On Nov 22, 2005, at 3:44 PM, Anders Wegge Jakobsen wrote:
"Andrew" == Andrew Venier avenier@venier.net writes:
S. Woodside wrote:
Conjecture 4. That the development of a wikipedia article over time occurs in a manner consistent to the biological evolution of a species.
I would be rather surprised to hear that our articles are reproducing.
The original list of "Wikipedians who <foo>" has cloned itself numerous times. You may argue that it's nothing more than a parasite feeding on the host organisms desire to be part of as many groups as possible, but vira are also a result of evolution.
Exactly. There's a bunch of ways to approach it. One is the concept of Speciation. This is the process whereby a single species turns into multiple species. Perhaps there's a new uncross-able river that shows up between two populations of the species, they diverge over time, and eventually they become two species. The same thing might be seen to have with wikipedia article where the article splits in two or more to cover variations on the topic in greater details.
--simon