Slowing Growth of Wikipedia:Implications for the FutureBongwon Suh, Gregorio Convertino, Ed H. Chi, Peter PirolliAugmented Social Cognition Area Palo Alto Research Center

What’s Happening to Contribution Patterns inside Wikipedia?What’re the Global Activity level patterns?What’re activity patterns by Editor Classes?Are the Population Sizes stable? Analysis of Population by Editor Class

Exponential Growth of Wikipedia was an accepted ‘fact’Number of Articles (Log Scale)http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Modelling_Wikipedia’s_growth

Growth of EditsMonthly Edits

Growth of Active EditorsActive Editors

Something happened in early 2007Monthly Edits

Slowing Growth in Global ActivityMonthly Active Editors*In thousands

What’s Happening to Contribution Patterns inside Wikipedia?What’re the Global Activity level patterns?What’re activity patterns by Editor Classes?Are the Population Sizes stable? Analysis of Population by Editor Class

Activity By Editor ClassesMonthly Edits by Editor Class (in thousands)

Monthly % of Edits by Editor Class

Reverts in WikipediaUndoing the effects of one or more editsThe page being restored to a version that existed sometime previously. Reverting may also refer to any action that reverses the actions of other editors.Fighting vandalismThis analysis exclude vandalism to model “resistance”

Ratio of Reverted Contributions Monthly Ratio of Reverted Edits

Growing ResistanceIncreased resistance from the Wikipedia community to activities by occasional editorsDisparity of treatment of editsOccasional editors have been reverted in a higher ratePhoto: http://lianza2009.wordpress.com/

What’s Happening to Contribution Patterns inside Wikipedia?What’re the Global Activity level patterns?What’re activity patterns by Editor Classes?Are the Population Sizes stable? Analysis of Population by Editor Class

Population AnalysisMonthly Active Editors

Population by Editor Class

Some Key TakeawaysWhat’re the Global Activity level patterns?No longer following an exponential growth curve.Logistic growth is now a better explanationWhat’re activity patterns by Editor Classes?Middle class decreasing their proportion of editsDifferent editor classes experience differing resistancesAre the Population Sizes stable? Middle class a smaller portion of the pyramid

Exponential Growth ModelExponential growth modelGrowth rate depends on the current NPreferential Attachment: Edits beget editsThe more number of previous edits, the more number of new editsr, growth rate of the population

Logistic Growth ModelEcological population growth modelr, growth rate of the populationK, carrying capacity (due to resource limitation)

Number of New ArticlesFollows a logistic growth curveNew Article

A modified logistic modelCarrying Capacity as a function of time.

Struggle for Existence - DarwinBiological systemCompetition increases as population hit the limits of the ecologyAdvantage go to members of the population that have competitive dominance over othersAnalogyLimited opportunities to make novel contributionsIncreased patterns of conflict and dominance

Population Dynamics ModelEcological growth modelr, growth rate of the populationK, carrying capacity (due to resource limitation)r-StrategistGrowth or exploitationLess-crowded niches / produce many offspringK-StrategistConservationStrong competitors in crowded niches / invest more heavily in fewer offspring[Gunderson & Holling 2001]

Factors Affecting the Growth of WikipediaPeople-wareGrowing resistance to new contentCoordination cost and bureaucracyKnowledge-wareAvailability of easy topics to write aboutTool-wareQuality of tools used by editors and admins

Thank you!Monthly Ratio of Reverted Editsed.chi@parc.comhttp://asc-parc.blogspot.comAugmented Social Cognition Area Palo Alto Research Center

http://strategy.wikipedia.org

User-Block and Vandalism

Page-Protection and Vandalism