Talk:Main Page/Archive5

Changing the main page

Should we change our main page, like Wikipedia did ? There is a discussion about it on the mailing list. I think there are two possibilities : order the wikisources considering the activity, as Wikipedia made (http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/TablesPageViewsMonthly.htm) or, maybe better for a "library", considering the "number of words" (http://stats.wikimedia.org/wikisource/EN/TablesDatabaseWords.htm).

Number of words would be :

1. EN : 235 M
2. FR : 142 M
3. ES : 47 M
4. ZH : 37 M (but I don't think this is correct : how do the stats count "words" for Chinese Wikisource ? There is another method : 1737 [number of bytes per article]/3 [a Chinese word is 3 bytes] * 42000 [number of articles] = 24.3 M) 4. RU = 27 M
6. IT = about 22 M (there is a problem with them. The stats say there were 12000 articles on November 30, but it is wrong. There were surely 18000 or 19000 articles, like now -> so the number of 14.4 M words should be risen with its half to 22 M)
7. AR = 21.6 (good surprise, but is it correct ?)
8. PL = 18.7 M
9. DE = 18 M
10. PT = 16 M

I feel sorry for the Germans. The low number must be the result of the total use of the "Page mode". We should ask to some developpers if counting the number of words in, for example, the "Proofread pages", could be possible. This number of words could then be added to the number above... 67.159.45.24 (Syagrius on mailing list)

I do not think that the 'main page' should be considered as a 'hall of fame' ... (or it would be necessary to make some drastic changes to it). I rather see it as a set of links to subdomains. In order to make this set of links useful, it makes sense to display first the domains that are the most likely to be searched by the user. This is why, when I created this page, I displayed the 10 largest domains first. The other domains were sorted alphabetically.

Later, some users have started to rank by size all the other subdomains on this page (100000+, 10000+, 1000+, 100+ ...), which in my opinion is silly (there is not enough data for small domains, therefore sorting them by size does not reflect their activity) and useless (it makes it difficult for the user to find the language he's looking for). Sorting by size just conveys the feeling that this page is a 'hall of fame', which I do not like. Indeed, it created a tendency in some contributors to split works into very small chunks, in order to increase the ranking of their domain (like for instance on the spanish wikisource). I think this is harming wikisource, and I agree we would need to change this.

I do not think that counting the number of 'words' will be better than counting the number of 'pages'. If we want to better reflect activity, sorting domains by number of page views, as you propose, makes much more sense. I would also sort only the 10 most active domains, and leave the other domains sorted alphabetically, as they were initially.

ThomasV 11:05, 3 January 2009 (UTC)

You are right. Counting the number of words rather than the articles (Spanish wikisource creates small chunks, Chinese wikisource adds thousands of small taiwanese law articles...) would just move the problem for a moment : a bot could also add thousands of words. But it could be the only way now : I don't think that the "Visit count" is very trustable. The French wikisource is strangely above the English one, and the results change very much from one month to another. The number of words is not a so stupid 'hall of fame' for a library. Maybe one day we could add the number of words from the "Page Mode" (maybe, the once corrected pages) to this... 67.159.45.24 (Syagrius on mailing list)

No answer from other members. Shall we make a decision ? 67.159.45.24 13:44, 18 January 2009 (UTC)

I propose that we use activity. Using the number of words is as bad as what we do now. ThomasV 07:26, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

Why not a simple alphabetical order? Wouldn't it be easier to find a domain? If people want halls of fame I'd rather provide a link to a hall of fame page showing pleasant (and funny) animations about not only one kind of results but lots of various figures and results. I don't think that this hall of fame page should be our main one, though. --Zyephyrus 08:53, 22 January 2009 (UTC)

All right with "activity". But will the english members agree to place the French Wikisource in first position ? Must we launch a vote ? 67.159.45.24

I do not think that fr.ws will be the most active every month. and we could also average on several months ThomasV 07:36, 27 January 2009 (UTC)

Ok. So what do we do now ? 67.159.45.24

fr.ws is #1 in pages views again in january; perhaps it should be ranked first after all... ThomasV 15:17, 6 February 2009 (UTC)

I have no firm opinion about what the best way to measure these things is, whether the number of pages, words, or activity (changes on the wiki). Each of them has its advantages and disadvantages.

However, having the Main Page give the user a basic idea of how much content there is available at each wiki is, in my opinion, an important function. I do not see it as a "hall of fame" (though "hall of fame" doesn't bother me much either). Also, unlike Thomas' comments above, I see such a content-function for the Main Page as equally or even more important for smaller wikis. The data is easily available, and the page shouldn't reflect the content of just the largest wikis. Why is it "silly" to give an indication of how much content is available on a smaller wiki?

I do not think page-views is a reasonable measure, however. The potential readership of a wiki may have nothing at all to do with how much content it contains.

All in all, I would prefer sticking with number-of-pages for the simple reason that it is used on the Main Pages of other Wikimedia projects, and is also the simplest. Despite that fact that it certainly has its disadvantages. In Hebrew, for instance, we have a huge amount of text outside of the main namespace, so it isn't "counted." But no measure is perfect. Unlike Thomas, I see no evidence and hardly think that wikis multiply small pages just so that they can increase their rating. On the contrary, during the day-to-day operation of text editing on a wiki hardly anyone gives any thought to multi-lingual ranking. Dovi 06:11, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

ok, so let us keep the current system. Dovi, I think you should be officially responsible for updating the main page more often, because there are pending requests (see below), and you seem to be willing to do this job. ThomasV 08:35, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Thomas, I didn't mean to close the discussion, and if you thought I did then sorry. I said a had a preference for the current system (number of pages), but that is just a preference, and not a very strong one either. If other people feel strongly about another system I have no problem with that. Page-views I actually disagree with, because it has no relationship to content. But if people think otherwise and really want a usage-based method that is fine too.

Regarding upkeep, I don't think changing or not changing the system affects the frequency for which updates of the Main Page are needed. It is still needed every once in a while.

I see no reason to take "official" responsibility, but I'm glad to help out along with others as has always been the case. In fact, there are no pending requests at all below (all have already been previously dealt with). Remember that Template:Wikisource languages is only semi-protected. Dovi 11:57, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Dovi, your speaking is wise : anyway, using the "page-views" is not meaningless : Wikipedia chose it, because some subdomains were overweighted. Some Wikisource subdomains have a lot of articles, but these articles are rather small, and they are creating more and more of such articles ; I won't tell you wich ones, but trust me they did. Using the global "number of words" could have been a solution, but it is complicated to count. The "page-views", with the new stats of January, seem now fully trustable. Enmerkar 21:15, 12 February 2009 (UTC)

Hi, I never said page-views are meaningless! Actually I agree with you that they are very meaningful: They tell us how many people are using the wiki. That is very important, and it is why page-views are measured.

I think there are two different issues being discussed here. The first is are we ranking content or usage? If we are ranking usage, then obviously we should use page views. (By the way, are you sure about Wikipedia choosing page views for its Main Page?)

The second issue is that, if we are trying to show which Wikisources have significant content, then page views cannot be used. The reason is simple: On the one hand, some languages like English, French, Spanish have hundreds of millions of speakers. Thus, wikis in those languages would have huge numbers of page views even if there was relatively little content on a less active wiki. On the other hand, if you had a highly active wiki with lots of content in a small language (say less than ten million worldwide readers or less than a million), then that wiki could never receive a significant rank and even people who read the language wouldn't know from the Main Page that it is an active community with a useful resource.

That is why, personally, I favor ranking content. However, I admit that none of the ways to measure content is perfect. Also, this whole issue is not one of crucial importance to me, so if other people feel strongly otherwise I wouldn't object. I just wanted to add to the discussion of pluses and minuses. Dovi 19:13, 14 February 2009 (UTC)

Perhaps I should restate what I said earlier, with differents words. I do not understand why you guys want to use the main page to rank subdomains. There are plenty of other pages for stats, where domains can be precisely measured and ranked. However, the main page is visited by people who discover Wikisource for the first time, and its purpose is to provide links to content in an easy-to-use way. I assume that a user visiting this page is looking for content in a specific language, and that he does not care whether the language in question is in the <100, the >100, the 1000+ or the 10.000+ category. So, this grouping of languages is not relevant for the user, it adds clutter, and it slows down his search; a reader needs to examine all the sublists in order to find the language he's looking for. I believe it would much more efficient to provide a single alphabetical list of all the languages we provide.

In addition, it makes sense to display first, around the logo, the 10 languages that are the most likely to be searched by the user, for both aesthetics and efficiency reasons. Therefore, in order to select these 10 languages, we should always keep in mind that we want to help visitors, and not rank ourselves. For this, we want to show the 10 languages that are the most likely to be searched by visitors. So, the debate should focus on the best way to select these 10 languages. I do not really know which method ('page views' or 'amount of content') is the best way to do this; but I insist that the clutter under the logo should be removed. we should display a single alphabetical list, with all languages (even those that are already around the logo).

ThomasV 17:44, 15 February 2009 (UTC)

Thomas, the reason for "ranking" all of the languages is exactly the same as for arranging the top-ten languages around the icon: To give those who visit the Main Page a reasonable idea what Wikisource contains, both its general multilingual diversity and more specifically where it has grown and has content. That is exactly what it should be as a gate to Wikisource. We want to send this message even if someone is looking for a specific language.

All the portals of all the other multilingual projects share this basic approach, and I've never heard of anyone calling the smaller languages under their logos "clutter." Actually, I think the list under our logo looks a bit better than the similar Wikipedia version, but I guess that is a matter of taste.

I don't mind at all that "we want to show the 10 languages that are the most likely to be searched by visitors" around the logo, because that also helps send the general message of diversity and of what Wikisource has in its various languages. But I fail to see why doing a similar thing below for smaller languages is "clutter" (as opposed to an alphabetical list that is not).

Which criterion should be chosen for ranking is not something I feel strongly about. But that smaller languages should be listed without any gradation as to size/content/activity is not something I think is right. Nor do I think there is any issue of "efficiency"; there has never been any problem maintaining Template:Wikisource languages nor is there likely to be. I fail to see why the current list is "clutter" or why it bothers anyone for being there, regardless of which criterion is chosen. Dovi 14:42, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I think that we all agree : the "number of articles" is not the best way to estimate the content. The number of words would be a best way, but the figures are complicated to handle with, and it could also be ... by a bot-attack. The "Page views" is good : it shows activity and now seems accurate ; Wikipedia chose it. Thomas, can you change the Main Page now ? or should we organize a vote ? Enmerkar 20:24, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

I do not think I should modify the main page right now: there is no consensus, and the number of users who gave their opinion so far is probably fairly small, compared to the number of those who will complain if I change anything. Feel free to organize a vote, though. If there is a vote, it would be great if my other comment (about the fact that this page is unnecessarily complicated) would be taken into account. ThomasV 21:32, 16 February 2009 (UTC)

Enmerkar, just to get the facts straight: Did Wikipedia actually choose page views? The wikipedia.org page seems to list the number of articles... Dovi 04:45, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Yes, Dovi, they chose it some months ago : Japanese is in second place (German used to be next to English and now is in third place), and Spanish is fourth above French...

Thomas, nobody gave their opinion here or elsewhere. How could we announce that there is an important discussion here ? Enmerkar 11:25, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

nobody is reading this page regularly; if you organize a vote, it should be properly advertised to subdomains. ThomasV 13:11, 17 February 2009 (UTC)

Lithuanian Wikisource has more than 1000 articles

Somebody, who can edit this page, please move the Lithuanian (Lietuvių) Wikisource to the 1000+ articles group. --Redagavimas 07:28, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

According to [1] lt.wikisource has 306 articles only. --Milda 08:22, 19 January 2009 (UTC)

Hungarian Wikisource has more than 10000 articles

Hi! The Hungarian (Magyar) Wikisource has reached the 10000 article. Please move it to the 10000+ group. Thanks a lot! :) Csega 14:40, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

See here. --Burumbátor 15:37, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

This was previously taken care of at Template:Wikisource languages, which is the proper place for such requests. Dovi 12:00, 8 February 2009 (UTC)

Arabic Wikisource

As it now has more than 10,000 pages [2] can you update its position? --Obayd 15:45, 1 March 2009 (UTC)

Hungarian Wikisource on the Main Page

The inscription A szabad könyvtárában | 12,000+ lapok is linguistically incorrect. The first line should be written without the á in the word könyvtárban, and the lapok should be placed in singular, since the Hungarian uses singular forms after great numbers also. The correct form is this:

A szabad könyvtárban | 12 000-nél is több lap Bennó 16:14, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it is correctly: A szabad könyvtár | 12 000-nél is több lap. Without -ban (which means in). If we would like to follow the original form, the second sentence is: 12 000+ lap Samat 02:04, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

Russian Wikisource reached 24 000

Russian Wikisource reached 24 000 articles. Update main page, please. -- Sergey kudryavtsev 09:09, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

I will not do this, because there is an ongoing discussion. See Wikisource:Changing the main page ThomasV 09:15, 18 March 2009 (UTC)

The main page stats are out of date. I think they should be updated until a new approach is agreed. --Obayd 18:57, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Protection

As per above can Mainpage templates be semi-protected? --Obayd 22:58, 21 March 2009 (UTC)

Latvian

Could Main Page:Latvian be linked from Main Page ? Some people suddenly have taken interest in "Latvian Wikisource" and I figure, if more are to come, it would be easier for them to find it that way ~~Xil 14:34, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

done, but I cannot find the code for Latvian - can you tell me?? -jkb- 16:21, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

lv ~~Xil 16:29, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

aha, thanks, done. -jkb- 16:33, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

oh, how do you say "Latvian" in Latvian?? I would like to change it on the mein page, -jkb- 16:36, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Great, thanks! It's Latviešu ~~Xil 17:30, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Fine, now the main page is OK. For you: enjoy the work here and many new pages wishes you -jkb- 17:37, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Azeri 1000

Azeri Wikisource 1000+ aricles

done, congrats, -jkb- 10:06, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Armenian Wikisource

Hello. Please update the statistics for the Armenian Wikisource as it now has 1,000+ articles. Thank you. Վազգեն 15:09, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

s:hy done, congrats, -jkb- 15:22, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

Vietnamese Wikisource

Vietnamese Wikisource has reached 1000 texts, too.222.253.26.138 06:09, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Done on Template:Wikisource languages, congrats. --Milda 06:34, 26 September 2009 (UTC)

Image code

We should use [[File:Wikisource.png|180px|Wikisource|link=Wikisource]] instead of the current imagemap. It makes the code prettier. Vinhtantran 11:21, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Done. Thanks for the note. Dovi 13:52, 27 September 2009 (UTC)

Replace Polski with ar wikisource

Replace Polski with ar wikisource in {{TopTenCircle}} since it has more Pages (19,000)

Wikisource Arabic has now more ages than Polski Wikisource and should therefore be in the {{TopTenCircle}}.--Diaa abdelmoneim 12:11, 3 October 2009 (UTC)

Remove ht: from the list

Krèyol ayisyen Wikisource has been locked from editing, so it should be removed from the list. Vinhtantran 19:01, 11 October 2009 (UTC)

link to he

should be "הספרייה החופשית", not "הספריה החופשית". דניאל ב. 16:42, 23 October 2009 (UTC)

The current one is a slightly more conservative spelling. Doesn't make any difference to me, but at Hebrew Wikisource it's currently spelled this way. Maybe ask there, and if people agree there we can change it here too. Dovi 20:36, 24 October 2009 (UTC)

interwiki

Could you please add a link to the Alemannic Wikisource: http://als.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text:Houptsyte. It's a separate namespace within the Alemannic Wikipedia, as all Alemannic projects have been merged. Today Alemanic Wikisource contains 142 articles. Thanks, --Holder 08:55, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

done -jkb- 11:42, 12 November 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, --Holder 11:44, 12 November 2009 (UTC)