Friday, July 22, 2011

Did You Know? Front Page of Wikipedia ~ Karen Stollznow

What would you do if you were given a 24 hour notice that 5,000 strangers were going to come trampling in your house, looking through your drawers and cupboards, when your not there to greet them?   The catch is that you want them to visit, you want them to look under the bed and behind the couch.  These are total strangers who you are inviting in.  Kinda a scary idea isn't it?  How does your house look, is it ready?

This is about to happen to a Wikipedia page that Tim Farley created for Karen Stollznow.  I helped add a few links here and there, but the credit for the site and getting Karen on the front page of Wikipedia for 8 hours on Saturday July 23, 2011 is completely Tims.

First go to the main Wikipedia page (I've heard this is one of 3 leading pages on the Internet).  You will see several catagories...

Today's Featured Article
In the News
On this Day...
Did you know?

Tim Farley apparently figured out how we can use the "Did You Know?" section to our skeptical advantage.  This is right up there with the "Got Your Wiki Back" project.  I'm not exactly sure how this all works (and you can read about it right there on the Wiki site) but from what I've learned the featured pages are there because someone requested they be there.  The Wiki page has to be new and the quote that is left there must be something that can be linked to a really good source.

Why is this important?

Well because the 8 hours that the site is listed will generate about 5K extra hits.  And not only will Karen's page be accessed, but the ripple effect will cause all the links that are on her page to also be accessed (to a lesser degree). 

So there is a flurry of activity going on behind the scenes tonight, getting the last bit of crumbs off the counter and linking everything possible in order to get ready for the visitors.  Nothing like a looming deadline in your face to get things done.  This Wiki page was created today in anticipation of Karen's premier.  

For those interested in how things work, here is the queue for the Did You Know page.  

BTW today Tim Farley released this blog giving more reasons why skeptics should be editing Wikipedia. 

Check out the home page for Wikipedia Saturday July 22, 2011.

2 comments:

  1. Apparently we didn't hit the expected numbers that we thought we would. Karen's page hit 1.1K yesterday. Which was way up from the 80 hits she had the day before.

    The ripple effect caused from following the links on her DYK were...

    Skeptical Inquirer with 336 hits (day before 125)
    the word Skeptic got 106 hits (day before 74)
    MonsterTalk podcast got 109 hits (day before it was launched)

    So not the amazing ripple effect we were hoping on, but every link on her page seems to have experienced more than normal hit rate.

    In the end we scrambled to get things cleaned up and this shows that when we focus on it, we can do it.

    Now Karen's page as well as a handful of others is ready when the press starts showing up, or curious non-skeptics search for her name.

    The end result was that we had Karen's back.

    Yeah Us!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Please read Tim Farley's blog about this same DYK topic. He explains it so much better than I do.

    http://skeptools.wordpress.com/2011/07/25/traffic-wikipedia-did-you-know-dyk-reach-outreach/

    ReplyDelete