Wikipedia Recent Changes Map
May 12, 2013 3:37 PM   Subscribe

A visualization of Wikipedia edits in real time.

A portion of the edits, anyway. From the about section:
When an unregistered user edits Wikipedia, he or she is identified by his or her IP address. These IP addresses are translated to users' approximate geographic location. Unregistered users only make a fraction of total edits -- only 15% of the contributions to English Wikipedia are from unregistered users. Edits by registered users do not have associated IP information, so the map actually represents only a small portion of the total edit activity on Wikipedia.
posted by codacorolla (13 comments total) 22 users marked this as a favorite
 
This is oddly mesmerizing.
posted by Lizard at 3:43 PM on May 12, 2013 [2 favorites]


Agreed; it's wonderfully captivating. Shame that this is only a small and specific subset of edit activity. Still, very neat.
posted by iamkimiam at 3:46 PM on May 12, 2013 [1 favorite]


I had no idea vandalism of Wikipedia pages was so frequent.
posted by idiopath at 3:57 PM on May 12, 2013 [1 favorite]


I had no idea vandalism of Wikipedia pages was so frequent.

I kept seeing the Website Defacement article pop up.
posted by pmcp at 4:02 PM on May 12, 2013


Here is the less small/less specific subset of activity: wikistream

It's not as much fun as the link in the OP, though, because it's not on a map. I really enjoy the visualization.
posted by capricorn at 4:15 PM on May 12, 2013


idiopath: "I had no idea vandalism of Wikipedia pages was so frequent."

It's not a vandalism map, it's an unregistered user edit map. I occasionally edit Wikipedia, but I'm not big enough into the site to have registered as an editor, so I'm one of these unregistered editors. I suspect there are a lot of folk like me who like Wikipedia, like to improve articles, but don't like all the wikidrama, and therefore don't bother registering.
posted by Bugbread at 4:20 PM on May 12, 2013 [2 favorites]


Bugbread: my point was, I was clicking and reading the edits it was showing, I was surprised by how much of it was vandalism.
posted by idiopath at 5:24 PM on May 12, 2013


Related/similar:
wikipedia live monitor
posted by mulligan at 7:03 PM on May 12, 2013


idiopath: "Bugbread: my point was, I was clicking and reading the edits it was showing, I was surprised by how much of it was vandalism."

Ah, ok, sorry, misunderstood you.
posted by Bugbread at 8:45 PM on May 12, 2013


I had no idea vandalism of Wikipedia pages was so frequent.

In some ways, it's almost more fascinating that in the time it took me to click on one of these, notice the vandalism, and use the (registered user) rollback function, I was already too late -- someone had already fixed it.

This is much better than when I was actually able (technical and time reasons) to edit Wikipedia regularly.
posted by dhartung at 1:16 AM on May 13, 2013


I find this soothing.
posted by homunculus at 1:21 AM on May 13, 2013


Man even at 15% of edits I'm only seeing an edit every 80s; I would have thought it was a lot higher than that though it isn't currently the North American work day so I'll have to check it again tomorrow.
posted by Mitheral at 8:28 PM on May 13, 2013




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