User:John Vandenberg/Worm of Facts

The Worm of Facts (WOF) is a content creation activity.

Motivation

The Did you know system is the main reward available for creation of new content, typically new articles. This is intended to be another reward for new content that isnt at a "good" or "featured" level.

Whereas the DYK system promotes lots of new knowledge on the periphery of the encyclopedia, the Worm of Facts (WOF) aims to promote topics to be filled in.

As there is only one fact selected each day, the reward is greater, however it does not necessarily require a greater investment of time.

The process of selecting where the worm goes will be predominately predefined, allowing the system to be automated, and allowing strategy. Once the worm enters a topical area, it will likely stay in that topical area, and people unfamiliar with that topical area need to work hard in order to bring the worm to their preferred topical area. Due to game like qualities, there will be friendly rivalry between teams.

As it is a small piece of information, the FOTD can be emailed to everyone who wishes to participate in the activity. The email is short, increasing the chance that busy people will read it, and each email is related to the previous one. The emails quickly stimulate ideas for new content that is applicable.

Process

Each day, one article containing the fact of the day is chosen. Towards the end of the day, a list of all new linkages on that page is compiled. The new links are the eligible facts for the next day, and the articles they link to are the eligible articles for the next day.

The selection process identifies which of the newly linked articles will be the direction the worm goes in, and the new fact that links them will be the new fact of the day.

Selection criteria

The selection criteria needs to be weighted so that the worm is more likely to:

• stay in the same topical area. i.e. the worm should move slowly
• lead towards new content rather than old content. the worm will get stuck if it ends up in a clump of featured articles where there is not much more to write.

Ideally the selection criteria is able to be automated.

e.g. Each eligible article is scored as follows:

• each link back to one of the previous FOTD articles scores 20 points
• each redlink scores 20 points
• each link to an article created in the last 24 hours scores 10 points
• each link to an article created in the last 7 days scores 5 points
• each link to an article created in the last month scores 1 point
• each image scores 2 points
• each link to Wikisource scores 2 points
• etc.

If more than one eligible article has the same score, the most stable article should be selected.

Implementation required (automation possible?)

1. List of new linkages:
   • Save the list of outgoing links at the beginning of the day, and compare with the same list at the end of the day, or
   • A program compares the current revision vs the revision at the beginning of the day
2. Next article selection; ideally this is updated hourly throughout the day so participants can see which eligible fact is winning.
3. Sending out emails

The first two are simple enough that it could be done by hand if required, and the third one is not required at the beginning.