State of the Wiki: November 2015

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John Richardsim
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State of the Wiki: November 2015

Post by John Richardsim »

Around the end of October, I was digging around the special pages of the wiki, when I found myself examining the statistics page. I decided to start keeping a record of the statistics by copying the important data into a google doc on a weekly basis. You can view this here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1IyR ... sp=sharing

For your convenience, I have also put some of these into graphs:
[img]http://i.imgur.com/logZiig.png[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/6nKF7F1.png[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/M0lZOAv.png[/img]
[img]http://i.imgur.com/MntGTBA.png[/img]
During the 6-week period between the first and last collection of data presented here:
  • There has been 357 edits (if you exclude my edits, this figure drops to 255).
    The number of total views has increased by 900,118 (mean of 150,020 views per week).
    The number of views per edit has increased by 18.3.
    The number of views per edit for this specific time frame was 2521.3.
Conclusion (in case you missed the message): The wiki has been receiving significant amounts of views and usage, yet contributions to it remain modest.

This is where I ask you, the reader of this post, to help.

"But if I put everything I know on the wiki, then I could potentially be giving up advantages in competition!"
Ah, this old dilemma. It's one of the first things that comes to mind for anyone when first editing the wiki. Robotman addressed this in a post a while back (you can read it here). Let me just say this: contributing to the wiki does not mean you must add everything you know about an event to a page. Where as it is absolutely amazing when someone adds a ton of information to an event-related page (a little example of this), small contributions are always greatly appreciated. When one of us staff members makes a post like this, we don't necessarily hope that a few individuals will rise up and start editing like crazy; what we are aiming for is to have many people all contribute a small amount. Remember, the resources on this site are completely dependent on what each user of them does (or doesn't), and it is around these resources that the general spirit of the site revolves. And if I've still failed to at least partially convince you to contribute to the wiki, then please just remember that event pages are only part of the wiki, and you can always help out with team/state/invitational pages.

"Editing the wiki takes too much time!"
Yes, editing the wiki can take some time. However, similar to what I said above, I would much prefer many people to give a little bit of their time on occasion to help out than to have all of the work concentrated on a few individuals who spend a bunch of time chugging away.

"But I don't know how to edit the wiki!"
Editing the wiki will be a bit confusing at first. However, if you are struggling I strongly encourage you to keep trying. Eventually, it will get easier (I guarantee it).
For more help, see this page on the wiki: http://scioly.org/wiki/index.php/Help:Editing. You may also contact myself or an admin for help by PMing one of us here on the forums.

Protip: if you are editing and you are afraid that you may have done something incorrectly, feel free to use the "Show Preview" button to the right of the "Save Page" button (just be sure to save your edits (or fix them if needed) if you preview your edits). Why do I consider this a protip? Funny story...I may or may not have not noticed that the preview button even existed until several months after I started intensively editing the wiki...

"I don't know what to edit!"
A great place to start is by creating a team page for your school. Examples of things to include may be found here. Another good starting place (especially for getting acquainted with the basics of editing) could be creating a user page. To do this, click on your red name under "User Information" on the wiki. From here you can create your own user page, where you can write about who you are, how you got into Science Olympiad, your interests, etc. Another great way you could help out is by making sure your state's page is updated for this year. Also, many of this year's event pages need work, whether it be expansion (e.g., the gas laws page for Chem Lab), updates from previous years (e.g., the Bottle Rocket page), or stylistic revisions (mainly changing 1st and 2nd person to 3rd person). Also don't forget about the test exchange! Remember that tests uploaded to the test exchange don't need to be lengthy; even short 10-20 question tests are welcomed.
For more pages where work is needed, see this page.


And with this, I end this post. Please, consider my words.
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zyzzyva980
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Re: State of the Wiki: November 2015

Post by zyzzyva980 »

I would add to this post:

If you edit the wiki, you will learn so dang much.

It takes a greater understanding of a subject to be able to explain it to somebody else. Editing the wiki can help you gain a greater understanding and a greater sense of clarity about a topic. And in the end, it's far better to truly know something than it is to carry it into an event on a note sheet you downloaded off the Internet.

Glad to see the State of the Wiki back, btw. Keep up the good work.
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Re: State of the Wiki: November 2015

Post by Unome »

So is there going to be a successor or is this just going to die after a few iterations like in 2012?
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John Richardsim
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Re: State of the Wiki: November 2015

Post by John Richardsim »

Unome wrote:So is there going to be a successor or is this just going to die after a few iterations like in 2012?
Well, there probably won't be another one (at least I'm not going to make one), because not too much has changed through December. I doubt much will change this month, or the next, or the next, and so forth. SSDD.
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Re: State of the Wiki: November 2015

Post by EastStroudsburg13 »

Hijacking this thread to say that while all the work on expanding the information on tournaments on the wiki has been great, and has allowed for a new aspect of Science Olympiad info sharing to be explored, we've fallen behind a little bit on event pages. We really need help on these, especially as competition season gets into full swing, and it's difficult for a lot of us older members because, the longer it's been since we graduated, the more the rules have changed, and the more obsolete our knowledge becomes. For this reason, we need YOUR help to add event information! As zyzzyva mentioned, editing the wiki is a really good way to learn the information yourself, because the true test of knowledge is trying to explain that concept to other people.

See the [wiki]Category:Needs Work[/wiki] for suggestions of what pages need the most help! Thanks, and good luck in all of your competitions!
East Stroudsburg South Class of 2012, Alumnus of JT Lambert, Drexel University Class of 2017

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