Wikipedia:WikiProject Video games/Newsletter/20090701/Feature

Feature: Data suggest an increasing lack of interest

 *  Submited by User:SharkD 

Over the last two days I've updated the Traffic statistics and Article statistics pages using data for the last five months. The data was collected using User:Henrik's excellent Wikipedia article traffic statistics tool as well as the Video game articles by quality statistics table that is regularly updated by User:WP 1.0 bot.

While the number of articles is still increasing, there seems to be a downward trend in interest across the board among casual viewers judging by the number of page views. The last time I updated the stats in January this was explained (sorry, I can't remember by whom) as being due to a slump in the winter months, and that views would pick up again in the summer. This does not (yet) seem to be the case.

While admittedly the summer has just begun, a decline is fairly evident. For instance, the number of project page views has dropped from 950 views per day in May of 2008 to 650 views per day in May of 2009. Also, the number of page views increased for the two months before May a year ago, but decreased for the two months before May this year. Page views for our sister projects and task forces have dropped to less than half of last year's numbers. (Note that projects that were rounded up and turned into task forces are shown with the other task forces, though the stats are continuous.)

Nifboy says the drop in the total number of articles in July of 2008 is due to him removing project tags from articles that had been redirected, and were therefore skewing the totals.

Other trends over the past five months include a continuing decline in the number of articles with unassessed or no importance, and a negligible increase in the number of Mid-, High- and Top-rated articles. Articles for Deletion remains unpredictable, though deletion remains the most common action.

Finally, I'd just like to say that these statistics don't necessarily reflect activity within our project; rather, it merely reflects the interest among general viewers. For an analysis of project activity I would need to do an extensive review of edit and change logs, as well as Talk pages.

Past discussions on the subject:
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 63
 * Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Video games/Archive 39