Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2020-03-29/Traffic report

Traffic report

The only thing that matters in the world

By Igordebraga, Rebestalic, Serendipodous, and Soulbust

This traffic report is adapted from the Top 25 Report, prepared with commentary by Igordebraga (March 1 to 7); Serendipodous, Soulbust and Igordebraga (March 8 to 14); Rebestalic and Igordebraga (March 15 to 21); and Igordebraga (February 23 to 29).

This traffic report is brought to you by the letters "COVID", and the number 19. (Special thanks to both the WMF Tools and User:Jtmorgan for helping us compile the data while the regular tool is down)

Please note that news on COVID-19 has been rapidly developing. The descriptions of the historical articles given here may be out of date.

You Gotta Keep 'Em Separated (March 15 to 21)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (March 15 to 21, 2020)

You built walls to protect you, so no one will infect you (March 8 to 14)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (March 8 to 14, 2020)

I've Got a Disease (March 1 to 7)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (March 1 to 7, 2020

This could be The Last Time (February 23 to 29)

Most Popular Wikipedia Articles of the Week (February 23 to 29, 2020

Exclusions

These lists exclude the Wikipedia main page, non-article pages (such as redlinks), and anomalous entries (such as DDoS attacks or likely automated views). Since mobile view data became available to the Report in October 2014, we exclude articles that have almost no mobile views (5–6% or less) or almost all mobile views (94–95% or more) because they are very likely to be automated views based on our experience and research of the issue. Please feel free to discuss any removal on the Top 25 Report talk page if you wish.

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In this issue

29 March 2020 (all comments)

Traffic report

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Why is the February report the last? -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 20:12, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's only maybe the last time. I don't know. Natureium (talk) 20:29, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Oh no, oh no. -- GreenC 02:19, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

We switched to reverse chronological order, thinking that readers would be most interested in the latest report. ☆ Bri (talk) 20:43, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

It's a chance to fix mistakes. One more for the last time. Natureium (talk) 22:32, 29 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

@Bri:: Well I wanted to see the development of interest for the coronavirus pandemic overtime as March went by, as it overshadowed other important events of the month such as the 2020 Democratic primaries -Gouleg (Talk • Contribs) 15:47, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Gouleg, you can compare pageviews of two or more articles using the tool. E.g. 2020 primaries vs COVID in US [1]. But as far as I know we don't have something pre-prepared to show exactly what you're interested in. I'd encourage you to develop it and share it with us. Maybe we can even incorporate it in the next Signpost. I'm sure that we'll still be talking a lot about both topics. ☆ Bri (talk) 15:54, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

A thought on format: Could be interesting to see this portrayed as a "weeks on chart" sort of thing like NYT bestsellers or top Billboard hits, or alternatively, a kind of map with connected nodes, such as in the one above where there is cross-referential treatment between many of the list's items. A week is an arbitrary time period—I imagine most of these spikes are single days—I'd also be curious in a layered visualization that shows sustained traffic to COVID against daily spikes here or there for other topics. Like it's fun to read as-is, but I always wonder about the story behind the data: why is a topic rising or falling week over week, what does that say about influence, whence is their traffic spiking, etc. (Just ideas—not meant as any kind of criticism. Really appreciate this work!) czar 01:43, 30 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Sort of like the hatnote top 100? I like their presentation a lot not to plug a "competitor" but credit where credit it due. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:57, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Edited to add: I thought about the trends as interesting in themselves when I saw where 2020 coronavirus pandemic in India is relative to U.S. now – much higher. ☆ Bri (talk) 00:59, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The hatnote top 100's sparklines are pretty nice czar 01:54, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]

"Rogers passed away of natural causes at his home on the 20th of March this year." - no doubt intended to convey he did not die of the virus. But virus deaths are from "natural causes" too. Johnbod (talk) 15:35, 31 March 2020 (UTC)[reply]
And it was later revealed he did in fact die from COVID-19, according to his article. Being hyper-literal, isn't any death "natural"? "Natural causes" is a term of art that means "an anticipated death due to age or other factors like chronic conditions where it wasn't felt necessary to pin down an exact cause". --47.146.63.87 (talk) 22:20, 4 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

Experienced Wikipedia editors sometimes play the role of teachers who have to explain to the public and other WP "editors" about impartiality, the dangers of bias and POV, promotion, autobiography, and so on. That persistent problem is made more difficult by the people who write the Signpost and who bill it as the house newspaper. Imagine the response of all the people who see the Signpost breaking POV all the time and airing their opinions and agendas. Taking sides is something we're not supposed to do as editors. I don't know if Signpost writers have any experience in journalism. They ought to try to be impartial and to present facts without commentary, analysis, and editorializing. There are plenty of places for opinions in Interworld and the real world. There certainly are a lot of them. Read a Wikipedia debate sometime. Maximum verbosity for maximum "expertise". Watch TV, read a newspaper or a web site. And you know the old adage about the value of opinions. There's nothing special about them. If you want to be special, if you want to be rebellious outsider, part of a tiny minority of radicals, then be a thinker, a calm, rational, person who is impartial, slow to judge, giving people the benefit of the doubt. Go against the grain of TV, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter. The first four letters of Twitter spell "twit". Many people are OK with that. I'm not. Demand more of yourself.
Vmavanti (talk) 15:36, 19 April 2020 (UTC)[reply]

The Signpost is looking for new talent.

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