Research and Decision Science/Data glossary

This page collects definitions of essential and core metrics that teams in the Wikimedia Foundation use to guide tactical and strategic decisions. The sibling Data Dictionary page documents various data sources.

Definitions for core metrics and essential metrics

Core metrics

Core metrics (also called "Core Annual Plan metrics") are a small, well-defined set of measurements that we use to guide strategic decisions. These are the metrics the Foundation highlights in its annual plan. For FY24-25, the four core metric areas are "Content", "Contributors", "Relevance", and "Effectiveness". Click here for an overview of the core metrics as they relate to the Foundation's FY24-25 Annual Plan. Core metrics are a special subset of essential metrics.

Essential metrics

Essential metrics are metrics maintained by the Wikimedia Foundation in production which meet the following requirements.

1. Essential metrics must be:
   1. trustable;
   2. accessible to decision makers;
   3. transparent towards those affected by the decisions made by the usage of the metrics;
2. Measurements of essential metrics must:
   1. be relevant for one or more of the following cases:
      1. frequent decision-making in situations where erroneous decisions can have department, Foundation, or Movement-level impact;
      2. frequent decision making about the Wikimedia Foundation's strategic direction;
      3. frequent monitoring of important operations.
   2. trustable;
   3. The definition and measuring, storage, use, and potential publishing of the metric and its measurement must meet relevant WMF policies and guidelines. More specifically: WMF's Privacy Policy, Data Collection Guidelines, Data Retention Guidelines, Data Publication Guidelines, and Human Rights Policy.

Please refer to the FAQ and more details to learn more about essential metrics.

Content metrics

(Note: This section pertains to content metrics that are part of monthly key metrics reporting. These are different from the core metrics content metric.)

The code that calculates these metrics can be found in the movement-metrics repository.

Content

metric	definition	remarks
Net new content	The number of content pages added since the previous month, excluding deleted pages and redirects.	Produced by subtracting last month's total content pages metric from this month's.
—Wikipedia articles	The number of Wikipedia articles added since the previous month, excluding deleted articles and redirects.	A subset of net new content. Produced by subtracting last month's total Wikipedia articles metric from this month's.
—Commons files	The number of Wikimedia Commons content pages added since the previous month, excluding deleted pages and redirects.	A subset of net new content. Produced by subtracting last month's total media files metric from this month's.
—Wikidata entities	The number of Wikidata entities added since the previous month, excluding deleted ones and redirects. An entity is anything represented by a page in a content namespace, namely an item, property, lexeme, or entity schema.	A subset of net new content. Produced by subtracting last month's total Wikidata entities metric from this month's.
Mobile edits	The number of edits tagged as having been made using the mobile website (which can be used by desktop computers) or the mobile apps.
Content Gap	Is a metric that quantifies knowledge gaps in Content by estimating the distribution of pieces of content (e.g., Wikipedia articles, Wikidata items) across different categories (e.g., gender, geographic distribution, cultural background). A complete list of mappings for content can be found here	Knowledge gaps are major differences in participation or coverage of a specific group of readers, contributors,or content.

Contributor metrics

The code that calculates these metrics can be found in the movement-metrics repository.

Editors

metric	definition	remarks
Active editors	The number of registered users who made at least 5 content edits across all projects in the given month. See meta:Research:Active editor for the full definition.	Unlike Wikistats, this metric includes edits to pages which were later deleted.
—New	Active editors who registered during the given month.
—Returning	Active editors who registered before the given month.
New editor retention	Out of the users who registered in the month before the previous and made at least one edit in their first 30 days, the proportion who also edited during their second 30 days. This includes all edits (including edits to content, talk, and other namespaces) whether or not the edits have been reverted.	Unlike Wikistats, this metric includes edits to pages which were later deleted.

Reader metrics

The code that calculates these metrics can be found in the movement-metrics repository.

Readers

Metric	definition	remarks
Content Interactions	Pageviews (all platforms) + desktop previews (see definitions below).
—Pageviews	Full definition: m:R:Page view Monthly pageviews based on calendar month Corrected for spurious IE views from some countries	Data source: pageview_hourly The current calculation includes user agents and automated agents We use the User Agent to define whether we assign a mobile or desktop experience; User Agents we consider to be mobile are captured in this code on Github. Most tablets are classified as mobile.
——Desktop	Same limited to the desktop domains (e.g. en.wikipedia.org)	(ditto)
——Mobile Web	Same limited to the mobile web domains (e.g. en.m.wikipedia.org, does not include apps)	(ditto)
—Desktop previews	Seen page previews, defined as previews popups that remain visible for at least one second.	Data source: virtualpageview_hourly
Unique Devices	Full definition: m:R:Unique Devices Monthly unique devices for all Wikipedias (includes desktop and mobile web), based on calendar month.	Data source: unique_devices_per_project_family_monthly

Diversity

A set of contributors, content, or readers metrics (defined above), restricted to:

• Global regions: Grants:Regions, canonical_data.countries
• Gender: definition for mapping gender to content

Financial metrics

Programmatic Ratio

The percentage of the budget spent on program expenses, called the Programmatic Ratio, is an important financial metric that we track. Each year, we set a target for our programmatic expense ratio is to align with nonprofit sector best practices.

Independent charity assessment organizations like Charity Navigator help establish these best practices. Charity Navigator sets its benchmark for highest-scoring nonprofits as exceeding >70% programmatic expenses. Charity Navigator provides the following explanation and formula to calculate this ratio:

"Charities exist to provide programs and services. They fulfill the expectations of givers when they allocate a good portion of their budgets toward their stated missions. While administration expenses are necessary for efficient charity operations, organizations that grossly underspend on their programs and services will most likely not have as strong an impact on their charitable missions. We calculate the nonprofit's average program expense percentage over its three most recent fiscal years and then assign a numeric score based on an established scale.

Average Program Expense Percentage = Average Program Expenses ÷ Average Total Expenses (When Calculating Using Form 990) = Average of Part IX line 25B ÷ Average of Part IX line 25A"

Product analytics metrics

Metric	Definition
Clickthrough Rate	Click-based measure of engagement with interface elements and features.
Retention Rate	Repeated usage-based measure of user engagement and satisfaction with products and features.