WikiFactor

= metric for the reach of Wiki's

Description

In his paper, Carl McBride introduces the wF as follows:

The Hirsch h-index is defined as the number of papers, h, that have ≥ h citations. This simple metric has proved to be highly popular. For example, it is now included as one of the functions in the ISI Web of Science.

WIKIFACTOR

The new metric proposed in this paper is that of the wikiFactor (wF). It is based on precisely the same style of measure as the h-index, but with two differences; the first is that it examines hits on web pages rather than citations of a publication, and secondly, there is a factor of a thousand. In other words the wikiFactor is defined as the number of pages that have had ≥ 1000wF hits.

The wikiFactor of a wiki is the unique number wF such that there are wF pages on the wiki with at least 1000 * wF views.

This is easy enough to calculate, even manually if you have a list of the pages sorted by the number of views. Then, you only have to look at the n-th page in the list with less then n * 1000 views. Then, wF = n-1.

The more important the wiki, the easier the calculation. Take a look at this example:

# title views 1 Main Page 27,741 ≥ 1,000 2 User talk:Philip J. Rayment 17,889 ≥ 2,000 3 User talk:Ruylopez 16,995 ≥ 3,000 4 Talk:Evidence for God's existence 5,340 ≥ 4,000 5 Talk:Evolution 4,743 < 5,000 6 Evolution 4,484 < 6,000 7 MediaWiki:Common.css 3,967 < 7,000

So, wFaSK = 4. That fits the definition: though there are four pages with more than 4,000 views, there aren't five pages with more than 5,000 views, thus, the biggest number wF such that there are wF pages with at least wF * 1000 views is 4.

More Information

• P2P Metrics

External links

• http://wikiindex.org/WikiFactor
• http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/WikiFactor