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1: Phys Rev E Stat Nonlin Soft Matter Phys. 2006 Jul;74(1 Pt 2):016115. Epub 2006 Jul 24.Click here to read Links

Wikipedias: collaborative web-based encyclopedias as complex networks.

Zlatić V, Bozicević M, Stefancić H, Domazet M.

Theoretical Physics Division, Rudjer Bosković Institute, P.O. Box 180, HR-10002 Zagreb, Croatia.

Wikipedia is a popular web-based encyclopedia edited freely and collaboratively by its users. In this paper we present an analysis of Wikipedias in several languages as complex networks. The hyperlinks pointing from one Wikipedia article to another are treated as directed links while the articles represent the nodes of the network. We show that many network characteristics are common to different language versions of Wikipedia, such as their degree distributions, growth, topology, reciprocity, clustering, assortativity, path lengths, and triad significance profiles. These regularities, found in the ensemble of Wikipedias in different languages and of different sizes, point to the existence of a unique growth process. We also compare Wikipedias to other previously studied networks.

PMID: 16907159 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

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