Wikimedia users

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Participants of Wikipedia

Wikipedia growth overview

There exist some very baseline statistics for what makes a stalled Wikipedia, and what makes a growing Wikipedia (note, these stats exist only for Wikipedia, not other content generating projects).

Facts about growing Wikipedias	Facts about stalled Wikipedias
~570 active contributors, 23% change	~20 active contributors, -18% change
~66,000 substantial articles, 80% change	~700 substantial articles, 30% change
.07% of global total page views	.001% of global total page views

Contributors as a percentage of all visitors

The following comes from an analysis of WikiStats and ComScore data . Note that the ComScore data is very much preliminary and carries with it a few caveats, including:

• It does not count Internet users from Internet cafes
• It does not draw from page views, but rather from a survey of individuals

This data suggests that for larger Wikipedias, active or very active contributors make up 0.02-0.03 percent of all visitors. Russian, meanwhile, is something of an exception, with nearly 0.05 percent of visitors registering as active or very active contributors.

Less than 0.05% of visitors to Wikipedia are active contributors to the encyclopedia.

Demographics

The following findings come from the preliminary findings from the 2009 survey of 100K Wikipedia users. Bridgespan has done some additional analysis on top of the published findings.

Some caveats here: It is unclear how representative this sample is of the Wikipedia community at large. For example:

• This survey had an over-representation of editors vis-a-vis the general population.
• There was an over-representation of Russian respondents, who were removed from the study pending some explanation for this anomaly.

The survey suggests that respondents were more likely to be male, age 18-30, have at least undergraduate education, single, and without children.

Contributor demographics appear skewed toward particular characteristics.

Breakdown of editing patterns

The following chart draws from a 2009 Harvard Business School study of Twitter, Wikipedia, and an unnamed social networking site. The preliminary findings suggest that the vast majority of contributions to the English Wikipedia in May 2009 were made by a small minority of users.

About 90% of contributions are made by 10% of contributors.

The fact that a minority of users make most of the revisions is confirmed in Wikipedia: A Quantitative Analysis, by Jose Felipe Ortega Soto. This trend is true for all the different language Wikipedias.

A few authors have the most revisions, while most authors have the fewest revisions.

Similarly, most articles are edited by only a few editors, with a few articles attracting most of the activity on all the language Wikipedias. However, the number of contributions per article is not as uneven as the number of contributions per editor.

A minority of the articles attract the majority of the contributions.

Additional information here from Ed Chi's work would be useful here.

Participants of Wikibooks

About 95% of Wikibooks participants are male.

Participants of the other Wikimedia projects

Looking for data and insight here

Past growth trends

Growth in contributors to Wikipedia

WikiStats suggests that while the number of contributors (those registered user who have made 10 edits) is rising, the rate of growth is slowing.

This is confirmed in an analysis from Wikipedia: A Quantitative Analysis, by Jose Felipe Ortega Soto.

Around 2006-2007, the number of authors leaving Wikipedia (by stopping contributions) begins to outnumber the number of users creating Wikipedia log-ins. This trend has been true in all the different language Wikipedias.

The total number of contributions from anonymous authors has also stabilized.

Meanwhile, contributions from anonymous authors have experienced a slowed rate of growth.

The growth in the number of contributions from anonymous authors has also stabilized.

Growth in active and very active contributors to Wikipedia

The following analysis is also based on statistics from WikiStats.

After adjusting for date of creation, a sample of several Wikipedias suggests that the number of active contributors (those making 5 edits in a month) peaks after 5–6 years, with Russian emerging as a key exception.

Active contributors appear to have peaked for larger Wikipedias.

A similar picture emerges when looking at very active contributors (those making 100 edits in a month).

Very active contributors also appear to have peaked for larger Wikipedias.

Language-specific data

There is more detailed, language-specific trend data here.

Impact of Wikipedia contributors on content and contributions

The following analysis is based on statistics from WikiStats.

An analysis of three large Wikipedias suggests that although contributors may be peaking, the number of articles on these Wikipedias is continuing to grow (albeit at slower rates).

Plateau in contributors correlates with slowing growth rate, but number of articles continues to grow.

The following analysis comes from Wikipedia: A Quantitative Analysis, by Jose Felipe Ortega Soto. Talk page activity has slowed in its growth.

The number of talk page contributions has also stabilized.

Active contributors to other Wikimedia projects

As is the case for many Wikipedias, the active contributor base for many of the other Wikimedia projects appears to be peaking.

Contributors to other Wikimedia projects is peaking.

Future growth projections

The above analysis suggests two findings:

• Larger Wikipedias will continue to grow, though at a slower rate than they have in the past.
• The number of active and very active contributors appears to have stabilized for many Wikipedias.

Wikimedia penetration

Wikimedia penetration by country

One way to think about expanding reach is to increase the number of Internet users who use Wikimedia projects. By examining Wikipedia, the most popular project, it is clear that there is ample opportunity to increase the number of Wikipedia users simply by expanding its use amongst people already online. The following table provides estimates for the percentage of the online population using Wikipedia for all regions of the world and select countries. This table shows that even amongst countries such as the United States, Germany, and Japan whose population speaks the languages of the three largest Wikipedias and serve as home to many of the most active Wikipedia community members, there is still some room for expansion. However, the greatest opportunities for growth are amongst Asian countries such as China, Korea, and India where below 10% of the online population is currently using Wikipedia. An estimate of the total global population that uses Wikipedia is between 17 and 25%.

See also Erik Zachte's recent analysis based on Wikimedia statistics.

Estimate of Internet users who use Wikipedia, by region and selected countries.

Region	Country	Estimated range of Internet users who use Wikipedia
Asia & Pacific		10-16%
	Australia	21-27%
	China	1%
	India	8- 20%
	Japan	26-38%
	South Korea	5-7%
	Taiwan	10-13%
Middle East & Africa		12-30%
	South Africa	14%
Europe		26-37%
	France	36-39% *
	Germany	25-42%
	Russian Federation	18%
	United Kingdom	28-37%
Latin America		15-30%
	Argentina	22-26%
	Brazil	9-22%
	Mexico	19-35%
North America
	Canada	45-50%
	United States	24-32%

Wikimedia penetration by language

The following table displays the top 11 languages by number of native speakers and the number of Wikipedia articles in that language. It also shows the number of language speakers per Wikipedia article. This is one possible way to measure penetration by language, with higher numbers meaning that there is less content available per speaker. It is clear from this table that some of the most widely spoken languages such as Arabic, and Hindi and Bengali have significantly smaller Wikipedias.

Number of native language speakers and number of Wikipedia articles.

Language	Number of Speakers (millions)	Number of Articles (thousands)	Number of speakers/Number of articles
Chinese	1,213	255	4,757
Spanish	329	440	748
English	328	3'048	112
Arabic	221	99	2,232
Hindi	182	34	5,353
Bengali	181	20	9,050
Portuguese	178	496	359
Russian	144	440	327
Japanese	122	603	202
German	90	925	97
Javanese	84	108	778

Articles per number of speakers

The following chart provides another take on the penetration of Wikipedia by language.

The main resource to create Wikipedia articles are speakers of the language. Drivers to contribute might differ per culture or language.

In the table below are listed the Wikipedia in descending order of number of articles per thousand speakers of the language. This table might change your view on the reach and participation. Included are languages with 20 million speakers or more. Also included are Wikipedias with more than one hundred thousand articles. Please note that English is not within the top 10 of this list.

Warning: The number of speakers are rough estimates of vernacular language speakers (secondary language speakers have apparently been ignored). The effective source of data should be retrieved from an accurate and maintained source, such as the Unicode CLDR extra data, which also includes data about the literacy level (in order to estimate the number of readers of the language).

Language	Wikipedia	Speakers (million)	Articles (thousand)	Articles per speaker (thousandth)
Volapük	vo	000.00003	0,120	4,000,000.0
Esperanto	eo	002.00000	0,117	0,000,058.5
norsk bokmål	nb	005.00000	0,225	0,000,045.0
svenska	sv	009.00000	0,325	0,000,036.1
suomi	fi	006.00000	0,213	0,000,035.5
Nederlands	nl	020.00000	0,553	0,000,027.7
català	ca	007.00000	0,192	0,000,027.4
dansk	da	005.00000	0,114	0,000,022.8
slovenčina	sk	005.00000	0,109	0,000,021.8
polski	pl	050.00000	0,627	0,000,012.5
čeština	cs	012.00000	0,134	0,000,011.2
Deutsch	de	105.00000	0,943	0,000,009.0
italiano	it	100.00000	0,596	0,000,006.0
English	en	510.00000	3,000	0,000,005.9
română	ro	026.00000	0,130	0,000,005.0
日本語	ja	130.00000	0,609	0,000,004.7
українська	uk	044.00000	0,158	0,000,003.6
français	fr	270.00000	0,839	0,000,003.1
português	pt	180.00000	0,500	0,000,002.8
Türkçe	tr	060.00000	0,134	0,000,002.2
Bahasa Melayu	ms	023.00000	0,046	0,000,002.0
ไทย	th	030.00000	0,049	0,000,001.6
español	es	320.00000	0,504	0,000,001.6
русский	ru	280.00000	0,422	0,000,001.5
Tiếng Việt	vi	068.00000	0,096	0,000,001.4
한국어	ko	078.00000	0,108	0,000,001.4
srpskohrvatski / српскохрватски српски / srpski hrvatski bosanski	sh sr hr bs	021.00000	0,024	0,000,001.1
فارسی	fa	070.00000	0,066	0,000,000.9
azərbaycanca	az	031.00000	0,025	0,000,000.8
తెలుగు	te	070.00000	0,044	0,000,000.6
Bahasa Indonesia	id	180.00000	0,109	0,000,000.6
Sunda	su	027.00000	0,014	0,000,000.5
العربية	ar	250.00000	0,100	0,000,000.4
मराठी	mr	068.00000	0,024	0,000,000.4
മലയാളം	ml	035.00000	0,011	0,000,000.3
中文	zh	900.00000	0,270	0,000,000.3
தமிழ்	ta	066.00000	0,019	0,000,000.3
Jawa	jv	075.00000	0,020	0,000,000.3
ಕನ್ನಡ	kn	035.00000	0,007	0,000,000.2
贛語	gan	021.00000	0,004	0,000,000.2
ગુજરાતી	gu	046.00000	0,008	0,000,000.2
اردو	ur	060.00000	0,010	0,000,000.2
粵語	zh-yue	071.00000	0,011	0,000,000.2
閩南語 / Bân-lâm-gú	zh-min-nan	046.00000	0,006	0,000,000.1
বাংলা	bn	185.00000	0,020	0,000,000.1
हिन्दी	hi	360.00000	0,036	0,000,000.1
မြန်မာဘာသာ	my	032.00000	0,002	0,000,000.1
吴语	wuu	077.00000	0,004	0,000,000.1
پښتو	ps	023.00000	0,001	0,000,000.0
ਪੰਜਾਬੀ	pa	057.00000	0,002	0,000,000.0
ଓଡ଼ିଆ	or	032.00000	0,001	0,000,000.0
客家語 / Hak-kâ-ngî	hak	034.00000	0,001	0,000,000.0
湘語 (Xiang)	hsn	036.00000	0,000	0,000,000.0
मैथिली	mai	030.00000	0,000	0,000,000.0
भोजपुरी	bh	026.00000	0,000	0,000,000.0
Hausa	ha	024.00000	0,000	0,000,000.0

Sister projects global penetration

Wikipedia: 96 % of total requests

Number of contributors and page views, compared

Sister project	Number of contributors	Contributors over total (%)	Monthly page views (millions)	Page views over total (%)
Wikibooks	12,942	1.28	35.6	0.33
Commons	6557	0.65	173	1.63
Wikinews	2969	0.30	12	0.11
Wikipedia	962,555	95.44	10,175	95.71
Wikiquote	5963	0.59	33.5	0.31
Wikisource	4605	0.46	34.1	0.32
Wikispecies	633	0.06	8 ca.	0.08
Wikiversity	2329	0.23	6.6	0.06
Wiktionary	10,021	0.99	151	1.42
Total	1,008,574	99.7	10,631	99.97

With regard to share, Wikiversity and Wikibooks seem to have a number of contributors which is "four times" the number of page views, Wikinews "three times", Wikiquote "twice", Wiktionary "two thirds", Commons almost "one third" (but the figure is wrong), other projects quite balanced. What does this mean? If

1. the total number of edits / number of active contributor ratio is more or less the same in all projects, and
2. if the number of edits is an indicator of the total effort of the community more or less equal in all projects,

then we can consider that

1. we have some projects where the community does a better focused work (i.e. less work, more useful to readers), either
   1. because the community is better directed/more able,
   2. or because the whole project is more needed than another (i.e. maybe a dictionary is more needed than a wiki newspaper),
   3. or because the project is more difficult and needs more effort to achieve some critical mass to be useful,
2. or we have an unequal distribituon of:
   1. readers: some projects should be more advertised or linked from other projects/other web resources/other offline resources (e.g. schools);
   2. editors: some projects fail to attract the needed editors, either because they're "wasted" on another projects which needs them less, or because they are not able to attract new wikimedia editors (i.e. editors who don't arrive from another project) for some reason (see Participation).

See also Proposal:Make Wikimedia projects scale.

Note that the premises need to be verified:

1. a project can attract more very active editors and another can attract more less active editors (e.g. because maybe to collect quotations is less difficult than to write a book);
2. some projects may require more "external" preparative work (e.g. a public domain dictionary which is processed offline and then uploaded to Wiktionary by bots) or spread work on many edits (e.g. the uploading of a book full text on Wikisource requires an edit per page plus others for index, metadata etc.).

Demographics of Wikimedia’s main audience

• Age (Wikipedia only)
• Geographic region
  • Nationalities (TBD)
• Education (Wikipedia only)
• Income

Demographics of American WP users

In other languages: English (en) 日本語 (ja) | Add translation [edit]

The following charts were produced from survey data collected by the Pew Internet & American Life Project Survey in March and February of 2007. The survey data is representative of Americans age 18 and older who have a telephone or cellular phone. All data analysis was performed by the Bridgespan Group, and the Pew Internet and American Life Project bears no responsibility for the interpretations presented or conclusions reached based on analysis of the data.

As of March 2007, approximately 25% of Americans had used Wikipedia according the Pew survey

As of March 2007, Wikipedia users in the United States are younger than internet users who do not use Wikipedia and non-Internet users according to Pew survey data

According to March 2007 Pew survey data, Wikipedia users in the United States are better educated than internet users who do not use Wikipedia and non-internet users

According to March 2007 Pew survey data, Wikimedia U.S. usage is balanced by gender; Somewhat of a skew toward men when compared to averages of Internet users/nonusers

According to March 2007 Pew survey data, Wikimedia U.S. usage is balanced by race; Somewhat of a skew toward white people when compared to averages of Internet users/nonusers

March 2007 Pew survey data affirms that U.S. students use Wikimedia more than non-students

March 2007 Pew data shows that Wikipedia users are more likely to use the Internet daily then Internet users who do not use Wikipedia

March 2007 Pew survey data affirms that people who have more access to the Internet use it more frequently

According to March 2007 Pew survey data, people who use Wikipedia are more likely to have access to the Internet both at home and work compared to people who use the Internet but do not use Wikipedia

According to March 2007 Pew survey data, amongst daily Internet users, people who use Wikipedia have higher education levels

How do people access Wikimedia?

• Computer
• Mobile device
• Off-line
• Web portal (Google, direct, Yahoo etc)

Why do people access Wikimedia?

We have some stories that people shared when they donated money. Those stories are private, but we could get permission to share more of them.

Unanswered questions

• Demographic breakdown, motivations and usage by country-of-origin/language of contribution

Resources

• Statistics on contributing patterns
  • WikiStats
  • Survey of Wikipedia users
• Study of "lifecyle" of contributors (i.e., time from first contribution to last contribution)
  • Doctoral thesis on contributors