Community Health Metrics/Community Vital Signs

We propose the creation of 6 indicators that we call Vital Signs. In Medicine, vital signs indicate the status of the body’s vital (life-sustaining) functions. These measurements are taken to help assess the general physical health of a person, give clues to possible diseases, and show progress toward recovery.

In the case of Wikipedia, Vital Signs are related to the community capacity and function to grow or renew itself. Three of them are focused on the entire group of “active editors” creating content: retention, stability, and balance; the other four are related to more specific community functions: admins, specialists, and global community participation. We believe that obtaining the current “active community capacities” in these areas can constitute a valuable reference point to plan to guarantee “openness” in these areas, and at the same time, to observe growth and renewal, and foresee and prevent future risks (e.g., bus factor).

We are currently working on a live dashboard to consult the Vital Signs. For now, you can consult the Report on Polish Wikipedia Vital Signs. You can also check the slides and videos of the presentations in WikiArabia, Wikiindaba and Wikimedia CEE conferences.

Code and Data

• vital_signs.py (github) it retrieves the data from Wikimedia dumps MediaWiki History Dump into the database vital_signs_editors.db. It also creates and populates the database vital_signs_web.db, which is used by the website.