Summary

The analysis looked at how topic diversity in article creation has evolved across Wikipedias from 2016 to 2024, focusing on patterns related to device usage, Content Translation (CX), user experience, wiki size, and region. The analysis also includes the use of mobile devices and the Content Translation tool across various dimensions. While this is not directly related to the main topic, given the context of the task, these insights have been addded to aid planning of any potential interventions.

Mobile usage for article creation varied widely by region. South Asia, South-eastern Asia, and Northern Africa showed the highest levels, with a mobile device being used to create between 20—26% of articles. In Central Asia, mobile usage remained under 1% until 2021, but rose to around 16% in the following years. In other sub-continents, mobile usage stayed relatively low — typically between 1% and 5%. Across emerging classification, mobile usage was relatively low in developed regions, as compared to emerging and least developed.

The use of the Content Translation (CX) tool grew steadily over the observed period, increasing from about 6.5% of articles in 2016–2018 to 15% in 2022–2024. In Middle Africa, CX adoption increased to 49% in 2022–2024, while in South Asia and Northern Africa the adoption increased to 45% and 17% respectively. By comparative rank (based on articles created), CX adoption was strongest among mid-sized Wikipedias: those ranked 21–50 saw usage grow to 23%, while 51–100 ranked wikis reached 31% during the recent years. Interestingly, the usage of CX for article creation is lowest among wikis ranked above 100, which are smallest of the group. Usage of CX has been highest among emerging countries, as compared to developed and least developed.

Biographies and articles related to a Geography are most created across all periods, followed STEM, Culture, and History & Society. Overall, there are no significant differences in the topic diversity of articles created with or without using CX. The only notable difference is that articles created using CX are slightly more likely to be biographies, with a difference of approximately 3–5 percentage points compared to those created without CX. Across all the Wikipedias analyzed, users tend to shift away from creating biographies toward topics associated with geographic regions as their editing experience increases (by edit count).

Across most regions, article creation from 2016 to 2021 was concentrated around biographies or topics associated with geographic regions, with shifts during 2022–2024. In most cases, Wikipedias focused on articles related to their own associated regions—for example, South Asian Wikipedias created more content about South Asia, although there are a few exceptions.

• Among wikis from the Caribbean, article creation was focused on biographies from 2016 to 2021, shifting toward culture-related topics during 2022–2024. Overall, there are fewer articles on STEM and History & Society topics, or those associated with geographic regions.
• In Central America, article creation from 2016 to 2021 focused on topics associated with geographic regions. During 2022–2024, the distribution became more diverse, with increased representation of STEM and biographies.
• In Central Asia, across all time periods, a larger share of articles were associated with geographic regions compared to other topics. It is worth noting that overall article creation in these wikis was relatively low.
• In Eastern Africa, article creation from 2016 to 2021 focused primarily on topics associated with geographic regions, with a slight shift toward biographies during 2022–2024.
• In Eastern Asia, most articles created were biographies or topics associated with geographic regions, with nearly equal representation. These were followed by STEM and culture-related topics. There haven’t been significant changes over time. Northern, Southern, and Eastern Europe also had similar patterns.
• In Middle Africa, biographies were the dominant topic category during 2022–2024. There was minimal representation of History & Society topics, or topics associated with geographic regions.
• In Northern Africa, article creation activity focused on topics associated with geographic regions until 2021. During 2022–2024, the distribution became more diverse, with increased representation of History & Society topics.
• In South America, article creation from 2016 to 2021 centered on biographies and topics associated with geographic regions. In 2022–2024, activity became more diverse, with increased representation of STEM and culture-related topics.
• In South-eastern Asia, article creation consistently focused on topics associated with geographic regions, followed by biographies and culture-related topics across all time periods.
• In Southern Africa, articles created during 2016–2018 were distributed across biographies, STEM, and topics associated with geographic regions. During 2019–2021, article creation became more concentrated on region-associated topics, followed by a shift to STEM during 2022–2024.
• In Southern Asia, article creation throughout the observed periods was largely concentrated on topics associated with geographic regions, followed by biographies and STEM. Western Asia and Western Africa had similar trends.

Excluding top-level catch-all categories (e.g., Biography, STEM), as well as region labels, the most frequently occurring sub-topics in the top 10 include: Media, Sports, Biology, Philosophy & religion, and Films.

The full report is available at this link.

Google Spreadsheet to explore the data by wiki: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1WceaMG8NEIwp6nXOsaZ1CKg2OERFTPtU-IdkCxQQgFc/edit?usp=sharing

Thanks for this very interesting study!

I can read “Northern America is primarily associated with the English Wikipedia. Since English Wikipedia is not included in the analysis, this subcontinent has also been excluded.”, but I could neither find this exclusion in your prompts nor texts or graphs. Where can I find a complete list of included/excluded wikis for this study? — I also noticed, that graphs were created for the European subcontinents but not mentioned in the summaries. What that?

Thanks in advance. :)