Based on Wegweiser processing of old indices. I wonder how many of these are totally messed up metadata fields! jp×g 06:16, 28 January 2023 (UTC)
There are 1208 distinct values for the "author" fields in Signpost module indices, although some of these are goofy artifacts of the indexing process (like "28 other editors", "91 editors", and "other comedic wannabes"). With this in mind, we can at least draw *some* conclusions, and look at what the distribution kinda is. For example, we can compare "arts" (number of articles) with "auths" (number of authors who have written at least that many). See also: Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/Technical and Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Templates/Byline page. Also, Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/Author.
| This many people | have written at least this many articles |
|---|---|
| 0 | 500 |
| 1 | 450 |
| 1 | 400 |
| 2 | 350 |
| 3 | 300 |
| 3 | 250 |
| 4 | 200 |
| 7 | 150 |
| 18 | 100 |
| 34 | 50 |
| 41 | 40 |
| 54 | 30 |
| 72 | 20 |
| 90 | 15 |
| 122 | 10 |
| 192 | 5 |
| 223 | 4 |
| 289 | 3 |
| 415 | 2 |
| 926 | 1 |
Note, jp×g 00:06, 30 January 2023 (UTC): I have gotten it down to 1199 by eliminating some of the nonsense.