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OutrageousCitron9414 t1_jarbrbd wrote

I'd love to see that up to 2023. I wonder what's driving the increase in Jan-April

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BigReich t1_jarofiz wrote

Students in schools editing wiki pages for fun.

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bentgrass7 t1_jarprmm wrote

They don’t like to have fun between September and December?

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JimRobBob t1_jatsc8y wrote

My friend in 7th grade was banned from the computer room after getting caught changing the John Muir page. He changed “built a large wooden bridge” to built a large wooden dick. The principle gave his parents a print out of the screen shot. I think he’s still got it.

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MrP1anet t1_jassyhw wrote

Pretty sure this was an assignment in my computer class in junior high

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BrevitysLazyCousin t1_jav1k34 wrote

In 2011 or so I created about 100 new articles and edited ten thousand or so. Because reference material was required and I was already in the groove, this was absolutely true for me. I was doing the creating for the project's sake but being in that college mindset sure helped.

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Disruption0 t1_javgqto wrote

Politicians, lobbyists, journalists, activists, ....

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TallestToker t1_javciqv wrote

I think it's Winter in the northern hemisphere. We're inside and bored up here.

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fourdoorshack t1_jare6le wrote

What happened in 2007-2008 other than the financial meltdown....

...was it simply more people being out of work and therefore having more time to edit Wikis?

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HiddenCity t1_jarjxw4 wrote

In 2007 you could still edit wikipedia really easily and that's when it started to get really big and started appearing at the top of every Google search.

When I was in high school we would change it on purpose for smaller things as a prank (one of our teachers had a page because they were published).

I remember in history class we would edit it to show how easy misinformation could get published on the internet.

They tightened it up after, so that's probably why the edit numbers went down.

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snozzberrypatch t1_jas3rfv wrote

It's still really easy to edit Wikipedia, if you're actually being productive. If you just want to add "HAHA JOHNNY HAS A SMALL DICK" to an article, then yes, it's more difficult nowadays.

Sauce: am a Wikipedia admin

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AtypicalSpaniard t1_jauxta8 wrote

Alternatively, you can be a student team at a university trying to get permission from a mod in Wikipedia to add a section to an article and get denied for six months. Our teacher had to give up on that exercise because no team got permission in the end, lol.

Source: am that student

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snozzberrypatch t1_javajvf wrote

Better to beg for forgiveness than ask for permission. Just register an account and edit. As long as you're doing good work, no one will care.

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chugga_fan t1_jauiijr wrote

> It's still really easy to edit Wikipedia, if you're actually being productive

The abundance of pagesquatting with admin support absolutely proves that this notion is counterfactual.

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snozzberrypatch t1_jaum02r wrote

I disagree. If you've got sources to back up what you're trying to add, and you're not trying to push some kind of agenda, then it's quite easy to add whatever content you want, even if other editors don't like your content for whatever reason. Wikipedia is about documenting knowledge, not righting great wrongs or painting your favorite politician in the best light possible.

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chugga_fan t1_jaura4w wrote

> then it's quite easy to add whatever content you want, even if other editors don't like your content for whatever reason.

Ryulong only got banned after page squatting for quite some time and pissing off a gigantic amount of people.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/25785648.2023.2168939

Entire pages have been pagesquatted by people who have intrinsic bias about the incident since the people in question are unfavorable if the other side is true...

T.D Adler was banned for pointed out admin CoI.

Political Commentators are accused of harassment for being harassed on some pages.

If it isn't left-wing it's instantly overthrown from the reasonable scale if it's at all political.

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snozzberrypatch t1_jausb3s wrote

>If it isn't left-wing it's instantly overthrown from the reasonable scale if it's at all political.

There it is. You don't like Wikipedia because it doesn't let you push your agenda. I typically stay far away from political articles, partly because I don't buy into political theater, and partly because I'm not attracted to drama. With that said... considering how much disinformation, brainwashing, and propaganda has been generated by the American right wing in the last decade or so, it's no surprise that a right winger such as yourself would feel frustrated, since all of your media sources aren't considered reliable (and rightly so) and many of your closely-held beliefs are probably dismissed as nonsense by many other editors.

It may be true that Wikipedia has a slight left wing bias, mostly owing to the fact that writing encyclopedia articles is a scholarly pursuit and therefore WP editors tend to be educated (and left wing folks are statically more likely to be highly educated than right wing folks), but my guess is that any actual bias on WP is a lot less than what someone in your position perceives it as.

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chugga_fan t1_jaussu8 wrote

> There it is. You don't like Wikipedia because it doesn't let you push your agenda

Brother I gave you fucking examples of actual human beings who did nothing wrong and got banned for it.

Get your head outside the board's behinds and see the truth of the matter that there is actual research into the bias of wikipedia and its overreliance of dubious quality secondary sources whose bias is well known to be genuinely awful.

The Guardian is not a news source that is at all neutral. Huffington Post is even worse. CNN and Fox News are decent. MSNBC is a shitshow with occasional news. So why the fuck are the first two even accepted as a reliable source? You don't fucking accept OANN, so why the fuck are the dumpster fires of the left wing accepted?

It's because you unironically cannot see your own bias.

> considering how much disinformation, brainwashing, and propaganda has been generated by the American right wing in the last decade

There's exactly one popular right wing news network in the United States, you genuinely have no idea what you're talking about.

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snozzberrypatch t1_jauwlb4 wrote

Lmao you're putting MSNBC and HuffPost in the same category as OANN? Sorry, but you're a fucking moron. Hopelessly brainwashed by the propaganda.

Do MSNBC and HuffPost have a bias? Sure. But at least they don't report conspiracy theories as is they're facts. There's a difference between having a partisan bias that colors your reporting, and reporting blatant falsehoods about how the election was stolen and Trump is still the president.

Get a grip dude. You're blinded by the brainwashing.

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chugga_fan t1_jaw0yo2 wrote

> Lmao you're putting MSNBC and HuffPost in the same category as OANN?

MSNBC is occasionally good.

Huffington post at best is a glorified opinion piece.

Get your head out of the sand and fucking see the world for what it is.

"I don't have my head in the sand" - Man who says the Huffington Post is accurate reporting.

I do love how you don't even bother with the fact that I mention the Gaurdian, which is OBJECTIVELY a worse version of the Huffington Post.

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snozzberrypatch t1_jaw33q4 wrote

Keep watching OANN dude. The ultimate source for all of your confirmation bias needs.

You can mention all the news sources you want, the fact is there is nothing on the left that is even remotely equivalent to something like OANN, at least not that I'm aware of, or if it does exist it's on the extreme fringe and doesn't attract a lot of viewers. You people treat OANN like it's fuckin Reuters. Pretty sad.

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chugga_fan t1_jaw3t45 wrote

> Keep watching OANN dude.

I don't watch news media because it's all garbage takes from CNN and Fox News to The Gaurdian and OANN.

All of it's trash yellow journalism disguised as information on the ground.

Find a local reliable outlet and read the print section occasionally and take it with a fucking grain of salt.

> Thinking I give a flying fuck about OANN

I use them as the case of being an extreme right-wing bias, why the FUCK do you think I think it's neutral btw? Why the hell are the only people arguing about this with me unable to parse an english sentence?

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SSG_SSG_BloodMoon t1_javyb5q wrote

> Brother I gave you fucking examples of actual human beings who did nothing wrong and got banned for it.

You gave one example and it literally wasn't a parsable English sentence. So you gave zero examples.

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chugga_fan t1_jaw0sfn wrote

> You gave one example and it literally wasn't a parsable English sentence. So you gave zero examples.

T.D Adler, Ryulong, Carl Benjamin's page where he's accused of harassment despite direct video evidence proving to the contrary (again the secondary sources bias). The entire scientific journal on how the holocaust pages are biased in favor of forgetting polish crimes.

"One example"

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SSG_SSG_BloodMoon t1_jaw3cdv wrote

Are you now saying that "ryulong" did nothing wrong? Thought you were saying the opposite.

This is the first time you've mentioned the third person.

So yeah... Literally actually one example

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chugga_fan t1_jaw3ho0 wrote

I only passingly mention Carl, T.D Adler did nothing wrong for calling out CoI on admins. Ryulong is a pagesquatter who still fundamentally shapes that page to this day.

You are actually just illiterate.

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SSG_SSG_BloodMoon t1_jaw4l22 wrote

I'm illiterate huh. Interesting. So count for me, how many examples of:

> actual human beings who did nothing wrong and got banned for it.

, which is the thing I quoted and replied to, had you given.

Hint: it's one.

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PhxRising29 t1_jax37bj wrote

What does pagesquatting mean?

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chugga_fan t1_jax3dna wrote

Pagesquatting is effectively a single user controlling an entire page, with the ability to revert edits and prevent anyone else from editing the page. There are numerous political examples of pagesquatting.

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okwaitno t1_jaxjvxm wrote

Unfortunately not my experience. I have wasted hours on mid-level pages that I have expert knowledge about, making detailed, thoughtful changes that were immediately reverted back. As a result I have simply given up. I have spoken to others in same situation. Mod communication is a nightmare, they seem to rule with iron fist. I can only believe the platform is poorer for it.

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snozzberrypatch t1_jaycq1i wrote

What general topic do you have expert knowledge about, just out of curiosity?

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okwaitno t1_jazc1oe wrote

Sorry but I prefer not to share that, as it will then be clear which pages I am referring to. And my level of knowledge is not visible to a mod anyway. They make decisions on their own terms irregardless. I’m sure you are aware of these issues, it’s hardly a new thing. Wikipedia ceased to be easy to edit long ago.

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snozzberrypatch t1_jb0an83 wrote

Sure, that's totally understandable. However, in over a decade of editing Wikipedia, I've never ever ever heard someone refer to a WP admin as a "mod". Wikipedia does not have moderators. The purpose of an admin is not to moderate or review the content that is being written. In fact, when it comes to pure content decisions, the opinion of an admin is not given any more weight than anyone else's opinion.

If you've edited there for as long as you said, you'd probably know all of that already. So, not that it matters, but I kinda think you're not really a regular contributor.

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okwaitno t1_jb30333 wrote

Correct, I’m not a regular contributor anymore, and haven’t been for years, for the reasons outlined.

Technically true yes the title is admin not mod, perhaps I have grown accustomed to Redditspeak. Although on reflection, there is little actual difference. If a Wiki admin rejects edits that you spent hours crafting, you have little recourse. You may argue the semantics, but at the end of the day, what they say goes.

I tried to discuss multiple times when fair edits were rejected, and was never, ever successful. So like many, I just gave up.

Enjoy your power. I’ve found more meaningful ways for me to contribute to society.

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kalesaji t1_jav8j80 wrote

Bro just casually dropped the wiki admin info. Leave some pussy for the rest of us king

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snozzberrypatch t1_javsbhc wrote

There's enough for everyone. I'm sure you could become a Reddit mod when you grow up if you study hard and eat your vegetables.

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kupuwhakawhiti t1_jav1828 wrote

Ah that makes sense. That’s when, according to Wikipedia, Piccolo is a bitch ass n***** from Namek.

Haven’t seen a funny edit like that since

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Snagle2354 t1_jarw854 wrote

If I had to fancy a guess, I would say 2007-2008 looks like it does due to Facebook and students. Some may remember that FB was initially restricted to college students with a student e-mail address from select colleges. Around 2007, FB started allowing anybody with a public email address join; the early adopters were mostly students at other colleges who previously did not have ‘TheFacebook’ for their college. There were a significant number of new HS users at this time as well.

February to May is Spring Semester, and at US schools this is often when the ‘Big,’ important final research papers are due.

My guess is that the rising popularity of FB (along with other social media/tech of the time) was related to the rising popularity of Wikipedia among an age cohort that was disproportionately sensitive to Wikipedia ‘sources,’ and thus more interested in adding/editing information on Wikipedia pages.

My guess is that this trend dies off quickly as the amount of awareness about Wikipedia and the potential for ‘bad actors’ to post untrue information becomes more widely known, and the educational institutions reject Wikipedia as a valid primary source.

Let it be known that I have nothing to back any of this up; I just came up with a guess while pooping.

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SSG_SSG_BloodMoon t1_jasemss wrote

I don't understand the connection you're proposing. What's the link between the two websites

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Snagle2354 t1_jast3na wrote

In short: FB created a network exclusively for college students -> Initial Wikipedia users were likely college/university students -> FB then expanded to public users (mostly other teens/young adults) -> The knowledge of Wikipedia spread through FB networks -> The rapid growth of FB therefore contributed to the rapid growth/popularity of Wikipedia at that time

The connection to ‘edits’ is implicit; In general, the more people are aware of Wikipedia the more contributions/edits, all else equal. The timing of the outliers in question appear to coincide with the US academic calendar, whereby term and final papers are generally due at the end of the academic year (spring semester). Students, needing citations for information/sources included in their papers, may have been more likely to edit/amend Wikipedia pages than other Wikipedia users at that time.

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SSG_SSG_BloodMoon t1_jasub64 wrote

The parts of this chain that connect FB and wikipedia do not ring true to me at all. I absolutely do not think that Wikipedia was a college site and then when FB expanded to the general public, the general public found out about Wikipedia by being connected to college students. No part of that seems true or reasonable to me.

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Snagle2354 t1_jasywlu wrote

Oh I agree that the connections are tenuous and this was just a thought to get the ball rolling. That being said, I ought to clarify.

I am not saying Wikipedia was a ‘college website,’ rather at the time I would argue that HS/College-associated individuals made up the majority of people who would visit Wikipedia.

Likewise, I am not saying that FB expanding to the general public introduced the general public to Wikipedia; rather, the expansion of FB to the general public was more organic in that not everyone picked it up right away (the early adopters more closely resembled the initial user base of near-college aged individuals). This is where FB would serve as a nexus between ‘groups,’ not individuals. Thus, FB facilitated the growth of Wikipedia at this time, particularly among students.

My words are not perfect, but an example may do better:

Students at College ‘A’ use Wikipedia for research. Students at College ‘B’ do not know about Wikipedia. Through FB, a student at College ‘B’ learns of Wikipedia from an old friend at College ‘A.’ The student at College ‘B’ then tells his friends about Wikipedia, and eventually most Students at College ‘B’ know of Wikipedia.

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SSG_SSG_BloodMoon t1_jat4w38 wrote

> Students at College ‘B’ do not know about Wikipedia.

This sentence and every sentence after it are extremely unrealistic.

Wikipedia was already one of the top most popular websites in the world before any of this, and there is just no reason at all that Facebook would be a significant vector of spreading wikipedia.

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Purplekeyboard t1_jasqt4g wrote

It's too bad they shut Wikipedia down at the end of 2010, or we could have had the last 12 years of numbers as well.

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reelznfeelz t1_javg75e wrote

Shut it down? What?

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rainyman94 t1_javo7sm wrote

He is being sarcastic. He is implying that it’s silly they didn’t include the next 13 years of data leading up to 2023.

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konstantinua00 t1_jawn5fo wrote

whoosh is the supposed sound of a joke flying over someone's head

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laulu_aino t1_jatefad wrote

Random Wikipedia related incident

One of my friends pointed out to our chemistry professor once, that his slides were word for word from that topics Wikipedia page (with a slight tone of "did you plagiarize that") to which the professor responded, that he wrote the Wikipedia article.

My language is quite minor, so I think it's cool that university professors try to make their topic more approachable by creating easy access material in other languages than e.g., English, as well.

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thessnake03 t1_jauoje9 wrote

You can still plagiarize yourself right?

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laulu_aino t1_jauplzu wrote

Yeah, I think it's the general consensus that you shouldn't copy paste even if it's your own text. But the slides aren't public and it's Wikipedia and not a scientific article

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Kenesaw_Mt_Landis t1_javl4fy wrote

I have a cheapAmazon children’s book about dinosaurs for my kid. It is 100% the first paragraph of each Dino’s wiki page plus an illustration. Made in China with weird spacing/kerning

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ptgorman OP t1_jarctfk wrote

The data comes from Wikipedia Statistics (see data set here). I created this using Illustrator.

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snash222 t1_jarkewz wrote

Interesting chart, I assume 2007 or so is due to the financial collapse. Why doesn’t the chart continue to the present day? It would be interesting to see COVID lockdown timeframes.

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Adventurous-Quote180 t1_jarwxjr wrote

What has financial crisis to do with wikipedia edits?

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snash222 t1_jasc7kx wrote

It is just an assumption of mine. It was worldwide, and left a lot of people out of work with time on their hands.

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srv50 t1_jarr281 wrote

Logically edits increase as content increases. It’d be nice to see this related to content. Has user activity increased per unit of content ? Or has activity just grown with content?

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inactiveuser247 t1_jas0yu1 wrote

I think your logic is off. If there was a direct correlation that would mean that Wikipedia shrinks during the second half of the year and shrank overall between ‘07 and ‘10

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ShelfordPrefect t1_jatanev wrote

You have the causal relationship the wrong way round - they are saying more content results in more edits, but that doesn't mean fewer edits means less content

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inactiveuser247 t1_jatb7pl wrote

So if edits go up, then content must have gone up, but if edits goes down, then content … goes up?

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Hardlyhorsey t1_jaujgll wrote

As content goes up it drives edits up. New content needs edits in order to reach peak accuracy and it’s more to maintain.

More edits does nothing to drive new content, so it does not go both ways.

Total content logically goes up in most scenarios or most of the time, but if it goes up slower than usual you would see a decrease in the amount of edits.

They are also not saying “if edits go up content must have gone up.” They’re saying “if content goes up, it tends to increase the amount of edits.” They actually specifically say this doesn’t work the other way.

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divinitia t1_jauqhln wrote

If you fill a jar with peanuts and then stop doing so, does the number of peanuts in the jar start decreasing?

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inactiveuser247 t1_javh3kp wrote

Can you tell how many peanuts are in the jar by counting how many times you take a peanut out of the jar, dust it off and then put it back?

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divinitia t1_javkibt wrote

You never take a peanut out of the jar, since I never mentioned doing so.

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inactiveuser247 t1_jawgefw wrote

Sure, because your analogy isn’t equivalent to the original issue.

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divinitia t1_jawhai7 wrote

But...it...is?

Just because you stop doing something, doesn't mean the reverse starts happening.

That's the equivalence.

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srv50 t1_jas6fdo wrote

I asked s question. But. In a world where everything changes linearly you are right. I don’t live in that world.

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inactiveuser247 t1_jatbor8 wrote

Doesn’t have to be linear. But if edits go up as content goes up and edits go down as content goes UP (I don’t think it’s defensible to say that Wikipedia shrank), then there isn’t a meaningful correlation.

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burnerman0 t1_jatzoi6 wrote

OC is wondering what the correlation is. Why are you assuming it's linear?

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mfb- t1_jasbuur wrote

Content grows with activity. Early on both grew rapidly, now content keeps growing but activity has declined a bit.

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N3rdy-Astronaut t1_jatg2hw wrote

The 2007-09 era was pretty much where the whole distrust about Wikipedia came from. I remember my CS professor pulling up a similar chart and explaining how it was ok for us to now use and trust Wikipedia so long as we just double check the wording and sources.

Also explained how the old days of Wikipedia were like the Wild West and the ability to edit so easily in those early days lead to mass abuse of the system and a massive academic mistrust.

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Dick_Cottonfan t1_jav3fg8 wrote

Best part of Wikipedia was reading articles that were actually written clearly and somewhat concisely in order to get a handle on a topic, and then trawl the references for ‘legitimate’ sources to cite for proper work and get deeper explanations as needed. Was like a free cheat code in grad school when the professor felt like mailing it in and focus on pet projects instead of actually doing their job.

Source: personal experience.

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SuperStingray t1_jark06y wrote

I feel like this would be better illustrated with a logarithmic scale.

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SSG_SSG_BloodMoon t1_jaset3a wrote

If you wanted more shades of difference at one end and fewer at the other, sure. Which end do you want squish and which end do you want to expand?

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_-__________ t1_jav8wdp wrote

It was e big wiki edit that caused the 2008 recession.

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_javocado t1_jas4eiq wrote

Nice data, but I think your legend shouldn’t be discrete when your data is continuous.

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Complete_River_2922 t1_jat1ufc wrote

Just proves the early 00s was a great time except obviously 9/11

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wuddupdok t1_jaujjcv wrote

I would love to see this data alongside Wikipedia traffic for comparison

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TricksterWolf t1_jaun70t wrote

For a moment I thought this was the OP's edit history and I was impressed and afraid

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FredererPower t1_jauriwu wrote

Was expecting red for 25/06/2009. Wasn’t disappointed.

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Side1iner t1_javndv6 wrote

Not that it really matters, but the ‘less than’ X> and ‘more than’ X< is wrong.

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firewaterstone t1_jas3bgl wrote

Is there an app or software that I can use to track data like this?

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poiuytree321 t1_jatgugr wrote

Honestly, why not just a simple line plot? Maybe with a log scale on the y axis. This seems like an overly complicated way to display very simple data

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Kenji_03 t1_jatrq7g wrote

"you see those red days? All me"

  • Steven Pruitt
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Nightblade t1_jau9jbh wrote

Nice, now do one that shows content/edit-gating.

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DrunkBendix t1_javw0rn wrote

I assume gray means no data, but what does purple mean?

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wanmoar t1_javyc74 wrote

This is really good

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ruswal3 t1_jawk6ux wrote

Software or programming language?

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[deleted] t1_jargq3j wrote

[deleted]

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PhillipBrandon t1_jarjqst wrote

Sure it does. It shows Wikipedia Edits by Day.

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[deleted] t1_jarsmob wrote

[deleted]

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inactiveuser247 t1_jas0o6i wrote

It doesn’t even show that it increased in size over time. The metric shown is the number of edits, not the number of new pages.

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someguyonline00 t1_jarmmo6 wrote

No, that can be a separate chart. I think this is interesting by itself.

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[deleted] t1_jarsyvz wrote

[deleted]

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someguyonline00 t1_jarxbfx wrote

This is the right stat for how many edits there are Wikipedia per day, which is a perfectly fine thing to show.

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Stainedbrain1997 t1_jaun7nh wrote

Aren’t like 2/3rd if all Wikipedia articles written by the same man?

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Salamandar3500 t1_javfruq wrote

Huh ? No.

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Stainedbrain1997 t1_jaxei44 wrote

Oh sorry, It’s 1/3rd of all articles he’s edited. “Steven Pruitt (born April 17, 1984) is an American Wikipedia editor with the highest number of edits made to the English Wikipedia, at over 5 million, having made at least one edit to one-third of all English Wikipedia articles. Pruitt first began editing Wikipedia in 2004. He has also created more than 33,000 Wikipedia articles. Pruitt was named as one of the 25 most important influencers on the Internet by Time magazine in 2017.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Pruitt

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Salamandar3500 t1_jay95kj wrote

> Pruitt has not literally pressed the 'edit' button 4.4 million times. One method he has used to achieve his astonishing numbers is a software tool that allows a user to make numerous identical edits simultaneously

Yeah i was expecting this.

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mainstreetmark t1_jas95yt wrote

What do you guys say when people tell you Wikipedia is full of shit?

I seemingly cannot even bring it up to some people I happen to know.

−1

triplehelix- t1_jasjpod wrote

that it is a great summary and aggregator of information and its easy to follow the citations to reputable sources for verification and further detail/context.

4