Where in the world is Wikipedia?

WikiProject report

Where in the world is Wikipedia?

Where are we?

Surprisingly, neither the size of a geographic area nor the area's population seems to correspond with activity at WikiProjects. In terms of the sheer number of articles under a project's belt, the United States, India, Australia, Canada, and France each outnumber all of Africa lumped together. Meanwhile, the project covering all topics about the world's most populous country, China, has roughly the same number of articles as the task force covering just United States military history. But simply having a large number of articles doesn't mean people actually contribute or even pay attention to a particular project. After all, the only countries represented in the top 50 most watchlisted projects on Wikipedia are Japan and Germany.

Writing a weekly column about WikiProjects for the Signpost has allowed us to uncover some other peculiarities. For instance, we've interviewed the highly active WikiProject Oregon twice (2009 and 2011). When we approached WikiProject California, Oregon's southern neighbor and the most populous state in the United States, we had difficulty finding editors who thought the project was even "worthy" of an interview. That's a far cry from the strong responses we've had from tiny states like Connecticut and other entities like the District of Columbia. But alas, most of the projects covering states and cities in the US are far from active and, as a sign of the untenable status of many state-wide projects, WikiProject United States has absorbed the technical aspects of most state projects to ensure their neglected banners, templates, and categories don't rot away.

Canada is another matter. Despite a wealth of WikiProjects covering Canadian provinces, territories, regions, cities, communities, and related topics, only a few of these projects have active talk pages, with typical conversation threads for the past year consisting of a couple unanswered questions from non-members and a smattering of bot-delivered notifications. Most discussion of Canadian topics is directed to the Canadian Wikipedians' notice board. The WikiProject Report knows firsthand how difficult it can be to find an active Canadian WikiProject. After two years and several false-starts, we snagged a single editor willing to talk about WikiProject Toronto.

The United Kingdom has the opposite problem. WikiProject United Kingdom is actually an extension of the UK Wikipedians' notice board, although heated discussions may also erupt on the independent notice boards for Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Irish Wikipedians, as well as the talk pages for WikiProject Scotland, WikiProject Wales, and a variety of overseas territories. The projects covering the constituent countries of the United Kingdom are in such disarray, one exasperated member of WikiProject Scotland commented earlier this year that "nobody really gives a flying f*** about the Scotland-related content here at Wikipedia" to which another editor responded "Scotland is atrocious, but it's the same for most of the US, especially geography, full of stale articles nobody has added anything significant to since Rambot did his ramming."

There are hierarchies of projects representing regions, counties, and cities in the UK that each have their own talk pages, regardless of whether the project is active, semi-active, or inactive. But who actually watches all of these talk pages? If you want to find a lively discussion about the UK, the best places to go are the projects covering politics, military history, the ludicrously productive GLAM projects for Monmouth and Gibraltar, and a variety of transportation projects, whether by road, railway, or waterway.

Discussions about Australian articles tend to gravitate toward the Australian Wikipedians' notice board and the state project for Western Australia, leaving most of the city and state projects as empty shells. WikiProject Sydney's talk page redirects to the Australian noticeboard while smaller cities have retained their talk pages, for better or worse. Most of these projects were thriving communities a few years ago, evidenced by the many talk pages that are sorely in need of archiving. A few active projects still exist for topics like Australian politics and Australian rules football.

Projects for Germany and France each employ a sea of task forces which only show activity in spurts, usually resulting from a heated discussion spilling over from article talk pages. As a whole, Europe tends to be hit or miss. We definitely found signs of life at the active projects covering Belgium, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Denmark, Ireland, Norway, Poland, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, and Switzerland.

India has a project, task force, or workgroup for everything, but good luck finding an active one. Most discussion takes place at the Noticeboard for India-related topics. Pakistan also sports a lively talk page and a laundry list of semi-active and inactive subprojects and task forces. Japan and South Korea are better represented than their more restricted neighbors in China and North Korea.

For the rest of Asia, Africa, South and Central America, and much of Europe, an eerie quiet pervades their talk pages. A single WikiProject will exist for each country with dead umbrella projects hovering above to provide some organization by region and continent. The few country projects that have task forces or subprojects often rely on other, more active projects like WikiProject Film, WikiProject Military History, or WikiProject Football to keep these task forces going on a day to day basis.

Why the difference?

The discrepancy between some geographic areas is likely a result of several factors, but chief among them is Wikipedia's systemic bias (there's even a WikiProject for that). Native English-speaking editors from Anglophone countries tend to contribute most to the English Wikipedia. A 2011 survey conducted by the Wikimedia Foundation found that 20 percent of Wikipedia editors come from the United States, while all other English-speaking countries are in single digits. Together, English-speakers account for 52 percent of all Wikipedia editors across all language versions of the encyclopedia.

With these editor demographics, it is no surprise that English-speaking parts of the world tend to be better represented by articles on Wikipedia and have a wider range of WikiProjects dedicated to building and maintaining those articles. Additionally, countries and regions where English is an official language (like India and Pakistan) or where English-language schooling is common (like some European countries) participate more than countries without broad teaching of English.

Outside of language barriers, access to the Internet is a prerequisite for contributing to an online encyclopedia. Groups who statistically have less access to the Internet are also underrepresented on Wikipedia, including people in developing nations and the poor in industrialized nations. But this does not always explain why certain states, provinces, and cities within the United States, Britain, Canada, and Australia tend to be more active than others.

Communities with large populations may benefit from having a larger pool of potential editors to draw from. On the other hand, smaller communities may be more cohesive and enable closer collaborations and even meetups in real life. Some areas may feature a confluence of notable landmarks, historical events, or recent news coverage that drive residents to contribute or attract editors from outside the area. Other areas may benefit from their obscurity, with highly motivated members attempting to put their town or region on the map.

Finally, there's the pure chance that two or more highly active contributors just happen to be from the same town, province, or small country. Maybe they found each other on the project's talk page or while working on some related topic. Friendships (or animosities) developed until the real-world community became the basis for a WikiProject community. If this is the case, it's likely that more Wikipedians are out there, unaware that their neighbors in real life are also toiling away on Wikipedia unnoticed.

What can be done?

All Wikipedians should take note of all the communities in which they have come into contact at some point in their lives. Where were you born? Where do you currently live? Where have you traveled? Where do your family and friends call home? Where would you like to go someday? Look up the Wikipedia articles for each of these places and see what shape the articles are currently in. Check the talk pages for these articles to see what WikiProjects currently oversee the articles and add these WikiProjects to your watchlist. Finally, start improving these encyclopedia articles. If the people who have lived in these places and experienced their communities don't care enough to improve the articles, why should we expect anyone else to bother?

But don't stop there. Check out the articles for neighboring cities, states, provinces, regions, or countries. Watch their projects' talk pages. For the more adventurous, Wikipedia's greatest need is in the global south. As one blogger quipped, "there are more Wikipedia articles written about the fictional places of Middle Earth and Discworld than about many countries in Africa, the Americas and Asia."

Africa possibly poses the greatest challenge. Every country in Africa has a project, but most serve as little more than placeholders with no significant edits or discussions in years. With 54 recognized sovereign countries and nearly a dozen disputed territories, it may be too much to ask that every one of these WikiProjects be revived at the snap of a finger. But until these communities begin to grow on their own, someone should at least be watching the projects to ensure that questions don't go unanswered and new contributors feel that they're not alone.

Until then, WikiProject Africa, WikiProject African Diaspora, and the unique WikiAfrica can serve as a clearing house for editors wanting to build content about the countries and communities of Africa.

In the aftermath of the Arab Spring, projects covering Tunisia, Egypt, Libya, and Syria saw small bursts of activity, but much of that energy has receded in recent months. WikiProject Arab World can serve as a springboard for reviving and sustaining the projects of Northern Africa and Western Asia, but only if editors are watching and participating.

In Latin America, projects for Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela are growing, but could use help building articles, geotagging, and finding reliable sources. WikiProject Mexico is surprisingly quiet, considering the vast number of bilingual expatriates living in the United States and elsewhere. WikiProject Caribbean alone has 27 subprojects and working groups that need attention.

In Asia, the projects for smaller countries are often overshadowed by China, India, and Japan. That hasn't stopped those smaller countries from drawing contributors. The talk page for WikiProject Vietnam is just as active as China's. The project covering the Koreas has performed admirably, even though tough censorship in the North limits coverage of one side of the peninsula. Editors interested in Asia will find projects from Mongolia to Brunei that could use help.

Europe is not without its shortcomings. The talk page for WikiProject Italy is primarily a home for unanswered questions. WikiProject Hungary isn't even included in WikiProject Europe's list of child projects. The projects for Austria, Finland, Greece, Iceland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, and Portugal could use more members. If WikiProjects covering large countries like Spain struggle to stay active, what hope is there for the microstates?

The top level projects for the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and India need to determine at what point their vast arrays of child projects and task forces actually impede their efforts. Can some of these child projects be revived or should they be consolidated?

WikiProject United States has already begun to consolidate, streamlining a few tasks while aggravating some active child projects in the process. However, even in the country that is the most covered by Wikipedia, there are significant holes that need addressing. City projects from Miami to Seattle need a facelift. States from Texas to Maine could use a shot of adrenaline. Topics ranging from presidents to superfunds to the wild west are lacking the editors needed to build and sustain their articles.

The United Kingdom needs help improving communication between its separate communities, building on the abilities of its most active projects while coaxing editors to contribute to areas outside their hometown or hobby. As the aforementioned exasperated Scot complained, "we all potter about doing our own little projects." The WikiProjects for Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland need rejuvenation and their corresponding noticeboards should either be integrated with the projects' talk pages or merged with the UK noticeboard. Sure, not every project can compete with Gibraltar in terms of editor enthusiasm, but building an encyclopedia requires more than simply keeping calm and carrying on.

WikiProject Canada, while a good place for discussion, desperately needs to revive or consolidate its child projects. A proposal is already being discussed that would redirect the remaining talk pages to the Canadian noticeboard, hopefully avoiding situations "where the occasional post at the sub-projects is met by the deafening sound of crickets."

Likewise, Australian and Indian editors are needed for inactive and semi-active state and city projects everywhere. WikiProject Sydney, WikiProject Canberra, WikiProject Mumbai, and WikiProject Delhi should not be overshadowed by WikiProject Lowell, Massachusetts.

How can we keep it going?

Let's build the entire globe

In an attempt to adequately cover projects from all over the world, the WikiProject Report has sought out geographic diversity for our interviews whenever possible, succeeding in some respects and failing in others. A skim of the archives reveals that English-speaking cities, regions, and countries still receive an undue proportion of our coverage. When we do cover other parts of the world, we've skewed toward Eastern Europe and Asia, neglecting much of Africa, South and Central America, and non-anglophone parts of Western and Central Europe. Inequalities even exist among the English-speaking parts of the world. The United States and Britain are represented particularly strongly while Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and others barely register. We've started including WikiProjects from Wikipedia's other languages to expand our horizons, but we'd still like to see more of the English Wikipedia's geographic projects return to fully active status.

Today, we challenge every Wikipedian to find a corner of the world that they already know or that they want to learn more about. Dust off a forgotten WikiProject, add it to your watchlist, and start expanding the neglected articles. It is our hope that more projects from neglected geographic regions will be featured in the WikiProject Report in the years ahead. It can be difficult to find projects with active members who are willing to share their experiences, but if you're willing to seek out new ways to build a better encyclopedia, we'll find you.

Next week, we'll see how one of the most active WikiProjects rewards its members. Until then, we hope you find motivation in our past adventures.

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In this issue

22 October 2012 (all comments)

WikiProject report

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24 October 2012

Thanks for making me realize that, being Italian, I might help with the WikiProject Italy :) I am also so glad you mentioned WikiAfrica, and would like to point out that within that project we developed a database of African villages, municipalities and so on. They might be easily published on Wikipedia by using a bot, but unfortunately, some linguistic versions do not seem interested. If someone reading this operates a bot and is interested in filling that gap this article talks about, please drop me a line. Thanks! --Elitre (talk) 11:28, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
- Hi Elitre, I was not aware that bots can be used to publish articles on Wikipedia. Would you please elaborate. thanx Ottawahitech (talk) 18:38, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
  - Bots are allowed to publish articles, but require prior approval (see WP:BAG and WP:BOTREQ). Realistically, a bot would not be approved except for a high-volume task, such as the above-mentioned database. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 00:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

South America and Oceania do not exist in this post. :( Oceania probably actually has bigger issues in regards to representation than Africa. Look at sports for a start. How bad is the coverage for those? And ironic moment: Articles on women's football in Africa are better, based on assessment alone, than men's football. --LauraHale (talk) 11:37, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

South American countries Argentina, Brazil, and Venezuela were mentioned in the "What can be done?" section. Aside from Australia, I did neglect Oceania, which I agree can use a lot of help. We'll be publishing an interview with WP Brazil next month, so be sure to check back. –Mabeenot (talk) 02:15, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

A very useful report, and yes it is certainly time to start drastic consolidation among the projects, sub-projects, task-forces etc etc set up with high hopes in a different period. The ones where no one objects to consolidation are the ones to go. Johnbod (talk) 12:58, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Yes I agree it is a useful report, I am not so sure though about consolidating wiki-projects. Some of us prefer to be BIG FISH in small bowls rather than the other way around :-) Ottawahitech (talk) 18:43, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

This was seriously the best Signpost report ever! ♛♚★Vaibhav Jain★♚♛ ^Talk ^Email 13:15, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Standardizing wikiprojects?

I think you should be cautious in assessing active WikiProjects based on their talk page frequency. To me the most useful part of WikiProjects is the cleanup lists, article alerts, assessment logs and counts, dab solver and other maintenance activities that are much more easily managed when it is related to topics that you know about. But my experience with tracking some of these, especially from the WP:URBLP work, is that most projects aren't active in cleaning up their own articles. It's normally either a very small number of editors who decide to work through a backlog, or a generic backlog drive that covers all projects. One thing that would be a good start, would be to standardise all WikiProjects setups and ensure that the tools to track, monitor and maintain the articles are always running, and WMF backed, so that they don't fall over when someone's toolserver account expires (anyone seen User:DASHBot lately?) or when the toolserver gets lagged. And has anyone ever run a report of pages that aren't in any WikiProjects? Are there thousands, hundreds of thousands or millions of articles that are project orphans? The-Pope (talk) 14:42, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
No doubt there are, but since so little happens to maintain most of the ones that are in projects, of what use is that information? Johnbod (talk) 14:51, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
It at least gives them a chance of being seen, one day, by someone who is aware of these lists or the Wikipedia:Article alerts automated system (for when the manual delsort system isn't working). I shudder to think how many "lost" articles are out there, with the only real chance of ever being improved/vandal watched etc is to have enough relevant categories or wikiprojects on them for them to be found (especially those with strange spellings in the titles. The-Pope (talk) 15:07, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]
The main page indicates 4,082,654 articles while from this it appears that there are 3,919,430 articles tagged by at least one WikiProject, that leaves 163,224 (4%) without a WikiProject. --ELEKHH^T 02:54, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@ELEKHH, actually I am surprised to find out there are only 163,224 articles that do not belong to a wiki-project. I have been tagging such articles for some time now and from my vantage point there are a lot more than 4% that need that service. I guess I must have been working the slums of Wikipedia :-)

You must have been in a particular territory, as I haven't encountered that many. On the other hand in absolute terms 163,224 is a fairly large number. That's more articles than most (250 of 285) Wikipedias have in total. --ELEKHH^T 22:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Elekhh, Maybe, but I sure come across many talk pages that have no wikiproject associated with them. Just minutes ago I found 3: Talk:Consumer protection, Talk:Notary and Talk:Pocket veto. Ottawahitech (talk) 19:52, 28 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@The-Pope, I agree wiki-projects should be a lot more standard to allow Wikipedians to participate without having to learn a whole new set of rules, locations,rating articles, etc. How this can be accomplished is another question, though. For example, there are many wiki-projects with no articles at all, for example Wikipedia:WikiProject Editor Retention. Ottawahitech (talk) 03:40, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I'd agree. Do those figures allow for the thousands of articles claimed by (usually far too many) multiple projects, I wonder? Johnbod (talk) 21:15, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

According to the explanation on that page yes, articles are only once counted and only the tag with highest importance rating is considered. --ELEKHH^T 22:22, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Wikiproject deletions

Wasn't the Gibralter wiki-project just barely saved from deletion earlier this month? Another wikiproject, Wikipedia: WikiProject Nortel (a Canadian company) had just disappeared into a black hole. So why encourage wikipedians to join these semi-active projects and waste precious time trying to save them? Ottawahitech (talk) 18:33, 24 October 2012 (UTC) Just thought I would add a link to the deletion discussion in case someone is still checking in here. Ottawahitech (talk) 15:55, 2 January 2016 (UTC)please ping me[reply]

I can't speak for the Nortel one, but the Gibraltar one survived deletion by a wide margin - there was never any real danger it would get deleted. Active WikiProjects never do. Inactive ones either get marked as inactive and archived, or merged into more active projects. Prioryman (talk) 22:05, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Prioryman, I thought this deletion was defeated by a no-consensus - but I guess I will have to check when I get a chance. In any event a deletion of a wikiproject can happen with only a couple of participants in the deletion discussion itself.

As far as inactive wikiprojects being archived, or merged - that is simply not true and there is no such consensus at Wikipedia as you can clearly see in these comments: Wikipedia_talk:Canadian_Wikipedians'_notice_board#deletion of inactive projects Ottawahitech (talk) 15:01, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Since you are linking to my comments. I am not sure exactly what you are getting at. It does happen fairly regularly that inactive projects get merged into others or deleted. I have been in a few such discussions in the past. If you are referring to active WikiProjects. Then it is pretty rare that they get deleted, the only time I have seen it happen is when there is A> already a WikiProject with the same scope B> the project is doing something counter to the goals of the wiki. I have seen the second situation in a number of cases where the project was being used to push a particular POV. -DJSasso (talk) 15:06, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Djsasso, this is what I should have said:

As far as inactive wikiprojects ALWAYS being either archived, or merged, but NOT deleted - that is simply not true ... Ottawahitech (talk) 02:13, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

You are correct - in that despite our policy on the matter (as seen here and here many still get deleted for the wrong reasons - (resulting in userfication of some if someone is willing). That said many that have been deleted fall into the useless category. See an old talk on the problem of deletions HERE. Moxy (talk) 18:27, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Moxy, Thanks again for the relevant wikilinks which document Wikipedia's policy in regards to wikiproject deletions:

Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Other_options

Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion

I wonder if the admins who carry out deletions pay attention to these policies? Ottawahitech (talk) 15:47, 29 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Canada info error

Currently the section on Canada states "only a few of these projects have talk pages that don't redirect to the Canadian Wikipedians' notice board". I would like to point out that not one of the Canadian sub projects redirects its talk page to the main Canadian notice board. It would be correct to say the Canadians seem to use the main notice board for all topics .. but we don't redirect the talk pages - we have talked about it - but it did not seem logical at the time of the discussion. Moxy (talk) 18:44, 24 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Right you are. I seem to remember there being quite a few redirects, but looking back now, I'm clearly mistaken. I've corrected it in the article. Thanks! –Mabeenot (talk) 02:15, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Well, I am glad to see Moxy participating here. I have been trying to participate in Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada for a long time, but find the setup there very confusing and different from other wiki-projects. Since Moxy is the main organizer of this wikiproject, it is a great opportunity to have some questions answered (I hope?). Ottawahitech (talk) 03:20, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I can try and answer any questions you have about most projects. As for organization (layout) - I (with others) have taken care of layouts for projects like - WP:USA - WP:CA - WP:AUS - WP:BIB.Moxy (talk) 16:55, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

OK, Thanks: Who does the article assessments at the various sub-projects of wp:WikiProject Canada and where are these assessments discussed? Ottawahitech (talk) 02:00, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Any editor is free to make assessments for any article (lets hope they understand the ranking) - That said we (the Canada project) do have a request section at Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Assessment#Requesting an assessment were help in this regard can be obtained. There is also Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Assessment FAQ for general questions.Moxy (talk) 18:46, 27 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Moxy, Do you mean ANY editor? - If so, who makes sure that each and every one of the over 104 thousand items tagged by this wikiproject is properly rated? Is this rating coordinated anwhere?

Like categories they are a part of Wikipedia that is 'in-general" not that important for accuracy because they are not seen (used) by the average reader - there more for editors and project organization. This is why GA and FA reviews are done independently of Wikiprojects. Most big projects will have a page with examples and explanations like Wikipedia:WikiProject Canada/Assessment#Quality scale.Moxy (talk) 21:20, 30 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

@Moxy, thanks. Can you recommend a place where interested parties can continue this discussion, since it appears few are left here(?) Ottawahitech (talk) 19:00, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

I would guess at Wikipedia:Version 1.0 Editorial Team/Assessment.Moxy (talk) 19:44, 31 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Community

Effectively a Wikipedia geographic project will be successful in proportion to an number of factors. One of these is the sense of community the project engenders. For this purpose smaller is in some ways better. In particular when there is a sufficient pool of literate people with access to the technology, uncommitted time and a volunteer culture then small is indeed beautiful. Rich Farmbrough, 02:45, 25 October 2012 (UTC).[reply]

@Rich Farmbrough: I would like to offer my own personal observation regarding the sense of community: in my experience many talkpages are frequented by editors whose mission seems to be "jump down quick on any newbie who shows up here asking questions". Sometimes these editors are not associated with the talkpage at all, but just seem to get their kicks by disrupting the discussion, or simply showing off, at least this is how I interpret it when it happens to me :-)

Other times the "jumpers" are established members who have grown through hard-knocks school and figure others should too before being allowed into the inner circle. Just my $.02. XOttawahitech (talk) 19:15, 17 March 2014 (UTC)[reply]

This is a frequently heard complaint. It would be worth looking at a sample and seeing how we can change the way we interact to lessen these confrontations. All the best, Rich Farmbrough, 09:32, 16 April 2014 (UTC).[reply]

Recruiting WikiProject participants

If someone uses an automated program to invite each editor included in Category:Wikipedians by location to participate in one or more WikiProjects included in Category:Geographical WikiProjects, then probably there will be more WikiProject participants, including some who have not been aware of the existence of WikiProjects. —Wavelength (talk) 19:24, 25 October 2012 (UTC)[reply]

Have always thought that our {{Welcome}} template(s) should mention and have a link to Wikipedia:WikiProject.Moxy (talk)

Or possibly, an option to fill in the name of a suitable WikiProject. Djembayz (talk) 02:51, 14 January 2013 (UTC)[reply]