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[Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

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Dario Taraborelli-3

[Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

“[R]ecent revisions of an article can be peeled off to reveal older layers,
which are still meaningful for historians. Even graffiti applied by vandals
can by its sheer informality convey meaningful information, just like
historians learned a lot from graffiti on walls of classic Pompei. Likewise
view patterns can tell future historians a lot about what was hot and what
wasn’t in our times. Reason why these raw view data are meant to be
preserved for a long time.”

Erik Zachte wrote these lines in a blog post
<https://web.archive.org/web/20171018194720/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/michael-jackson/>
almost
ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he gave
us. Erik retired <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> this
past Friday, leaving behind an immense legacy. I had the honor to work with
him for several years, and I hosted this morning an intimate, tearful
celebration of what Erik has represented for the Wikimedia movement.

His Wikistats project <https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—with his signature
pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s
<https://web.archive.org/web/20060412043240/https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—has
been much more than an "analytics platform". It's been an individual
attempt he initiated, and grew over time, to try and comprehend and make
sense of the largest open collaboration project in human history, driven by
curiosity and by an insatiable desire to serve data to the communities that
most needed it.

Through this project, Erik has created a live record of data describing the
growth and reach of all Wikimedia communities, across languages and
projects, putting multi-lingualism and smaller communities at the very
center of his attention. He coined metrics such as "active editors" that
defined the benchmark for volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the
academic community to understand some of the growing pains and editor
retention issues
<https://web.archive.org/web/20110608214507/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/12/new-editors-are-joining-english-wikipedia-in-droves/>
the movement has faced. He created countless reports—that predate by nearly
a decade modern visualizations of online attention—to understand what
Wikipedia traffic means in the context of current events like elections
<https://web.archive.org/web/20160405055621/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/09/sarah-palin/>
or public health crises
<https://web.archive.org/web/20090708011216/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/05/h1n1-flu-or-new-flu-or/>.
He has created countless
<https://twitter.com/Infodisiac/status/1039244151953543169> visualizations
<https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/27/new-interactive-visualization-wikipedia/>
that show the enormous gaps in local language content and representation
that, as a movement, we face in our efforts to build an encyclopedia for
and about everyone. He has also made extensive use of pie charts
<https://web.archive.org/web/20141222073751/http://infodisiac.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/piechartscorrected.png>,
which—as friends—we are ready to turn a blind eye towards.

Most importantly, the data Erik has brougth to life has been cited over
1,000 times
<https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=stats.wikimedia.org>
in the scholarly literature. If we gave credit to open data creators in the
same way as we credit authors of scholarly papers, Erik would be one of the
most influential authors in the field, and I don't think it is much of a
stretch to say that the massive trove of data and metrics Erik has made
available had a direct causal role in the birth and growth of the academic
field of Wikimedia research, and more broadly, scholarship of online
collaboration.

Like I said this morning, Erik -- you have been not only an invaluable
colleague and a steward for the movement, but also a very decent human
being, and I am grateful we shared some of this journey together.

Please join me in celebrating Erik on his well-deserved retirement, read
his statement <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> to learn
what he's planning to do next, or check this lovely portrait
<https://www.wired.com/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/> Wired published a
while back about "the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia's Massive Data
Trove".

Dario

--
*Dario Taraborelli *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
research.wikimedia.org • nitens.org • @readermeter
<http://twitter.com/readermeter>
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Pine W

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Analytics] Farewell, Erik!

Thanks for your work, Erik. I hope that we will see you in the future.

This is the first time that I can recall hearing about a person retiring
from WMF. Volunteer retirements and semi-retirements happen regularly, and
the reasons that I hear for those retirements are often sad. It's nice to
hear of someone who is retiring after years of success and is moving in a
positive direction.

I think that you leave a good legacy in the Wikiverse, and as you might
guess from my username, I like what you chose for your next project.

Best wishes,

Pine
( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
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Effe iets anders

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Analytics] Farewell, Erik!

I have always enjoyed Erik's insightful input - especially the insights
that people don't like to hear at first. I trust that much more of that is
to come in the future, so I'm not ready to say farewells :). I wouldn't be
able to accurately summarize it anyway.

Erik, I hope that you'll find a lot of joy in the beautiful tree project
that you're working on these days (folks, definitely check it out if you're
interested in Leiden's horticulture). It is another beautiful example of
how you manage to visualize the things that sound dull without you
explaining them. Your presentations at Wikimania were for that reason
usually the ones I most looked forward to.

What maybe not everyone realizes, is that Erik is one of the people that
the French Wikipedia would categorize as 'Grand Ancients
<https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Grands_Anciens>',
having been active since 2001. A unique understanding of the history of
Wikipedia combined with dedication and understanding data has clearly
resulted in good work. Thanks for summarizing this so elaborately, Dario :)

Until soon,

Lodewijk

On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 1:54 PM Pine W <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Thanks for your work, Erik. I hope that we will see you in the future.
>
> This is the first time that I can recall hearing about a person retiring
> from WMF. Volunteer retirements and semi-retirements happen regularly, and
> the reasons that I hear for those retirements are often sad. It's nice to
> hear of someone who is retiring after years of success and is moving in a
> positive direction.
>
> I think that you leave a good legacy in the Wikiverse, and as you might
> guess from my username, I like what you chose for your next project.
>
> Best wishes,
>
> Pine
> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Analytics mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>

_______________________________________________
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Brad Patrick

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Analytics] Farewell, Erik!

Erik:

From the early days until now, your quiet leadership and excellence have been a great credit to the organization and most importantly, your leadership by example has been an inspiration to untold numbers of people. But, actually, it’s not untold numbers because of your work! You tell it with numbers.

All the best in your next chapter. Thank you so much for your work!

BradPatrick

[hidden email]
Sent from my iPhone

> On Feb 6, 2019, at 5:21 PM, effe iets anders <[hidden email]> wrote:
>
> I have always enjoyed Erik's insightful input - especially the insights
> that people don't like to hear at first. I trust that much more of that is
> to come in the future, so I'm not ready to say farewells :). I wouldn't be
> able to accurately summarize it anyway.
>
> Erik, I hope that you'll find a lot of joy in the beautiful tree project
> that you're working on these days (folks, definitely check it out if you're
> interested in Leiden's horticulture). It is another beautiful example of
> how you manage to visualize the things that sound dull without you
> explaining them. Your presentations at Wikimania were for that reason
> usually the ones I most looked forward to.
>
> What maybe not everyone realizes, is that Erik is one of the people that
> the French Wikipedia would categorize as 'Grand Ancients
> <https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cat%C3%A9gorie:Wikip%C3%A9dia:Grands_Anciens>',
> having been active since 2001. A unique understanding of the history of
> Wikipedia combined with dedication and understanding data has clearly
> resulted in good work. Thanks for summarizing this so elaborately, Dario :)
>
> Until soon,
>
> Lodewijk
>
>> On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 1:54 PM Pine W <[hidden email]> wrote:
>>
>> Thanks for your work, Erik. I hope that we will see you in the future.
>>
>> This is the first time that I can recall hearing about a person retiring
>> from WMF. Volunteer retirements and semi-retirements happen regularly, and
>> the reasons that I hear for those retirements are often sad. It's nice to
>> hear of someone who is retiring after years of success and is moving in a
>> positive direction.
>>
>> I think that you leave a good legacy in the Wikiverse, and as you might
>> guess from my username, I like what you chose for your next project.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>>
>> Pine
>> ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine )
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Analytics mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: [hidden email]
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>

Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Analytics] Farewell, Erik!

In reply to this post by Dario Taraborelli-3

Hi Erik,

Thank you for your work!

When I first came across Wikistats, it completely blew my mind. Such a
huge collection of raw data turned into digestible information. It's
amazing, stunning, and above all: enlightening.
I've spent countless hours digging through Wikistats in awe.

But besides the gargantuan effort that Wikistats represents, I even
more value your passion for the data and information it holds, your
second-to-none expertise on it, and your willingness to go through the
details and numbers with each and everyone, regardless where they come
from, your openness, your unbiased-ness, your constructive approach,
and your never-shying-away from discussions about the numbers and
trends.

Enjoy your retirement from WMF, and seeing your blog post and your
tree mapping project, I'm sure it'll be an amazing "Unruhestand" :-)

Have fun,
Christian

On Wed, Feb 06, 2019 at 01:17:48PM -0800, Dario Taraborelli wrote:

> “[R]ecent revisions of an article can be peeled off to reveal older layers,
> which are still meaningful for historians. Even graffiti applied by vandals
> can by its sheer informality convey meaningful information, just like
> historians learned a lot from graffiti on walls of classic Pompei. Likewise
> view patterns can tell future historians a lot about what was hot and what
> wasn’t in our times. Reason why these raw view data are meant to be
> preserved for a long time.”
>
> Erik Zachte wrote these lines in a blog post
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20171018194720/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/michael-jackson/>
> almost
> ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he gave
> us. Erik retired <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> this
> past Friday, leaving behind an immense legacy. I had the honor to work with
> him for several years, and I hosted this morning an intimate, tearful
> celebration of what Erik has represented for the Wikimedia movement.
>
> His Wikistats project <https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—with his signature
> pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20060412043240/https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—has
> been much more than an "analytics platform". It's been an individual
> attempt he initiated, and grew over time, to try and comprehend and make
> sense of the largest open collaboration project in human history, driven by
> curiosity and by an insatiable desire to serve data to the communities that
> most needed it.
>
> Through this project, Erik has created a live record of data describing the
> growth and reach of all Wikimedia communities, across languages and
> projects, putting multi-lingualism and smaller communities at the very
> center of his attention. He coined metrics such as "active editors" that
> defined the benchmark for volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the
> academic community to understand some of the growing pains and editor
> retention issues
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20110608214507/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/12/new-editors-are-joining-english-wikipedia-in-droves/>
> the movement has faced. He created countless reports—that predate by nearly
> a decade modern visualizations of online attention—to understand what
> Wikipedia traffic means in the context of current events like elections
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20160405055621/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/09/sarah-palin/>
> or public health crises
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20090708011216/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/05/h1n1-flu-or-new-flu-or/>.
> He has created countless
> <https://twitter.com/Infodisiac/status/1039244151953543169> visualizations
> <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/27/new-interactive-visualization-wikipedia/>
> that show the enormous gaps in local language content and representation
> that, as a movement, we face in our efforts to build an encyclopedia for
> and about everyone. He has also made extensive use of pie charts
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20141222073751/http://infodisiac.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/piechartscorrected.png>,
> which—as friends—we are ready to turn a blind eye towards.
>
> Most importantly, the data Erik has brougth to life has been cited over
> 1,000 times
> <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=stats.wikimedia.org>
> in the scholarly literature. If we gave credit to open data creators in the
> same way as we credit authors of scholarly papers, Erik would be one of the
> most influential authors in the field, and I don't think it is much of a
> stretch to say that the massive trove of data and metrics Erik has made
> available had a direct causal role in the birth and growth of the academic
> field of Wikimedia research, and more broadly, scholarship of online
> collaboration.
>
> Like I said this morning, Erik -- you have been not only an invaluable
> colleague and a steward for the movement, but also a very decent human
> being, and I am grateful we shared some of this journey together.
>
> Please join me in celebrating Erik on his well-deserved retirement, read
> his statement <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> to learn
> what he's planning to do next, or check this lovely portrait
> <https://www.wired.com/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/> Wired published a
> while back about "the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia's Massive Data
> Trove".
>
> Dario
>
>
> --
> *Dario Taraborelli *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
> research.wikimedia.org • nitens.org • @readermeter
> <http://twitter.com/readermeter>

> _______________________________________________
> Analytics mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics

--
---- quelltextlich e.U. ---- \\ ---- Christian Aistleitner ----
Companies' registry: 360296y in Linz
Christian Aistleitner
Kefermarkterstrasze 6a/3 Email: [hidden email]
4293 Gutau, Austria Phone: +43 7946 / 20 5 81
Fax: +43 7946 / 20 5 81
Homepage: http://quelltextlich.at/
---------------------------------------------------------------

_______________________________________________
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Leila Zia

Re: [Wikimedia-l] [Analytics] Farewell, Erik!

Erik,

It's been an incredible honor to work with you as a colleague and a
volunteer. Thank you for the stats and all the conversations about
categories, topics, languages, ..., but even more so for showing me
the path and the purpose, time after time. I will dearly miss you in
Wikimedia Foundation, and I hope that I can be a steward of what you
stood for (or at least I can say that I will continue to try:).

Enjoy your new endeavors and see you around.

Regards,
Leila

On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 3:22 PM Christian Aistleitner
<[hidden email]> wrote:

>
> Hi Erik,
>
> Thank you for your work!
>
> When I first came across Wikistats, it completely blew my mind. Such a
> huge collection of raw data turned into digestible information. It's
> amazing, stunning, and above all: enlightening.
> I've spent countless hours digging through Wikistats in awe.
>
> But besides the gargantuan effort that Wikistats represents, I even
> more value your passion for the data and information it holds, your
> second-to-none expertise on it, and your willingness to go through the
> details and numbers with each and everyone, regardless where they come
> from, your openness, your unbiased-ness, your constructive approach,
> and your never-shying-away from discussions about the numbers and
> trends.
>
> Enjoy your retirement from WMF, and seeing your blog post and your
> tree mapping project, I'm sure it'll be an amazing "Unruhestand" :-)
>
> Have fun,
> Christian
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 06, 2019 at 01:17:48PM -0800, Dario Taraborelli wrote:
> > “[R]ecent revisions of an article can be peeled off to reveal older layers,
> > which are still meaningful for historians. Even graffiti applied by vandals
> > can by its sheer informality convey meaningful information, just like
> > historians learned a lot from graffiti on walls of classic Pompei. Likewise
> > view patterns can tell future historians a lot about what was hot and what
> > wasn’t in our times. Reason why these raw view data are meant to be
> > preserved for a long time.”
> >
> > Erik Zachte wrote these lines in a blog post
> > <https://web.archive.org/web/20171018194720/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/michael-jackson/>
> > almost
> > ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he gave
> > us. Erik retired <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> this
> > past Friday, leaving behind an immense legacy. I had the honor to work with
> > him for several years, and I hosted this morning an intimate, tearful
> > celebration of what Erik has represented for the Wikimedia movement.
> >
> > His Wikistats project <https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—with his signature
> > pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s
> > <https://web.archive.org/web/20060412043240/https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—has
> > been much more than an "analytics platform". It's been an individual
> > attempt he initiated, and grew over time, to try and comprehend and make
> > sense of the largest open collaboration project in human history, driven by
> > curiosity and by an insatiable desire to serve data to the communities that
> > most needed it.
> >
> > Through this project, Erik has created a live record of data describing the
> > growth and reach of all Wikimedia communities, across languages and
> > projects, putting multi-lingualism and smaller communities at the very
> > center of his attention. He coined metrics such as "active editors" that
> > defined the benchmark for volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the
> > academic community to understand some of the growing pains and editor
> > retention issues
> > <https://web.archive.org/web/20110608214507/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/12/new-editors-are-joining-english-wikipedia-in-droves/>
> > the movement has faced. He created countless reports—that predate by nearly
> > a decade modern visualizations of online attention—to understand what
> > Wikipedia traffic means in the context of current events like elections
> > <https://web.archive.org/web/20160405055621/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/09/sarah-palin/>
> > or public health crises
> > <https://web.archive.org/web/20090708011216/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/05/h1n1-flu-or-new-flu-or/>.
> > He has created countless
> > <https://twitter.com/Infodisiac/status/1039244151953543169> visualizations
> > <https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/27/new-interactive-visualization-wikipedia/>
> > that show the enormous gaps in local language content and representation
> > that, as a movement, we face in our efforts to build an encyclopedia for
> > and about everyone. He has also made extensive use of pie charts
> > <https://web.archive.org/web/20141222073751/http://infodisiac.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/piechartscorrected.png>,
> > which—as friends—we are ready to turn a blind eye towards.
> >
> > Most importantly, the data Erik has brougth to life has been cited over
> > 1,000 times
> > <https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=stats.wikimedia.org>
> > in the scholarly literature. If we gave credit to open data creators in the
> > same way as we credit authors of scholarly papers, Erik would be one of the
> > most influential authors in the field, and I don't think it is much of a
> > stretch to say that the massive trove of data and metrics Erik has made
> > available had a direct causal role in the birth and growth of the academic
> > field of Wikimedia research, and more broadly, scholarship of online
> > collaboration.
> >
> > Like I said this morning, Erik -- you have been not only an invaluable
> > colleague and a steward for the movement, but also a very decent human
> > being, and I am grateful we shared some of this journey together.
> >
> > Please join me in celebrating Erik on his well-deserved retirement, read
> > his statement <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> to learn
> > what he's planning to do next, or check this lovely portrait
> > <https://www.wired.com/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/> Wired published a
> > while back about "the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia's Massive Data
> > Trove".
> >
> > Dario
> >
> >
> > --
> > *Dario Taraborelli *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
> > research.wikimedia.org • nitens.org • @readermeter
> > <http://twitter.com/readermeter>
>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Analytics mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics
>
>
> --
> ---- quelltextlich e.U. ---- \\ ---- Christian Aistleitner ----
> Companies' registry: 360296y in Linz
> Christian Aistleitner
> Kefermarkterstrasze 6a/3 Email: [hidden email]
> 4293 Gutau, Austria Phone: +43 7946 / 20 5 81
> Fax: +43 7946 / 20 5 81
> Homepage: http://quelltextlich.at/
> ---------------------------------------------------------------
> _______________________________________________
> Analytics mailing list
> [hidden email]
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/analytics

Philippe Beaudette-4

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

In reply to this post by Dario Taraborelli-3

Like so many others, I was blown away by wikistats. I can’t begin to count
the number of times I turned to it in my years at the WMF. And it goes
without saying that Erik was an exemplary colleague, and a true gentleman.
Enjoy your well earned retirement.

Philippe

On Wed, Feb 6, 2019 at 9:27 PM Leinonen Teemu <[hidden email]>
wrote:

> Hi Erik,
>
> When I saw the Wikistats the very first time in mid 2000 (?) I was very
> impressed. After meeting with Erik, I respected the project and him even
> more. The impact of the Wikistats to researchers and students around the
> world, but also to the open data movement in general, has been incredible.
> I hope the future historians will notice this.
>
> Thanks Erik. Your new project looks very interesting.
>
> - Teemu
>
> ---------------------------------------
> Prof. Teemu Leinonen
> http://www.teemuleinonen.fi
> + 358 50 351 6796
>
> On 6 Feb 2019, at 23.17, Dario Taraborelli <[hidden email]
> <mailto:[hidden email]>> wrote:
>
> “[R]ecent revisions of an article can be peeled off to reveal older layers,
> which are still meaningful for historians. Even graffiti applied by vandals
> can by its sheer informality convey meaningful information, just like
> historians learned a lot from graffiti on walls of classic Pompei. Likewise
> view patterns can tell future historians a lot about what was hot and what
> wasn’t in our times. Reason why these raw view data are meant to be
> preserved for a long time.”
>
> Erik Zachte wrote these lines in a blog post
> <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20171018194720/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/michael-jackson/
> >
> almost
> ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he gave
> us. Erik retired <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> this
> past Friday, leaving behind an immense legacy. I had the honor to work with
> him for several years, and I hosted this morning an intimate, tearful
> celebration of what Erik has represented for the Wikimedia movement.
>
> His Wikistats project <https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—with his signature
> pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20060412043240/https://stats.wikimedia.org/
> >—has
> been much more than an "analytics platform". It's been an individual
> attempt he initiated, and grew over time, to try and comprehend and make
> sense of the largest open collaboration project in human history, driven by
> curiosity and by an insatiable desire to serve data to the communities that
> most needed it.
>
> Through this project, Erik has created a live record of data describing the
> growth and reach of all Wikimedia communities, across languages and
> projects, putting multi-lingualism and smaller communities at the very
> center of his attention. He coined metrics such as "active editors" that
> defined the benchmark for volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the
> academic community to understand some of the growing pains and editor
> retention issues
> <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20110608214507/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/12/new-editors-are-joining-english-wikipedia-in-droves/
> >
> the movement has faced. He created countless reports—that predate by nearly
> a decade modern visualizations of online attention—to understand what
> Wikipedia traffic means in the context of current events like elections
> <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160405055621/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/09/sarah-palin/
> >
> or public health crises
> <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20090708011216/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/05/h1n1-flu-or-new-flu-or/
> >.
> He has created countless
> <https://twitter.com/Infodisiac/status/1039244151953543169> visualizations
> <
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/27/new-interactive-visualization-wikipedia/
> >
> that show the enormous gaps in local language content and representation
> that, as a movement, we face in our efforts to build an encyclopedia for
> and about everyone. He has also made extensive use of pie charts
> <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20141222073751/http://infodisiac.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/piechartscorrected.png
> >,
> which—as friends—we are ready to turn a blind eye towards.
>
> Most importantly, the data Erik has brougth to life has been cited over
> 1,000 times
> <
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=stats.wikimedia.org
> >
> in the scholarly literature. If we gave credit to open data creators in the
> same way as we credit authors of scholarly papers, Erik would be one of the
> most influential authors in the field, and I don't think it is much of a
> stretch to say that the massive trove of data and metrics Erik has made
> available had a direct causal role in the birth and growth of the academic
> field of Wikimedia research, and more broadly, scholarship of online
> collaboration.
>
> Like I said this morning, Erik -- you have been not only an invaluable
> colleague and a steward for the movement, but also a very decent human
> being, and I am grateful we shared some of this journey together.
>
> Please join me in celebrating Erik on his well-deserved retirement, read
> his statement <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> to learn
> what he's planning to do next, or check this lovely portrait
> <https://www.wired.com/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/> Wired published a
> while back about "the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia's Massive Data
> Trove".
>
> Dario
>
>
> --
> *Dario Taraborelli *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
> research.wikimedia.org<http://research.wikimedia.org> • nitens.org<
> http://nitens.org> • @readermeter
> <http://twitter.com/readermeter>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: [hidden email]<mailto:
> [hidden email]>
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: [hidden email]
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>

--
Philippe Beaudette
[hidden email]
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
New messages to: [hidden email]
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>

rupert THURNER-2

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

In reply to this post by Dario Taraborelli-3

Many thanks erik and all the best!! One sentence in eriks blog post cited i
found surprising. What type of modesty you guys were talking about?

"At Wikimania London (2014) I talked about how we should err on the side of
modesty. That message never came across. I started to have a discussion on
this within WMF but failed to bring this to fruition. My bad."

On Wed, Feb 6, 2019, 22:18 Dario Taraborelli <[hidden email]
wrote:

> “[R]ecent revisions of an article can be peeled off to reveal older layers,
> which are still meaningful for historians. Even graffiti applied by vandals
> can by its sheer informality convey meaningful information, just like
> historians learned a lot from graffiti on walls of classic Pompei. Likewise
> view patterns can tell future historians a lot about what was hot and what
> wasn’t in our times. Reason why these raw view data are meant to be
> preserved for a long time.”
>
> Erik Zachte wrote these lines in a blog post
> <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20171018194720/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/michael-jackson/
> >
> almost
> ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he gave
> us. Erik retired <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> this
> past Friday, leaving behind an immense legacy. I had the honor to work with
> him for several years, and I hosted this morning an intimate, tearful
> celebration of what Erik has represented for the Wikimedia movement.
>
> His Wikistats project <https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—with his signature
> pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s
> <https://web.archive.org/web/20060412043240/https://stats.wikimedia.org/
> >—has
> been much more than an "analytics platform". It's been an individual
> attempt he initiated, and grew over time, to try and comprehend and make
> sense of the largest open collaboration project in human history, driven by
> curiosity and by an insatiable desire to serve data to the communities that
> most needed it.
>
> Through this project, Erik has created a live record of data describing the
> growth and reach of all Wikimedia communities, across languages and
> projects, putting multi-lingualism and smaller communities at the very
> center of his attention. He coined metrics such as "active editors" that
> defined the benchmark for volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the
> academic community to understand some of the growing pains and editor
> retention issues
> <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20110608214507/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/12/new-editors-are-joining-english-wikipedia-in-droves/
> >
> the movement has faced. He created countless reports—that predate by nearly
> a decade modern visualizations of online attention—to understand what
> Wikipedia traffic means in the context of current events like elections
> <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160405055621/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/09/sarah-palin/
> >
> or public health crises
> <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20090708011216/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/05/h1n1-flu-or-new-flu-or/
> >.
> He has created countless
> <https://twitter.com/Infodisiac/status/1039244151953543169> visualizations
> <
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/27/new-interactive-visualization-wikipedia/
> >
> that show the enormous gaps in local language content and representation
> that, as a movement, we face in our efforts to build an encyclopedia for
> and about everyone. He has also made extensive use of pie charts
> <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20141222073751/http://infodisiac.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/piechartscorrected.png
> >,
> which—as friends—we are ready to turn a blind eye towards.
>
> Most importantly, the data Erik has brougth to life has been cited over
> 1,000 times
> <
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=stats.wikimedia.org
> >
> in the scholarly literature. If we gave credit to open data creators in the
> same way as we credit authors of scholarly papers, Erik would be one of the
> most influential authors in the field, and I don't think it is much of a
> stretch to say that the massive trove of data and metrics Erik has made
> available had a direct causal role in the birth and growth of the academic
> field of Wikimedia research, and more broadly, scholarship of online
> collaboration.
>
> Like I said this morning, Erik -- you have been not only an invaluable
> colleague and a steward for the movement, but also a very decent human
> being, and I am grateful we shared some of this journey together.
>
> Please join me in celebrating Erik on his well-deserved retirement, read
> his statement <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> to learn
> what he's planning to do next, or check this lovely portrait
> <https://www.wired.com/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/> Wired published a
> while back about "the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia's Massive Data
> Trove".
>
> Dario
>
>
> --
> *Dario Taraborelli *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
> research.wikimedia.org • nitens.org • @readermeter
> <http://twitter.com/readermeter>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: [hidden email]
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>

Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

Dear Erik,

Many thanks for all the help and support you gave Wikimedia Nederland and
myself over the past years. Whenever we had tricky stats-related questions,
we knew we could turn to you.

I hope to see you at many WMNL-events in the future.

Enjoy the freedom!

Best,

Sandra

Sandra Rientjes
Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland

tel. (+31) (0)30 3200238 (ma, di, do)
mob. (+31) (0)6 31786379 (wo, vrij)

www.wikimedia.nl

Mariaplaats 3
3511 LH Utrecht

Op do 7 feb. 2019 om 11:22 schreef rupert THURNER <[hidden email]
>:

> Many thanks erik and all the best!! One sentence in eriks blog post cited i
> found surprising. What type of modesty you guys were talking about?
>
> "At Wikimania London (2014) I talked about how we should err on the side of
> modesty. That message never came across. I started to have a discussion on
> this within WMF but failed to bring this to fruition. My bad."
>
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 6, 2019, 22:18 Dario Taraborelli <[hidden email]
> wrote:
>
> > “[R]ecent revisions of an article can be peeled off to reveal older
> layers,
> > which are still meaningful for historians. Even graffiti applied by
> vandals
> > can by its sheer informality convey meaningful information, just like
> > historians learned a lot from graffiti on walls of classic Pompei.
> Likewise
> > view patterns can tell future historians a lot about what was hot and
> what
> > wasn’t in our times. Reason why these raw view data are meant to be
> > preserved for a long time.”
> >
> > Erik Zachte wrote these lines in a blog post
> > <
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20171018194720/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/michael-jackson/
> > >
> > almost
> > ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he
> gave
> > us. Erik retired <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> this
> > past Friday, leaving behind an immense legacy. I had the honor to work
> with
> > him for several years, and I hosted this morning an intimate, tearful
> > celebration of what Erik has represented for the Wikimedia movement.
> >
> > His Wikistats project <https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—with his signature
> > pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s
> > <https://web.archive.org/web/20060412043240/https://stats.wikimedia.org/
> > >—has
> > been much more than an "analytics platform". It's been an individual
> > attempt he initiated, and grew over time, to try and comprehend and make
> > sense of the largest open collaboration project in human history, driven
> by
> > curiosity and by an insatiable desire to serve data to the communities
> that
> > most needed it.
> >
> > Through this project, Erik has created a live record of data describing
> the
> > growth and reach of all Wikimedia communities, across languages and
> > projects, putting multi-lingualism and smaller communities at the very
> > center of his attention. He coined metrics such as "active editors" that
> > defined the benchmark for volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the
> > academic community to understand some of the growing pains and editor
> > retention issues
> > <
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20110608214507/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/12/new-editors-are-joining-english-wikipedia-in-droves/
> > >
> > the movement has faced. He created countless reports—that predate by
> nearly
> > a decade modern visualizations of online attention—to understand what
> > Wikipedia traffic means in the context of current events like elections
> > <
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160405055621/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/09/sarah-palin/
> > >
> > or public health crises
> > <
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20090708011216/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/05/h1n1-flu-or-new-flu-or/
> > >.
> > He has created countless
> > <https://twitter.com/Infodisiac/status/1039244151953543169>
> visualizations
> > <
> >
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/27/new-interactive-visualization-wikipedia/
> > >
> > that show the enormous gaps in local language content and representation
> > that, as a movement, we face in our efforts to build an encyclopedia for
> > and about everyone. He has also made extensive use of pie charts
> > <
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20141222073751/http://infodisiac.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/piechartscorrected.png
> > >,
> > which—as friends—we are ready to turn a blind eye towards.
> >
> > Most importantly, the data Erik has brougth to life has been cited over
> > 1,000 times
> > <
> >
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=stats.wikimedia.org
> > >
> > in the scholarly literature. If we gave credit to open data creators in
> the
> > same way as we credit authors of scholarly papers, Erik would be one of
> the
> > most influential authors in the field, and I don't think it is much of a
> > stretch to say that the massive trove of data and metrics Erik has made
> > available had a direct causal role in the birth and growth of the
> academic
> > field of Wikimedia research, and more broadly, scholarship of online
> > collaboration.
> >
> > Like I said this morning, Erik -- you have been not only an invaluable
> > colleague and a steward for the movement, but also a very decent human
> > being, and I am grateful we shared some of this journey together.
> >
> > Please join me in celebrating Erik on his well-deserved retirement, read
> > his statement <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> to
> learn
> > what he's planning to do next, or check this lovely portrait
> > <https://www.wired.com/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/> Wired published a
> > while back about "the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia's Massive
> Data
> > Trove".
> >
> > Dario
> >
> >
> > --
> > *Dario Taraborelli *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
> > research.wikimedia.org • nitens.org • @readermeter
> > <http://twitter.com/readermeter>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: [hidden email]
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: [hidden email]
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>

Natacha Rault via Wikimedia-l

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

Erik,

thanks for your great work on stats, and welcome back to the volunteer
force.
Where the real work is done :-)

Magnus

On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 10:31 AM Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland <
[hidden email]> wrote:

> Dear Erik,
>
> Many thanks for all the help and support you gave Wikimedia Nederland and
> myself over the past years. Whenever we had tricky stats-related questions,
> we knew we could turn to you.
>
> I hope to see you at many WMNL-events in the future.
>
> Enjoy the freedom!
>
> Best,
>
> Sandra
>
>
> Sandra Rientjes
> Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland
>
> tel. (+31) (0)30 3200238 <+31%2030%20320%200238> (ma, di, do)
> mob. (+31) (0)6 31786379 <+31%206%2031786379> (wo, vrij)
>
> www.wikimedia.nl
>
>
> Mariaplaats 3
> 3511 LH Utrecht
>
>
> Op do 7 feb. 2019 om 11:22 schreef rupert THURNER <
> [hidden email]
> >:
>
> > Many thanks erik and all the best!! One sentence in eriks blog post
> cited i
> > found surprising. What type of modesty you guys were talking about?
> >
> > "At Wikimania London (2014) I talked about how we should err on the side
> of
> > modesty. That message never came across. I started to have a discussion
> on
> > this within WMF but failed to bring this to fruition. My bad."
> >
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 6, 2019, 22:18 Dario Taraborelli <[hidden email]
> > wrote:
> >
> > > “[R]ecent revisions of an article can be peeled off to reveal older
> > layers,
> > > which are still meaningful for historians. Even graffiti applied by
> > vandals
> > > can by its sheer informality convey meaningful information, just like
> > > historians learned a lot from graffiti on walls of classic Pompei.
> > Likewise
> > > view patterns can tell future historians a lot about what was hot and
> > what
> > > wasn’t in our times. Reason why these raw view data are meant to be
> > > preserved for a long time.”
> > >
> > > Erik Zachte wrote these lines in a blog post
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20171018194720/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/michael-jackson/
> > > >
> > > almost
> > > ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he
> > gave
> > > us. Erik retired <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm>
> this
> > > past Friday, leaving behind an immense legacy. I had the honor to work
> > with
> > > him for several years, and I hosted this morning an intimate, tearful
> > > celebration of what Erik has represented for the Wikimedia movement.
> > >
> > > His Wikistats project <https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—with his
> signature
> > > pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s
> > > <
> https://web.archive.org/web/20060412043240/https://stats.wikimedia.org/
> > > >—has
> > > been much more than an "analytics platform". It's been an individual
> > > attempt he initiated, and grew over time, to try and comprehend and
> make
> > > sense of the largest open collaboration project in human history,
> driven
> > by
> > > curiosity and by an insatiable desire to serve data to the communities
> > that
> > > most needed it.
> > >
> > > Through this project, Erik has created a live record of data describing
> > the
> > > growth and reach of all Wikimedia communities, across languages and
> > > projects, putting multi-lingualism and smaller communities at the very
> > > center of his attention. He coined metrics such as "active editors"
> that
> > > defined the benchmark for volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation, and the
> > > academic community to understand some of the growing pains and editor
> > > retention issues
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20110608214507/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/12/new-editors-are-joining-english-wikipedia-in-droves/
> > > >
> > > the movement has faced. He created countless reports—that predate by
> > nearly
> > > a decade modern visualizations of online attention—to understand what
> > > Wikipedia traffic means in the context of current events like elections
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160405055621/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/09/sarah-palin/
> > > >
> > > or public health crises
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20090708011216/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/05/h1n1-flu-or-new-flu-or/
> > > >.
> > > He has created countless
> > > <https://twitter.com/Infodisiac/status/1039244151953543169>
> > visualizations
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/27/new-interactive-visualization-wikipedia/
> > > >
> > > that show the enormous gaps in local language content and
> representation
> > > that, as a movement, we face in our efforts to build an encyclopedia
> for
> > > and about everyone. He has also made extensive use of pie charts
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20141222073751/http://infodisiac.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/piechartscorrected.png
> > > >,
> > > which—as friends—we are ready to turn a blind eye towards.
> > >
> > > Most importantly, the data Erik has brougth to life has been cited over
> > > 1,000 times
> > > <
> > >
> >
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=stats.wikimedia.org
> > > >
> > > in the scholarly literature. If we gave credit to open data creators in
> > the
> > > same way as we credit authors of scholarly papers, Erik would be one of
> > the
> > > most influential authors in the field, and I don't think it is much of
> a
> > > stretch to say that the massive trove of data and metrics Erik has made
> > > available had a direct causal role in the birth and growth of the
> > academic
> > > field of Wikimedia research, and more broadly, scholarship of online
> > > collaboration.
> > >
> > > Like I said this morning, Erik -- you have been not only an invaluable
> > > colleague and a steward for the movement, but also a very decent human
> > > being, and I am grateful we shared some of this journey together.
> > >
> > > Please join me in celebrating Erik on his well-deserved retirement,
> read
> > > his statement <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> to
> > learn
> > > what he's planning to do next, or check this lovely portrait
> > > <https://www.wired.com/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/> Wired
> published a
> > > while back about "the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia's Massive
> > Data
> > > Trove".
> > >
> > > Dario
> > >
> > >
> > > --
> > > *Dario Taraborelli *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
> > > research.wikimedia.org • nitens.org • @readermeter
> > > <http://twitter.com/readermeter>
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > > New messages to: [hidden email]
> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>
> > _______________________________________________
> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> > New messages to: [hidden email]
> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________
> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at:
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: [hidden email]
> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:[hidden email]?subject=unsubscribe>

Risker

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

I wish you a lot of joy in your retirement, Erik. We will miss you and all
of your work to help us become a more transparent organization.

Risker/Anne

On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 at 05:42, Magnus Manske via Wikimedia-l <
[hidden email]> wrote:

> Erik,
>
> thanks for your great work on stats, and welcome back to the volunteer
> force.
> Where the real work is done :-)
>
> Magnus
>
> On Thu, Feb 7, 2019 at 10:31 AM Sandra Rientjes - Wikimedia Nederland <
> [hidden email]> wrote:
>
> > Dear Erik,
> >
> > Many thanks for all the help and support you gave Wikimedia Nederland and
> > myself over the past years. Whenever we had tricky stats-related
> questions,
> > we knew we could turn to you.
> >
> > I hope to see you at many WMNL-events in the future.
> >
> > Enjoy the freedom!
> >
> > Best,
> >
> > Sandra
> >
> >
> > Sandra Rientjes
> > Directeur/Executive Director Wikimedia Nederland
> >
> > tel. (+31) (0)30 3200238 <+31%2030%20320%200238> (ma, di, do)
> > mob. (+31) (0)6 31786379 <+31%206%2031786379> (wo, vrij)
> >
> > www.wikimedia.nl
> >
> >
> > Mariaplaats 3
> > 3511 LH Utrecht
> >
> >
> > Op do 7 feb. 2019 om 11:22 schreef rupert THURNER <
> > [hidden email]
> > >:
> >
> > > Many thanks erik and all the best!! One sentence in eriks blog post
> > cited i
> > > found surprising. What type of modesty you guys were talking about?
> > >
> > > "At Wikimania London (2014) I talked about how we should err on the
> side
> > of
> > > modesty. That message never came across. I started to have a discussion
> > on
> > > this within WMF but failed to bring this to fruition. My bad."
> > >
> > >
> > >
> > > On Wed, Feb 6, 2019, 22:18 Dario Taraborelli <
> [hidden email]
> > > wrote:
> > >
> > > > “[R]ecent revisions of an article can be peeled off to reveal older
> > > layers,
> > > > which are still meaningful for historians. Even graffiti applied by
> > > vandals
> > > > can by its sheer informality convey meaningful information, just like
> > > > historians learned a lot from graffiti on walls of classic Pompei.
> > > Likewise
> > > > view patterns can tell future historians a lot about what was hot and
> > > what
> > > > wasn’t in our times. Reason why these raw view data are meant to be
> > > > preserved for a long time.”
> > > >
> > > > Erik Zachte wrote these lines in a blog post
> > > > <
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20171018194720/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/07/michael-jackson/
> > > > >
> > > > almost
> > > > ten years ago, and I cannot find better words to describe the gift he
> > > gave
> > > > us. Erik retired <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm>
> > this
> > > > past Friday, leaving behind an immense legacy. I had the honor to
> work
> > > with
> > > > him for several years, and I hosted this morning an intimate, tearful
> > > > celebration of what Erik has represented for the Wikimedia movement.
> > > >
> > > > His Wikistats project <https://stats.wikimedia.org/>—with his
> > signature
> > > > pale yellow background we've known and loved since the mid 2000s
> > > > <
> > https://web.archive.org/web/20060412043240/https://stats.wikimedia.org/
> > > > >—has
> > > > been much more than an "analytics platform". It's been an individual
> > > > attempt he initiated, and grew over time, to try and comprehend and
> > make
> > > > sense of the largest open collaboration project in human history,
> > driven
> > > by
> > > > curiosity and by an insatiable desire to serve data to the
> communities
> > > that
> > > > most needed it.
> > > >
> > > > Through this project, Erik has created a live record of data
> describing
> > > the
> > > > growth and reach of all Wikimedia communities, across languages and
> > > > projects, putting multi-lingualism and smaller communities at the
> very
> > > > center of his attention. He coined metrics such as "active editors"
> > that
> > > > defined the benchmark for volunteers, the Wikimedia Foundation, and
> the
> > > > academic community to understand some of the growing pains and editor
> > > > retention issues
> > > > <
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20110608214507/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/12/new-editors-are-joining-english-wikipedia-in-droves/
> > > > >
> > > > the movement has faced. He created countless reports—that predate by
> > > nearly
> > > > a decade modern visualizations of online attention—to understand what
> > > > Wikipedia traffic means in the context of current events like
> elections
> > > > <
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20160405055621/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2008/09/sarah-palin/
> > > > >
> > > > or public health crises
> > > > <
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20090708011216/http://infodisiac.com/blog/2009/05/h1n1-flu-or-new-flu-or/
> > > > >.
> > > > He has created countless
> > > > <https://twitter.com/Infodisiac/status/1039244151953543169>
> > > visualizations
> > > > <
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/10/27/new-interactive-visualization-wikipedia/
> > > > >
> > > > that show the enormous gaps in local language content and
> > representation
> > > > that, as a movement, we face in our efforts to build an encyclopedia
> > for
> > > > and about everyone. He has also made extensive use of pie charts
> > > > <
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://web.archive.org/web/20141222073751/http://infodisiac.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/piechartscorrected.png
> > > > >,
> > > > which—as friends—we are ready to turn a blind eye towards.
> > > >
> > > > Most importantly, the data Erik has brougth to life has been cited
> over
> > > > 1,000 times
> > > > <
> > > >
> > >
> >
> https://scholar.google.com/scholar?hl=en&as_sdt=0%2C5&q=stats.wikimedia.org
> > > > >
> > > > in the scholarly literature. If we gave credit to open data creators
> in
> > > the
> > > > same way as we credit authors of scholarly papers, Erik would be one
> of
> > > the
> > > > most influential authors in the field, and I don't think it is much
> of
> > a
> > > > stretch to say that the massive trove of data and metrics Erik has
> made
> > > > available had a direct causal role in the birth and growth of the
> > > academic
> > > > field of Wikimedia research, and more broadly, scholarship of online
> > > > collaboration.
> > > >
> > > > Like I said this morning, Erik -- you have been not only an
> invaluable
> > > > colleague and a steward for the movement, but also a very decent
> human
> > > > being, and I am grateful we shared some of this journey together.
> > > >
> > > > Please join me in celebrating Erik on his well-deserved retirement,
> > read
> > > > his statement <http://infodisiac.com/back_to_volunteer_mode.htm> to
> > > learn
> > > > what he's planning to do next, or check this lovely portrait
> > > > <https://www.wired.com/2013/12/erik-zachte-wikistats/> Wired
> > published a
> > > > while back about "the Stats Master Making Sense of Wikipedia's
> Massive
> > > Data
> > > > Trove".
> > > >
> > > > Dario
> > > >
> > > >
> > > > --
> > > > *Dario Taraborelli *Director, Head of Research, Wikimedia Foundation
> > > > research.wikimedia.org • nitens.org • @readermeter
> > > > <http://twitter.com/readermeter>
> > > > _______________________________________________
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Erik Moeller-3

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

In reply to this post by Dario Taraborelli-3

Thank you, Erik, for helping Wikimedia to know itself! I've always
appreciated the incredibly rich detail in your reports, your
willingness to unpack the awesome complexity of the wiki-verse, and
your insistence that this knowledge should be as free and open as the
Wikimedia projects are. I've learned a ton from you, and I am looking
forward to reading more about your new adventures as a volunteer. :)

From one Erik to another - my best wishes!

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Michael Snow-5

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

On 2/7/2019 7:41 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
> Thank you, Erik, for helping Wikimedia to know itself! I've always
> appreciated the incredibly rich detail in your reports, your
> willingness to unpack the awesome complexity of the wiki-verse, and
> your insistence that this knowledge should be as free and open as the
> Wikimedia projects are. I've learned a ton from you, and I am looking
> forward to reading more about your new adventures as a volunteer. :)

Indeed, one of the great insights that Erik's work embodies for me is
that providing a framework for approaching knowledge (about the
movement, or about anything) is essential to making it truly free. Raw
data with no context is free as the air, but lungs are required to
breathe. Thank you, Erik, for helping us appreciate how the wiki
breathes by showing its patterns and rhythms.

--Michael Snow

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Info WorldUniversity

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

Thanks so so much for your great contributions to the Wikimedia Movement,
Erik!

Regards, Scott

- https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Scott_WorldUnivAndSch

On 8:46PM, Thu, Feb 7, 2019 Michael Snow <[hidden email] wrote:

> On 2/7/2019 7:41 PM, Erik Moeller wrote:
> > Thank you, Erik, for helping Wikimedia to know itself! I've always
> > appreciated the incredibly rich detail in your reports, your
> > willingness to unpack the awesome complexity of the wiki-verse, and
> > your insistence that this knowledge should be as free and open as the
> > Wikimedia projects are. I've learned a ton from you, and I am looking
> > forward to reading more about your new adventures as a volunteer. :)
>
> Indeed, one of the great insights that Erik's work embodies for me is
> that providing a framework for approaching knowledge (about the
> movement, or about anything) is essential to making it truly free. Raw
> data with no context is free as the air, but lungs are required to
> breathe. Thank you, Erik, for helping us appreciate how the wiki
> breathes by showing its patterns and rhythms.
>
> --Michael Snow
>
>
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> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and
> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l
> New messages to: [hidden email]
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Shlomi Fish

Re: [Wikimedia-l] Farewell, Erik!

On Thu, 7 Feb 2019 21:50:52 -0800
Info WorldUniversity <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Thanks so so much for your great contributions to the Wikimedia Movement,
> Erik!
>
> Regards, Scott
>
> - https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Scott_WorldUnivAndSch
>

Thanks, Erik!

--
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