Re: Google Zero is coming [was Re: Wikipedia at 25: A Wake-Up Call (essay)]
Anders Wennersten via Wikimedia-l <[email protected]> Thu, 9 Jul 2026 09:32:41 +0200
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This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --===============6002040823431058839== Content-Type: multipart/alternative; boundary="------------03VNTjmxxcterVmuwjQBB1wh" Content-Language: sv, en-US This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------03VNTjmxxcterVmuwjQBB1wh Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit I agree we ought to analyze better our situation, before we run to conclusions and discuss remedies Swwp has seen a decrease in traffic like others but in June we have seen an increase even if we include only accesses from mobiles (at least for June) https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/sv.wikipedia.org/reading/total-page-views/normal|bar|2-year|(agent)~user|monthly What we have seen more clearly though is that accesses of the most read articles per day in decreasing. We have also more subjectively from media, and social media seen a growing skepticism toward AI-generated results and an increase in the trust of Wikipedia results Our general conclusions this far are *We are doing well in our core encyclopedic articles (like of administrative divisions within a country) , but less well in newslike articles (which the internet readers asks more frequently, but where newswebsites always been stronger). And we should concentrate our efforts where we are strong *We are in a late stage in our general product life cycle and must accept this. We will never have the increase in editors etc like we hade 15 yeas ago, but must do what we can do thrive in a this mode. For us - less angry internal argument, partially done by avoiding articles of infected subjects like Israel-Palestine And for Google Zero. I believe it is them who has a problem not us. Early on, and still, all new PC user were forced into Microsoft Edge and Bing which lead us to Firefox and Google. Google zero as I see will lead to an exodus från Google, there are many other search engines that works fine Wikipedia is great Anders Den 2026-07-09 kl. 08:35, skrev Kimmo Virtanen via Wikimedia-l: > Hi, > > Secondly, I'd love to see initiative outside of enwiki. If you > look at all the ~1000 Wikimedia projects, almost all of them are > seeing an increase in traffic ; only a few big old wikipedias are > seeing a decrease (which are also the ones with the most > traffic, hence why it's more visible but it obfuscate at the big > picture) > > > Based on stats total pageviews of human users of all wikis are dropping > -https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-page-views/normal|bar|all|(agent)~user|monthly > <https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-page-views/normal%7Cbar%7Call%7C(agent)~user%7Cmonthly> > > > Br, > -- Kimmo Virtanen, Zache > > On Thu, Jul 9, 2026 at 9:13 AM Nicolas VIGNERON via Wikimedia-l > <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hi y'all, > > First could someone remind me how much traffic comes from Google > (I have a vague memory from last year that this is already very > low - maybe 10 or 20 % - and that LLMs are already bringing more > traffic to Wikipedia, if true we essentially are at Google Zero > already). > > Secondly, I'd love to see initiative outside of enwiki. If you > look at all the ~1000 Wikimedia projects, almost all of them are > seeing an increase in traffic ; only a few big old wikipedias are > seeing a decrease (which are also the ones with the most > traffic, hence why it's more visible but it obfuscate at the big > picture). > I think we should start by looking at and learning from the > "successful" projects instead of focusing on the declining ones. > For instance, Wikisources always have been badly to not-at-all > referenced by Google and yet there is a strong increase in > pageviews recently. > > Cheers, > Nicolas > > Le jeu. 9 juil. 2026 à 03:38, Michael Snow via Wikimedia-l > <[email protected]> a écrit : > > On 7/8/2026 12:52 PM, Luis Villa via Wikimedia-l wrote: > > - Scale of impact is important, but it isn’t everything. > Sometimes > > we’ll have to build things without knowing if they’ll scale, > or even > > perhaps knowing that they won’t scale (eg Depths of > Wikipedia is one > > of the best community-builders we have even though it has > “only” a few > > million followers). “That’s good but it won’t scale to > enwiki” can > > never be allowed to be a blocker for anyone. If the > experiment is > > actually great, then we’ll figure out a way to get it onto > enwiki. Or > > not! That shouldn’t stop people. > > At this point, no single initiative (whether community, > chapter, or > WMF-led) will have an inherent capacity to scale to enwiki. To > do so > would require corporate-style resources with a corresponding > top-down > mandate for implementation, and risk (rightly) triggering > resistance to > the point of launching a true durable fork, for once. Instead, > the best > approach would be to find ideas that are good enough to > propagate, > encourage them, and when they have propagated enough, they > will scale > with relatively little intervention needed. > > --Michael Snow > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], > guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/6EQOFSG34E3BC6FIYL55HYBTQBAW4XFN/ > To unsubscribe send an email to > wikimedia-l-leave-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], > guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives at > https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/4WPCSTZNDMBDMYHWHV27BN2EZLGY5LXB/ > To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list [email protected], guidelines at:https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines andhttps://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l > Public archives athttps://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/W24PTVEX2A7YSR4YNHIUQTCGMAIMF2S3/ > To unsubscribe send an email towikimedia-l-leave-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org --------------03VNTjmxxcterVmuwjQBB1wh Content-Type: text/html; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit <!DOCTYPE html> <html> <head> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> </head> <body> <p>I agree we ought to analyze better our situation, before we run to conclusions and discuss remedies</p> <p>Swwp has seen a decrease in traffic like others but in June we have seen an increase even if we include only accesses from mobiles (at least for June)</p> <p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/sv.wikipedia.org/reading/total-page-views/normal|bar|2-year|(agent)~user|monthly">https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/sv.wikipedia.org/reading/total-page-views/normal|bar|2-year|(agent)~user|monthly</a></p> <p>What we have seen more clearly though is that accesses of the most read articles per day in decreasing.</p> <p>We have also more subjectively from media, and social media seen a growing skepticism toward AI-generated results and an increase in the trust of Wikipedia results </p> <p>Our general conclusions this far are</p> <p>*We are doing well in our core encyclopedic articles (like of administrative divisions within a country) , but less well in newslike articles (which the internet readers asks more frequently, but where newswebsites always been stronger). And we should concentrate our efforts where we are strong</p> <p>*We are in a late stage in our general product life cycle and must accept this. We will never have the increase in editors etc like we hade 15 yeas ago, but must do what we can do thrive in a this mode. For us - less angry internal argument, partially done by avoiding articles of infected subjects like Israel-Palestine</p> <p>And for Google Zero. I believe it is them who has a problem not us. Early on, and still, all new PC user were forced into Microsoft Edge and Bing which lead us to Firefox and Google. Google zero as I see will lead to an exodus från Google, there are many other search engines that works fine</p> <p>Wikipedia is great</p> <p>Anders</p> <p><br> </p> <p><br> </p> <p><br> </p> <div class="moz-cite-prefix">Den 2026-07-09 kl. 08:35, skrev Kimmo Virtanen via Wikimedia-l:<br> </div> <blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:CAHJYWXHwwSN0B0hNWqGajN6BVdkkdmF6QPAVvgy=jna=nRoy9w-JsoAwUIsXosN+BqQ9rBEUg@public.gmane.org"> <meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8"> <div dir="ltr">Hi, <div><br> </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"><font color="#134f5c">Secondly, I'd love to see initiative outside of enwiki. If you look at all the ~1000 Wikimedia projects, almost all of them are seeing an increase in traffic ; only a few big old wikipedias are seeing a decrease (which are also the ones with the most traffic, hence why it's more visible but it obfuscate at the big picture)</font></blockquote> <div><br> </div> <div>Based on stats total pageviews of human users of all wikis are dropping</div> <div>-<span class="gmail-Apple-converted-space"> </span><a href="https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-page-views/normal%7Cbar%7Call%7C(agent)~user%7Cmonthly" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true">https://stats.wikimedia.org/#/all-projects/reading/total-page-views/normal|bar|all|(agent)~user|monthly</a> </div> <div><br> </div> <div>Br,</div> <div>-- Kimmo Virtanen, Zache</div> </div> <br> <div class="gmail_quote gmail_quote_container"> <div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">On Thu, Jul 9, 2026 at 9:13 AM Nicolas VIGNERON via Wikimedia-l <<a href="mailto:[email protected]" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">[email protected]</a>> wrote:<br> </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex"> <div dir="ltr"> <div>Hi y'all,</div> <div><br> </div> <div>First could someone remind me how much traffic comes from Google (I have a vague memory from last year that this is already very low - maybe 10 or 20 % - and that LLMs are already bringing more traffic to Wikipedia, if true we essentially are at Google Zero already).</div> <div><br> </div> <div>Secondly, I'd love to see initiative outside of enwiki. If you look at all the ~1000 Wikimedia projects, almost all of them are seeing an increase in traffic ; only a few big old wikipedias are seeing a decrease (which are also the ones with the most traffic, hence why it's more visible but it obfuscate at the big picture).</div> <div>I think we should start by looking at and learning from the "successful" projects instead of focusing on the declining ones. For instance, Wikisources always have been badly to not-at-all referenced by Google and yet there is a strong increase in pageviews recently.</div> <div><br> </div> <div>Cheers,</div> <div>Nicolas</div> </div> <br> <div class="gmail_quote"> <div dir="ltr" class="gmail_attr">Le jeu. 9 juil. 2026 à 03:38, Michael Snow via Wikimedia-l <<a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">[email protected]</a>> a écrit :<br> </div> <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0px 0px 0px 0.8ex;border-left:1px solid rgb(204,204,204);padding-left:1ex">On 7/8/2026 12:52 PM, Luis Villa via Wikimedia-l wrote:<br> > - Scale of impact is important, but it isn’t everything. Sometimes <br> > we’ll have to build things without knowing if they’ll scale, or even <br> > perhaps knowing that they won’t scale (eg Depths of Wikipedia is one <br> > of the best community-builders we have even though it has “only” a few <br> > million followers). “That’s good but it won’t scale to enwiki” can <br> > never be allowed to be a blocker for anyone. If the experiment is <br> > actually great, then we’ll figure out a way to get it onto enwiki. Or <br> > not! That shouldn’t stop people.<br> <br> At this point, no single initiative (whether community, chapter, or <br> WMF-led) will have an inherent capacity to scale to enwiki. To do so <br> would require corporate-style resources with a corresponding top-down <br> mandate for implementation, and risk (rightly) triggering resistance to <br> the point of launching a true durable fork, for once. Instead, the best <br> approach would be to find ideas that are good enough to propagate, <br> encourage them, and when they have propagated enough, they will scale <br> with relatively little intervention needed.<br> <br> --Michael Snow<br> <br> _______________________________________________<br> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">[email protected]</a>, guidelines at: <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l</a><br> Public archives at <a href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/6EQOFSG34E3BC6FIYL55HYBTQBAW4XFN/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/6EQOFSG34E3BC6FIYL55HYBTQBAW4XFN/</a><br> To unsubscribe send an email to <a href="mailto:wikimedia-l-leave-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">wikimedia-l-leave-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org</a></blockquote> </div> _______________________________________________<br> Wikimedia-l mailing list -- <a href="mailto:[email protected]" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">[email protected]</a>, guidelines at: <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines</a> and <a href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l</a><br> Public archives at <a href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/4WPCSTZNDMBDMYHWHV27BN2EZLGY5LXB/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/4WPCSTZNDMBDMYHWHV27BN2EZLGY5LXB/</a><br> To unsubscribe send an email to <a href="mailto:wikimedia-l-leave-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org" target="_blank" moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext">wikimedia-l-leave-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org</a></blockquote> </div> <br> <fieldset class="moz-mime-attachment-header"></fieldset> <pre wrap="" class="moz-quote-pre">_______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:[email protected]">[email protected]</a>, guidelines at: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines</a> and <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l">https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l</a> Public archives at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/W24PTVEX2A7YSR4YNHIUQTCGMAIMF2S3/">https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/W24PTVEX2A7YSR4YNHIUQTCGMAIMF2S3/</a> To unsubscribe send an email to <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:wikimedia-l-leave-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org">wikimedia-l-leave-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org</a></pre> </blockquote> </body> </html> --------------03VNTjmxxcterVmuwjQBB1wh-- --===============6002040823431058839== Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: inline _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list -- [email protected], guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines and https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia-l Public archives at https://lists.wikimedia.org/hyperkitty/list/[email protected]/message/XEKWEBKCXK2V4B3M2JSVFF4E53CWOKI3/ To unsubscribe send an email to wikimedia-l-leave-RusutVdil2icGmH+5r0DM0B+6BGkLq7r@public.gmane.org --===============6002040823431058839==--