Preferential attachment in the growth of social networks: the case of Wikipedia
<|reference_start|>Preferential attachment in the growth of social networks: the case of Wikipedia: We present an analysis of the statistical properties and growth of the free on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia. By describing topics by vertices and hyperlinks between them as edges, we can represent this encyclopedia as a directed graph. The topological properties of this graph are in close analogy with that of the World Wide Web, despite the very different growth mechanism. In particular we measure a scale--invariant distribution of the in-- and out-- degree and we are able to reproduce these features by means of a simple statistical model. As a major consequence, Wikipedia growth can be described by local rules such as the preferential attachment mechanism, though users can act globally on the network.<|reference_end|>
@article{capocci2006preferential,
    title={Preferential attachment in the growth of social networks: the case of
  Wikipedia},
    author={A. Capocci, V.D.P. Servedio, F. Colaiori, L.S. Buriol, D. Donato, S.
  Leonardi and G. Caldarelli},
    journal={arXiv preprint arXiv:physics/0602026},
    year={2006},
    doi={10.1103/PhysRevE.74.036116},
    archivePrefix={arXiv},
    eprint={physics/0602026},
    primaryClass={physics.soc-ph cs.OH}
}