM projects, especially if you suspect editors worked in other languages
3. In Wikimetrics, create a report to determine "Articles Created"
Using Wikimetrics, you want to use the Pages created metric. Start Date is the date and time your event started. End Date is the end date and time of your event. Time Series by can be what you want Namespaces should be: "0" Note: This metric focuses ONLY on articles in the article namespace, not talk pages, etc. In the Configure output section, to see results disaggregated by Wikimedia project, the Aggregate results should not be selected. When you download or view the report, count how many pages were created!

Articles Improved

Use an Event page

Getting the number of articles improved will vary based on the project. The simplest ways is to use an event page and ask participants to list the pages they worked on, and to indicate which pages they created. Just count the number of pages that were not new to get "Articles improved".

Or use Quarry

The following Quarry query will provide you with a list of pages that a list users edited or created: http://quarry.wmflabs.org/query/1053

Attention! The above query is limited to one project at a time and it lists all pages (i.e. not only articles in namespace 0 as requested by this metric). You will therefore need to iterate for every project and manually discriminate namespaces by looking up each page using its page_id to open it at https://your.wikiproject.org/w/index.php?curid=yourpageid

Add them up!

$(PagesCreated)+(ArticlesImproved)=Total$

When to use

• When your project involves creating or contributing content to articles or other written information resources on wiki (such as Help pages, Policy pages, Templates, etc)
• When your project involves making substantial changes to content on wiki pages. For instance, if your project involves re-writing poorly written or incomplete articles.

Note: all projects funded by Wikimedia Foundation grants, regardless of focus, are required to report this metric as part of a global metrics suite, beginning in Fall 2014.

General considerations

• When computing total pages created or improved by your project, it usually makes sense to only count content pages, such as articles, Help pages, policy pages, and template pages. Creation of other types of pages, such as WikiProject pages or talk pages, should be tallied separately, or not reported at all. Unless the explicit goal of your project is to improve these kinds of pages, pages created in those spaces usually reflects coordination work, rather than content production.

When to use

• When your project involves creating or contributing content to articles or other written information resources on wiki (such as Help pages, Policy pages, Templates, etc)
• When your project involves making substantial changes to content on wiki pages. For instance, if your project involves re-writing poorly written or incomplete articles.

Note: all projects funded by Wikimedia Foundation grants, regardless of focus, are required to report this metric as part of a global metrics suite, beginning in Fall 2014.

Endorsements

• EGalvez (WMF)
• Jmorgan (WMF)
• Wolliff

See also

• Learning & Evaluation global metrics information page
• Wikimetrics learning module

Related patterns

• Calculating global metrics

1. Number of newly registered users
2. Number of active editors involved
3. Number of individuals involved
4. Number of images or media used in Wikimedia projects
5. Number of articles created or improved in Wikimedia projects
6. Number of bytes added and removed from Wikimedia projects
7. Learning question: Did your work increase the motivation of contributors, and how do you know?

External links

• Wikimetrics "Pages Created" metric