[Foundation-l] The Statistical Decline of the English Wikipedia

Wed Oct 10 02:09:36 UTC 2007

On 10/9/07, Robert Rohde <rarohde at gmail.com> wrote:
> Greg,
>
> We look at it differently.  The total number of edits made to Wikipedia can
> never decline, but the rate at which those edits are made can either
> increase or decrease.  I tend to think that it is that rate (rather than the
> integral) that is the most interesting measure of activity within the
> Wikipedia community.

Then you should have a look at the rate over just the last couple of
months: It's flat. The exponential growth stopped, and the rate
continued at a pretty level amount which turned out to be a little bit
below the peak.

Your graphs compress everything recent into 1/14th of the graph.

I think it's misleading to compare the size derivative graphs across
such a wide time scale.

We're not undergoing the same growth that we were during the
exponential time, but that isn't news, and it don't know how you could
objectively argue that itself is something to worry about: The
exponential growth had to stop at some point.

> Hmmmm, I just realized I dropped a word.  The title of this thread was
> supposed to be "the statistical decline of the english Wikipedia COMMUNITY",
> as it is the descreasing activity of that community that I think is the
> interesting observation.

I'm not sure where you are coming up with the claim that the community
activity level is *decreasing*.  Perhaps I'm not reading your graphs
right, can you please produce a version of them showing only the last
4, 5, or 6 months?