[Foundation-l] Outdated manual

Sun Apr 10 23:23:21 UTC 2011

Samuel Klein wrote:
> On 9 April 2011 01:14, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
>> May someone update manual in which it is written that Wikipedia is the
>> fifth site by traffic? For the most of 2010 and whole 2011 it has varied
>> between 6th and 8th place [1].
> 
> comScore, Alexa, &c use different methods.  comScore is not perfect,
> and has known biases in its coverage, but it is a bit better than
> Alexa in that regard.  (We used to rely on Alexa data and moved away
> from it)
> 
> I would love better data - if you have a better source, or a better
> way to describe the data from multiple sources, that would be a great
> reason to update our public docs.  But just replacing comScore cites
> with Alexa cites won't be an improvement.

I think the original complaint was that the Wikimedia Foundation constantly
touts hosting the "fifth most-visited site in the world" when it's (at best)
imprecise. I think the simplest solution is to just stop saying that (a
solution that someone else has already suggested in this thread).

Being accurate is important, especially to members of the Wikimedia
community. If you can't be accurate and precise, write in more generic terms
(e.g., "Wikipedia is one of the most popular sites on the Internet today").
Or better yet, focus on something that's actually meaningful. Does it make a
difference to anyone whether Wikipedia is the sixth most-visited website or
the tenth?

> [for SEO purposes, we would probably do better if every project shared the
> same TLD the way Google's do, but that's another thread.]

Yes, Wikipedia seems to have a lot of difficulty with search engine ranking.
;-)

MZMcBride