[Wikipedia-l] Re: Average Size of Articles and Article Size Evolution

[Ray Saintonge]

Daniel Mayer wrote:

>On Monday 02 September 2002 07:15 am, David Levinson wrote:
>
>>Each article, as it ages, presumably tends to get longer as
>>people add content.  New articles start small. People add facts, they
>>get larger.  They spawn incomplete links[?] and new articles are
>>created, but start small.
>>
>
>You just gave me a great idea -- How about we have a population pyramid on 
>the statistics page? See http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands
>
This is an interesting approach.  The article set could be divided into 
deciles (or some other suitable sized sample).  I would guess that the 
median article size that we currently have is likely fairly constant. 
 The markers for the deciles are likely similarly constant.  This is, of 
course, subject to minor sampling variation.  People who use population 
pyramids let them be indicators of broad changes in populations. 
 Statistically significant variations from key markers would suggest 
differences in the patterns of participation.

Perhaps one of our more mathematically could do an analysis on "The 
fractal geometry of Wikipedia participation"

Eclecticology