Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2007-10-22/Living people

An analysis of Category:Living people indicates that biographies occupy an increasing proportion of the total article count as Wikipedia grows. With the coverage expanding to explore how far the much-debated concept of notability reaches, for some lesser figures there also comes the sense that having a Wikipedia article is a mark of achievement.

The latter phenomenon has now been treated in a Reuters article headlined, "Wikipedia page the latest status symbol". As it describes, for entertainment and media personalities who are not particularly famous but have some sort of following, the presence of a Wikipedia article validates the significance of their achievements. In contrast with the problem of self-promoters trying to boost visibility by creating articles directly, the story focused on people who generally respect the conflict of interest guidelines. It also highlighted the disconcerting effect on the subject when an article's deletion is mooted (although critics who object to Wikipedia's impact might wish the opposite for themselves).

Writing such biographies seems to be a powerful incentive for Wikipedia contributors, as suggested by data compiled by Greg Maxwell and reported on the English Wikipedia mailing list Tuesday, 16 October. His report indicated that about 11% of the articles in the encyclopedia are about living people (and therefore governed by the special policies related to such subjects). Or to be more precise, as Maxwell put it, "11% of non-redirect articles pages are tagged with Category:Living people."

Not only is the proportion that high, it has apparently been growing steadily for several years. As the chart above shows, articles whose subjects are presently alive remained fairly steady around 4% for about two years. A sharp drop in late 2002 is associated with the use of Derek Ramsey's Rambot to create articles for US localities in bulk based on census data. (The initial spike, Maxwell guessed, is not reliable data and may be based on the conversion script used to transition to MediaWiki.) Since then, these articles have multiplied markedly faster than the rest of the Wikipedia corpus, leading Maxwell to wonder why Rambot might have set off such a reaction.

Despite arguments that editing activity on Wikipedia has slowed down overall, the downward slope at the end of the graph is not necessarily significant. When an article is started, it commonly does not have categories, which are more likely to be added by subsequent editors as time passes. Data pulled in this fashion from newer articles is thus less likely to be stable or complete.