> Wikipedia reveals Top 10 most contentious people

Full Version: Wikipedia reveals Top 10 most contentious people

thekohser

Another brilliant data analysis exercise thanks to Kohs and MZMcBride, this goes to show that the whole Prem Rawat controversy on Wikipedia is way out of proportion to what regular people actually care about.

EricBarbour

QUOTE

Barack Obama (37,532 edits to Talk page)
Sarah Palin (27,932 edits)
George W. Bush (22,070 edits)
Prem Rawat (18,575 edits)
Ann Coulter (7,832 edits)
Glenn Beck (6,964 edits)
Queen Elizabeth II (6,530 edits)
Miley Cyrus (6,446 edits)
Stephen Barrett (6,406 edits)
Jimmy Wales (6,215 edits)

I dunno--he's an obscure religious figure to the vast majority of Americans and Europeans,
and yet he generates three times as much editwarring as Glenn Beck, and almost as much as Dubya.
That's quite an "achievement".

Somey

I like that "heat-to-light ratio" statistic - that might make for an interesting follow-up. Though I suspect most of the high scorers will be Israel-Palestine-related, or possibly Ireland- or Scientology-related, as opposed to more generally known celebrities...

What might also be interesting (and maybe even more useful as a quotable stat), though it's completely non-feasible, would be a statistic that measures number of talk-page bytes-added against number of related bytes changed (or added, or removed) in the article itself. I guess you could semi-automate it if you removed the "related" requirement, but we're constantly seeing these endless arguments over just one or two words in the related article, which has always struck me as a tragic waste of peoples' valuable time.

Casliber

Many of them I can understand - conservatives and controversial ones at that, and women, but Miley Cyrus is interesting....

thekohser

QUOTE(Somey @ Tue 12th July 2011, 2:40am)

Somey, I just browsed through the top 76 articles for the "heat-to-light ratio", since that's how many have had more talk page edits (ever) than June 2011 page views.

The only names that I recognized from my own personal awareness were:

9. William Connolley
10. Prem Rawat
12. Rosalind Picard
15. Matt Sanchez
28. Gary Weiss
34. Chip Berlet

And, clearly the only reason I'm familiar with even those names is because I read Wikipedia Review.

I suppose because this ratio is defined in part by a "low" article page-view count, it stands to reason that most of the top ratios will be relatively unknown people. In fact, as I plowed down the list, the first person to break 3,000 June 2011 page views was:

295. Joe the Plumber

And later...

311. Juan Cole
312. Ward Churchill
536. Michael E. Mann
552. Richard Lindzen
635. Steven E. Jones
674. Lyndon LaRouche

I should note here that I set as parameters for the article search that there were more than 30 June 2011 page views of the article, and that there have ever been at least 10 Talk page comments.

thekohser

QUOTE(Casliber @ Tue 12th July 2011, 7:26am)

Many of them I can understand - conservatives and controversial ones at that, and women, but Miley Cyrus is interesting....

I was even more surprised by Queen Elizabeth II. I mean, what has she done to be so controversial?

Anyway, if you look at the Wikipedia Talk Archive Index for Miley Cyrus, here were some of the hottest debates, over time:

QUOTE

Another piece of Controversy 9 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 8
Boyfriend 9 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 3
Boyfriend 9 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 4
Controversy 9 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 10
Hypoglycaemia? 9 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 9
mileycyrus.com is not a reliable source. 9 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 3
Signature 9 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 16
Chris Brown saying Miley Cyrus is ugly 8 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 10
Chris Brown saying Miley Cyrus is ugly 8 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 11
Grade Level? 8 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 4
Jonas Love 8 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 8
Merging Miley & Mandy 8 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 6
Miley's Birth Mother 8 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 3
Weight 8 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 4
Ancestry 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 16
Another piece of Controversy 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 7
Bad article 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 7
Body double 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 10
Death Hoax again 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 10
Death Hoax again 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 9
Lap Dance? 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 16
Miley Ray Cyrus vs. Destiny Hope Cyrus 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 6
MileyWorld 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 3
New Album 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 7
New Pictures 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 15
personal life 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 15
Radiohead 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 10
REAL Controversy 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 17
Rivarly 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 3
Tattoo 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 14
x rated pictures hoax 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 10
x rated pictures hoax 7 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 11
Archives 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 11
Basic Grammar 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 5
Body-Double controversy... 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 5
Body double 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 9
Controversy: the ticket lawsuit 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 6
Controversy: the ticket lawsuit 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 7
Controversy 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 9
Controversy Section 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 8
Forgetting lyrics 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 10
International Tour? 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 4
is it me or.....? 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 16
is justin gaston a notable rumor? 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 9
List-Defined Referencing system 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 16
Miley Cyrus pole dance, comparison to Britney Spears 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 14
Near-Death? 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 5
New Album 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 6
Nose Piercing & Twitter account link 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 10
Nose Piercing & Twitter account link 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 11
Official MySpace 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 6
Official MySpace 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 7
Picture 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 16
Picture 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 5
Pictures allegedly from Cyrus' camera phone 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 7
Place of birth 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 7
PLEASE 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 15
Recent issues with her dad 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 17
Salvia incident 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 17
Vegetarian (Part 2) 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 5
Views on same-sex marriage (homosexuality generally) 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 14
YouTube 6 Talk:Miley Cyrus/Archive 6

thekohser

A few admirers of my mainstream media journalism have asked for the Top 10 list to be expanded to the Top 100. So shall it be done!

Alison

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 12th July 2011, 6:32am)

A few admirers of my mainstream media journalism have asked for the Top 10 list to be expanded to the Top 100. So shall it be done!

+1 Interesting

Detective

Could it be that some of the most controversial people no longer have articles about them because they've been deleted? Daniel Brandt is an obvious example. Is there any way a friendly admin can get data on articles like those?

thekohser

QUOTE(Alison @ Wed 13th July 2011, 12:55am)

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 12th July 2011, 6:32am)

A few admirers of my mainstream media journalism have asked for the Top 10 list to be expanded to the Top 100. So shall it be done!

+1 Interesting

The most interesting part to me is the fact that I can't even link to Examiner on my own Wikipedia Review site, thanks to the Mediawiki blacklist on that domain! (I have a developer looking into how I modify the blacklist locally, but any guidance from the peanut gallery is welcome.)

carbuncle

QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 13th July 2011, 12:56pm)

QUOTE(Alison @ Wed 13th July 2011, 12:55am)

QUOTE(thekohser @ Tue 12th July 2011, 6:32am)

A few admirers of my mainstream media journalism have asked for the Top 10 list to be expanded to the Top 100. So shall it be done!

+1 Interesting

Sounds like you just need a whitelist. See the readme file for the extension, starting on line 135.

thekohser

QUOTE(carbuncle @ Wed 13th July 2011, 9:25am)

Sounds like you just need a whitelist. See the readme file for the extension, starting on line 135.

Looks promising. Thank you!

carbuncle

QUOTE(thekohser @ Wed 13th July 2011, 2:24pm)

QUOTE(carbuncle @ Wed 13th July 2011, 9:25am)

Sounds like you just need a whitelist. See the readme file for the extension, starting on line 135.

Looks promising. Thank you!

You're welcome, but it's really Google that deserves the thanks, not me.

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