Wikirage.com

Wikirage.com is one of those zeitgeist sites that seems to let you know “what’s hot” on the controversial site Wikipedia in terms of editing activity. One can see the top 100 wiki pages that have been most popular in terms of “genuine” edits, number of unique editors or vandalisms and also within the last hour, six hours, day, week or month.

Wikirage.com is just one of the many metrics one can use to determine what’s on the minds of everyone (or everynerd), as opposed to looking at a news site.

I would suppose that quality edits are usually made by an “elite group of parents’-basement dwelling nerds” with a minority being actual professionals in the field of those wiki page topics. On the other hand, vandals are usually uneducated people (or people new to Wikipedia) looking for some low-calibre fun that had the wiki page topic on their minds. Interesting that pages like “puberty“, “neopets” and “guitar hero” are among the most vandalized.

Right now, in terms of quality edits (at 1900 UTC, 2008/02/21), the #1 most edited:

• Within the past hour: List of United States political families
• Within the past six hours: Depeche Mode discography (!)
• Within the past day: February 2008 lunar eclipse
• Within the past week: International reaction to the 2008 Kosovo declaration of independence.
• Within the past month: List of United States political families

Right now, in terms of vandalism (at 1900 UTC, 2008/02/21), the #1 most vandalized:

• Within the past hour: Bengali Language Movement
• Within the past six hours: Bengali Language Movement
• Within the past day: February 2008 lunar eclipse
• Within the past week: Super Smash Bros. Brawl
• Within the past month: LeBron James

One can also look at the trends on the French, Japanese, German and Spanish wikis at Wikirage.com.

And one last thing:

The average Wikipedia editor. (I personally have never enthusiastically edited Wikipedia; by the time I catch an error, someone else has already caught it when I simply hit “refresh”).

If you found that distasteful, lighten up - it’s a brutal world out there.