Editorial Trajectories in Wikipedia Reflect Underlying Hyperlink Structure
Yeonji Seo, Mi Jin Lee, Seung-Woo Son, Hang-Hyun Jo, Yohsuke Murase

TL;DR
This study reveals that Wikipedia's hyperlink structure influences editing sequences, with different editor types exhibiting distinct transition patterns aligned with or diverging from the hyperlink network.
Contribution
It introduces a novel analysis linking Wikipedia's hyperlink network with editing behaviors, identifying distinct editor archetypes based on their topical focus and transition patterns.
Findings
Connected articles have shorter inter-event times in editing sequences.
Editors can be categorized into 'Specialists', 'Generalists', and 'Bots' based on their transition patterns.
Hyperlink structure correlates with editors' topical diversity and transition behaviors.
Abstract
Wikipedia hyperlinks have primarily been studied as navigational tools for readers, but their role in how information providers move between articles during editing remains less explored. Here, we combine the hyperlink network among English Wikipedia articles with editorial histories to examine how article-to-article structure is associated with editors' transitions between articles. We first address the temporal aspect of edit transitions by showing that transitions between hyperlinked article pairs have shorter inter-event times (IETs) than those between non-hyperlinked pairs, indicating that connected articles are effectively closer in editing sequences. We then turn to the structural organization of editing behavior by coarse-graining the hyperlink network into 19 topical communities and measuring editors' topical diversity. Finally, we bring the temporal and structural views…
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