[Foundation-l] Analysis of lists statistics: community in decline

Thu Oct 30 08:37:58 UTC 2008

Ian's and Yaroslav's comments are related:

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 8:20 AM, Ian A. Holton <poeloq at gmail.com> wrote:
> A very interesting analysis of the situation. It might now be
> interesting to correlate this to other communication methods in
> community use, to see if actual discussion has decreased or if it has
> shifted to other channels.

On Thu, Oct 30, 2008 at 9:17 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter <putevod at mccme.ru> wrote:
>> "Trivia":
>> * Russian Wikipedians don't use WMF based lists for their
>> communication. (Or they don't use mailing lists at all, which seems to
>> me less possible.)
>
> They do not use any mailing lists at all as far as I know. At least I am
> not aware of existence of any mailing lists for ru.wp

First, as you (Yaroslav) is active here, I would like to know what
Russian Wikipedians are using for communication. Just wiki? Some other
ways of communication? Wikipedia in Russian is not a small project, as
well as it is growing -- which demands some level of systematic
coordination. I think that the answer on this question may be very
significant at least in understanding some part of lists traffic
decrease.

Also, Japanese Wikipedians (anyone reading this?) may give to us a
relevant answer. At least during the last decades, whenever I was
getting informations about technology development, Japan was at the
top. From computers usage, via mobile phone usage, up to very
distinctive high-tech culture. If the general trends are toward
decreasing of email communications, then, for sure, wikija-l would
show more decrease than other lists. However, their activity is
increasing! Also, Japanese Wikipedia is one of the biggest for a long
time, so it can't be explained with less activity in the past and
increasing of activity in the present (like the Russian case is). Are
they one step forward (culturally), so we may expect similar
development in the future? Or it is because of some specific reason?
In both cases, this answer may be very significant!

At last, if email-like communication is moved to social networks, like
Facebook is, then we have to go there, too. (Or, as I was talking in
the past: to make a social networking site from Wikimedia projects.)