Wikipedia article depth

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Trend during 2008.

The depth or editing depth of Wikipedia is one of several possible rough indicators of the encyclopedia's collaborative quality.

Definition

The formula assumes that a relatively high number of page edits and the presence of support pages means articles have been updated. And the latter support pages are assumed to be a more important factor.

In the list of Wikipedias, depth is currently defined as:

$\text{Depth}=\frac{\text{Edits}}{\text{Articles}}\cdot \frac{\text{NonArticles}}{\text{Articles}}\cdot \left( 1-\frac{\text{Articles}}{\text{Total}} \right)$

The depth can be simplified to the equivalent formula below:

$\text{Depth}=\frac{\text{Edits}}{\text{Total}}\cdot \left( \frac{\text{NonArticles}}{\text{Articles}} \right)^{2}$

NonArticles are talk pages, redirects and user pages. Total is simply NonArticles + Articles.

Article depth is a rough indicator of a Wikipedia’s quality, showing how frequently its articles are updated. It does not refer to academic quality, which cannot be computed, but to Wikipedian quality, i.e. the depth of collaborativeness—a descriptor that is highly relevant for a Wikipedia.

English Wikipedia has depth of 767 = 20.34 × 37.7 and is the deepest one for Wikipedias with number of articles greater than 10000. The largest depth according to the definition given above has the blocked Kanuri Wikipedia which has only 1 article and the depth is equal to 355886 = 52.93 × 6724. The largest depth for the unblocked Wikipedias has Ewe Wikipedia which has the depth 2605 = 7.4 × 352.19. The smallest depth has Aromanian Wikipedia which has the depth 3459.6152 = 60.29 × 57.3845.

Background

The measurement of depth was introduced after some limitations of the classic measurement of article count were realized. This insight is similar to the various suggestions to redefine the ordering of Wikipedias that appear on the international front page www.wikipedia.org. See Top Ten Wikipedias and Talk:Www.wikipedia.org portal.

Still in early February 2006 the list of Wikipedias only listed the article count. But on February 10, 2006, this changed into a table format that also listed the total edit count, number of users and admins.

The depth column first appeared on November 29, 2006. The initial definition was edits/articles, giving the English Wikipedia a value of 62. This definition changed already the next day to (Edits/Articles) × (Non-Articles/Articles), giving the English Wikipedia a value of 209. The next definition change occurred on October 9, 2007, when the Stub-ratio factor was appended. The stub ratio is (1-(Articles/Total)). The new value for the English Wikipedia was 288. The formula changed again on October 17, October 28, and finally on April 11, 2008.

The discussion of the introduction of the depth parameter is found in Talk:List of Wikipedias/Archive 4. Early on, there were discussions of whether depth implies quality. The changes in October 2007 were discussed in Talk:List of Wikipedias/Archive 5#Depth 2.0.

Trends

The table shows how the depth of the largest 30 languages of Wikipedia has developed over time.

Date	en	de	fr	pl	ja	it	nl	pt	es	ru	sv	zh	no	fi	ca	uk	tr	ro	vo	cs	hu	eo	sk	da	id	he	ar	ko	lt	sr
Today	767	89	163	18	64	95	10	112	170	106	21	100	28	46	26	38	214	88	15	39	100	18	18	66	112	249	234	82	18	64
1 Jan 2009	413	81	115	9	41	57	23	66	94	74	24	71	20	32	17	15	95	30	8	28	64	13	10	26	30	177	117	36	15	52
Change % in 2008 Q4	+7	+3	+5	+13	+2	+12	+5	+6	+25	+10	+9	+3	+0	+3	+6	+15	+22	+11	+0	+4	+8	+8	+11	+4	+11	+8	+13	+0	+7	+4
1 Dec 2008	408	80	113	9	41	54	22	65	88	72	23	70	20	32	17	14	89	29	8	28	61	13	10	26	30	174	110	36	15	51
1 Nov 2008	396	80	112	9	40	53	22	63	82	70	22	70	20	32	16	14	83	28	8	27	60	12	10	26	28	169	107	37	13	51
1 Oct 2008	386	79	110	8	40	51	22	62	75	67	22	69	20	31	16	13	78	27	8	27	59	12	9	25	27	164	104	36	14	50
Change % in 2008 Q3	+4	+2	+8	+0	+5	+8	+4	+6	+8	+6	+15	+23	+0	+3	+6	+30	+18	+8	+0	+3	+15	+0	+12	+4	+12	+3	-3	+5	+0	+8
1 Sept 2008	376	78	105	8	39	50	21	61	73	66	21	65	20	31	16	12	74	26	8	26	58	12	9	24	26	164	99	35	14	49
1 Aug 2008	372	78	103	8	38	49	21	60	71	65	20	56	20	30	16	11	70	26	8	26	53	12	8	24	25	161	116	35	14	48
1 July 2008	368	77	101	8	38	47	21	58	69	63	19	56	20	30	15	10	66	25	8	26	51	12	8	24	24	159	108	34	14	46
Change % in 2008 Q2	+10	+4	+8	+0	+8	+9	+5	+3	+16	+5	+18	-9	+5	+3	+15	-9	+22	+19	+14	+8	+15	+0	+0	+9	+9	+14	+0	+13	+7	+12
1 June 2008	357	76	98	8	37	45	21	62	67	60	18	64	19	30	14	10	63	24	8	25	49	12	7	23	24	158	110	32	13	45
1 May 2008	345	75	96	8	36	44	21	60	63	59	17	62	19	29	14	11	59	22	7	25	48	12	8	23	23	143	110	31	13	43
1 Apr 2008	334	74	93	8	35	43	20	56	59	60	16	62	19	29	13	11	54	21	7	24	44	12	8	22	22	139	108	30	13	41
Change % in 2008 Q1	+10	+5	+17	-11	+6	+0	+0	+14	+15	+7	+6	+5	+5	+7	-7	-8	+25	+23	+133	+0	+12	+9	+14	+4	+10	+5	+0	+11	+8	+17
1 Mar 2008	321	74	90	8			20			62	16		18	28										22
1 Feb 2008	316	71	87	7			20			58	16		18	28										21
1 Jan 2008	302	70	79	9	33	43	20	49	51	56	15	59	18	27	14	12	43	17	3	24	39	11	7	21	20	132	107	27	12	35
1 Dec 2007	??	??	??	??			??			??	??		??	??										??
1 Nov 2007	286	68	58	7	32	42	19	46	48	53	14	58	18	26	12	12	39	15	1	23	36	11	7	20	18	133	96	27	11	30
Date	en	de	fr	pl	ja	it	nl	pt	es	ru	sv	zh	no	fi	ca	uk	tr	ro	vo	cs	hu	eo	sk	da	id	he	ar	ko	lt	sr
1 Oct 2007	339	105	71	16			34			66	25		29	42										33
1 Sept 2007	331	104	69	16			37			62	24		30	41										33
1 Aug 2007	325	103	64	15			36			61	23		31	40										33
1 July 2007	320	100	59	15			36			59	23		31	39										32
1 June 2007	308	98	56	15			36			58	23		30	39										31
1 May 2007	293	95	52	14			35			54	22		29	38										29
1 Apr 2007	274	93	48	13			34			51	21		27	37										28
1 Mar 2007	254	91	45	13			34			60	21		28	36										27
1 Feb 2007	240	90	43	13			33			52	20		27	35										26
1 Jan 2007	224	87	45	12			32			37	19		25	34										24

See also

• Efficiency

Notes

Russian translation of this page

Ukrainian translation of this page