Tag Archives: wikipedia

73.4 Percent of All Wikipedia Edits Are Made By Roughly 1,400 People

There are millions of people who browse Wikipedia in any given month, but only 2 percent of them (roughly 1,400) are responsible for editing nearly 75 percent of the information on the entire website.

via College OTR: 73.4 Percent of All Wikipedia Edits Are Made By Roughly 1,400 People.

Now there’s an interesting thought for you.

However, Digg says otherwise:

First, those statistics are old, there are many more regular editors on wikipedia today. Second, the so called “2% rule” is nothing new and is present on pretty much every web2.0 site, or any sort of system that involves user contribution. 90% of users are lurkers, another 8-9% are light content generators, and about 1-2% do most of the work. It follows a standard distribution bell curve.

Furthermore, this article is being very paranoid about the statistics. A small group of people may be responsible for most of the actual writing of articles, but that other 26.6% comes in the form of minor edits, corrections, fact-checking, and adding credible references. You will be extremely hard-pressed to find articles that were only written entirely by one person.

So there!

If it’s on the internet, it must be true. 😀

Wikipedia lists are AWESOME!

So I’m a huge fan of Wikipedia lists.

Lists in general are extremely good – informative, yet delivering the information faster to you than any pie-chart, graph, or spreadsheet ever could.

In particular, Wikipedia lists are great ‘cos they offer information in one central repository of information – great for people like me who need critical info about things NOW.

Instant gratification for the win.

Anyways, here are some of the top Wikipedia lists that I use on a frequent basis.

  • List of Stargate Atlantis Episodes, Season 5
    This list is awesome – Stargate Atlantis is awesome, and so is Season 5. I use this list primarily to find out when the new episodes are broadcast, as well as seeing extra info for each and every episode.
  • List of Top Gear Episodes, Season 10
    This list is also awesome for the same reasons that the Stargate Atlantis list is awesome – broadcast dates and episode listings. Top Gear is awesome too, so I suppose that helps…
  • List of Intel Core 2 Microprocessors, Quad Core Mobile processors
    Intel processors are the best of the bunch (in this writer’s opinion, anyway) and this is another one of those awesome lists that deliver info on critical things like core 2 duo processors. I’ve been looking at the release dates on Quad core mobile processors to try and gauge when Apple are going to be putting them in their computers, to be honest. Once upon a time I did use this list for processor spec comparisons between Yorkfield processors for the gaming rig I was building, but then I bought a Mac 😀
  • List of Operating Systems, Smartphones
    The Apple iPhone is an awesome piece of kit and I’m proud to say that it’s OS is listed under smartphones. I was actually looking at this list as research for some of my previous iPhone posts – as well as doing some future research for some upcoming iPhone posts, because, as you know, I’m a huge fan of apple gear. Enough said.

So Wikipedia is awesome, and not just because of it’s lists. However, there are times when it just goes far too far, and into the realms of insanity.

Deletionpedia is the place where Wikipedia articles go to die, and it has one of the most massive lists ever…

The Weapons of the Imperium (Warhammer 40,000)

It was either this or a Simpsons list of all the chalkboard gags that was labelled “fancruft”. LOL. That’s mind blowing. Who in their right mind would make that?!

And finally – today’s WTF…

List of Unicode characters

Just, WTF. I’m astounded. :O

Web Sites I Enjoy!

MySQL was completely down on our web-hosting on Sunday (31st August) night, and so I apologise for the delay in posts! I have no idea why it was down, but it was the only thing that was actually down – Apache and all the rest of it was working fine. Since WordPress runs off a MySQL database, it also meant that both freshbytes and Benny Ling’s Bling were both down. Not cool.

In the meantime, here are some websites I enjoy on a frequent basis – if you’re like me, I’m sure you will too.

Links:

Assembles Elucidation – The Daily WTF
Right, so The Daily WTF is one of the best websites out there – completely awesome. It’s strictly for nerds/geeks (what exactly is the difference?), so those not Vitamin-D challanged need not apply.
This particular story is awesome – it’s about the manual that came with a hard drive enclosure, sort of a “lost in translation” if you will.
Error’d is one of my favourite parts of The Daily WTF – showing how dumb smart tech can be!
Oh, and before you ask: WTF does not stand for what you think it stands for; it currently stands for Worse Than Failure – because, let’s face it, nothing is worse than failure.

Fan Death – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I kid you not. Following on as a side-story from The Daily WTF link above, this particular Wikipedia page apparently describes a South Korean urban legend that states if an electric fan is left on overnight in a room where you’re sleeping, it can cause death through suffocation, poisoning, or hypothermia.
It then goes on to list the reasons why this isn’t actually possible – some of my favourites are:

  • Vortex theory – in this scenario, the electric fan manages to create a vortex, thereby sucking out all the oxygen, and creating a partial vacuum inside.
  • The electric fan somehow “chops up” all the oxygen particles in the air – leaving none to breathe.
  • “That if the fan is put directly in front of the face of the sleeping person, it will suck all the air away, preventing one from breathing. This explanation ignores the fact that most people point a fan towards themselves when using one, which causes air to move past the face but does not change the amount of air present.”
  • The same electric fan somehow “uses up” all the oxygen in the room, leading to asphyxiation and death.

In light of these strange fan-related deaths, most fans sold in Korea now have an timer that automatically turns the fan off after an extended period os use. Apparently, this “automatic timer” is touted as a “life-saving” feature, go figure…

Opinion: How Apple can gain significant OS market share
Now, if only Apple listened to all the little people… This being one of the more recent Ars Technica articles (but quality as usual), it discusses how Apple could be even more awesome than they are now, especially in terms of OSX market share.
The product that started it all was, without a doubt, the iPod. The current popularity of Macs in today’s world is due partly to the massive hype of the iPhone – great work Apple Marketing – but much of it can only attributed to the initial success of the iPod. If people didn’t know about the iPod, they wouldn’t know about the iPhone.

Top 5 Gadgets That Could Get You Arrested
Wired is one of my favourite tech sites, apart from the legendary Ars Technica. I’m not a huge fan of Slashdot, Gizmodo, or any of those kinds of sites, and while I do enjoy Engadget every once in a while, Wired and Ars contribute more professional material, IMO.
Anyways, the top five gadgets that could get you arrested are completely awesome – I wish I had the Sonar II.
Like a commenter on that post said – why didn’t they include mobile jammers or the like? I’m sure they would get you arrested.

Hope you enjoyed the links.