An issue arose on meta recently, which suggested there was little value in having a historical public record of news stories because people will not access them. The implication was that older English (and other project) Wikinews content would not be accessed for use by others seeking information. Ignoring for the moment that English Wikipedia relies rather heavily on historical news reports both for information and establishing notability, this idea needs a bit of debunking since it is not true.
Article traffic is dependent on a number of factors. For English Wikipedia, this includes the geographic topic (with preference given for North American, Australian, European and Asian content), a general topic focus and other variables. Date of creation alone does not explain traffic patterns.
That said, a quick and dirty analysis involving 50 English Wikinews articles. They included recent English Wikinews featured articles, articles listed as popular now, articles from wacky news, articles from the Real Madrid category, articles from the obituaries category and a few random articles. Included in this sample were 1 article from 2005, 1 article from 2006, 4 articles from 2007, 3 articles from 2008, 4 articles from 2009, 6 articles from 2010, 6 articles from 2011, 9 articles from 2012 and 16 articles from 2013. The English Wikinews rank for these articles was found for the period between July 1 and July 28, 2013.
Bearing in mind that English Wikinews has nearly 20,000 total articles and an even larger number of non-article pages which are counted in the ranks, the ranking for English Wikinews appears to go to around 10,000 most popular articles. In the sample, 4 articles from 2013 were unranked, and one article from 2007 and 2008 were unranked. For the purpose of analysis, these have all been ranked 10,001.
Based on average, the most popular year for articles are in the following order: 2005, 2006, 2012, 2009, 2010, 2013, 2011, 2007 and 2008. This order changes a fair bit when median is used instead: 2013, 2005, 2006, 2012, 2007, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2008. The difference in ranking for average and median supports the conclusion that article age is not a particularly relevant variable when assessing the relative article popularity on English Wikinews.
Any conclusion that English Wikinews traffic validates a conclusion that a historical archive of open access news sources is not valuable needs to bring their own data to the table. A simple, quick and dirty data anlaysis proves this is not true. Further, a more extensive data analysis would likely show what variables are more likely to be predictors of current traffic patterns to older articles.
- Raw data
Average and median table
| Year |
Average |
Median
|
| 2013 |
2786.9 |
210.5
|
| 2005 |
327 |
327
|
| 2006 |
641 |
641
|
| 2012 |
985.4 |
986
|
| 2007 |
3143.7 |
1276
|
| 2009 |
1927 |
1965
|
| 2010 |
2024.6 |
1967.5
|
Article table
| Date published |
Article |
Rank (July 1 - July 28)
|
| 2-Sep-05 |
Broadband users kicked off service for constant questioning |
327
|
| 22-Feb-06 |
Arsenal beat Real Madrid 1-0 |
641
|
| 5-Nov-07 |
Satanism: An interview with Church of Satan High Priest Peter Gilmore |
22
|
| 10-Dec-07 |
Hugo Chávez sets new time zone for Venezuela |
1026
|
| 5-Oct-07 |
2007 Ig Nobel Prize winners announced |
1526
|
| 13-Apr-07 |
Football: Cristiano Ronaldo extends stay at United |
10,001
|
| 10-Dec-08 |
Football: Ronaldo to play for Corinthians |
3466
|
| 2-Jul-08 |
Suspect in eight murders arrested in Illinois, United States |
3600
|
| 4-Jun-08 |
Fußball-Bundesliga 2008–09: Goalkeeper Butt signs with Bayern Munich |
10,001
|
| 20-Mar-09 |
Pink elephant spotted in Botswana |
1655
|
| 11-Jan-09 |
Too Grimm? Mother Goose cartoonist sued by Colombian coffee growers |
1845
|
| 10-Dec-09 |
2009–10 UEFA Champions League: Round of 16 field set |
2085
|
| 5-Aug-09 |
Brazilian environmentalists tell residents to urinate in shower to save water |
2123
|
| 7-Oct-10 |
Charlie the smoking chimpanzee dies aged 52 |
944
|
| 24-Nov-10 |
Guyanese shadow finance minister Winston Murray dies aged 69 |
1083
|
| 27-May-10 |
Art Linkletter, creator of "Kids Say the Darndest Things", dies peacefully at 97 |
1830
|
| 6-May-10 |
Nigerian President Umaru Yar'Adua reported dead |
2105
|
| 29-Nov-10 |
Canadian-born actor Leslie Nielsen dies aged 84 |
2118
|
| 13-May-10 |
Canadian track and field coach Charlie Francis dies at age 61 |
4068
|
| 24-Dec-11 |
Colombian crime gang boss, hundreds of members surrender |
846
|
| 22-Feb-11 |
Egyptian man names daughter 'Facebook' |
856
|
| 10-Oct-11 |
Indian ghazal singer Jagjit Singh dies aged 70 |
2164
|
| 14-Feb-11 |
Canadian rapper Bad News Brown murdered in Montreal |
2275
|
| 27-Jun-11 |
Funeral held for former Zambian President Frederick Chiluba |
3462
|
| 21-Aug-11 |
La Liga fixtures face delay due to players' strike |
8144
|
| 4-Dec-12 |
Australian Paralympian Janet Shaw dies aged 46 |
371
|
| 14-Oct-12 |
Actor and television host Gary Collins dies aged 74 |
567
|
| 24-Oct-12 |
Former U.S. presidential candidate and Senator George McGovern dies aged 90 |
638
|
| 1-Oct-12 |
Iranian news agency apologises for reproducing The Onion article |
732
|
| 17-Jun-12 |
Wikinews interviews 17-year-old author of 'LEGO Heavy Weapons' |
986
|
| 28-Sep-12 |
Singer Andy Williams dies at 84 |
1045
|
| 10-Sep-12 |
Pakistani footballer Abdul Ghafoor dies aged 71 |
1082
|
| 2-Nov-12 |
UK's Greater Manchester Police charge man with drug possession after trick-or-treating children allegedly given cocaine |
1619
|
| 2-Oct-12 |
Arthur Ochs Sulzberger, former publisher of The New York Times, dies aged 86 |
1829
|
| 8-Apr-13 |
Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher dies aged 87 |
6
|
| 4-Apr-13 |
North Korea's rising tensions: Wikinews interviews Scott Snyder and Dr Robert Kelly |
16
|
| 3-Apr-13 |
Sea lion walks from beach into Pantai Inn in California |
25
|
| 31-Mar-13 |
Thousands take to streets protesting 'ratbag's Bedroom Tax |
43
|
| 12-Apr-13 |
Goat head delivered to Chicago Cubs owner Tom Ricketts |
49
|
| 19-Jan-13 |
Wikinews interviews Spain's most decorated Paralympian, Teresa Perales |
192
|
| 24-Jan-13 |
Wikinews interviews Aurélien Miralles about Sirenoscincus mobydick species discovery |
194
|
| 7-Feb-13 |
Same-sex marriage in the UK passes second reading in Commons |
208
|
| 19-Mar-13 |
IOC visits Madrid as part of 2020 Olympic bid process |
213
|
| 26-Feb-13 |
Wikinews interviews Irene Villa |
313
|
| 10-Feb-13 |
Real Madrid defeats Sevilla 4-1 in La Liga play |
1394
|
| 12-Jan-13 |
Real Madrid defeats Celta Vigo 4-0 in Copa del Rey octofinals |
1934
|
| 12-May-13 |
Haitian cholera victims threaten United Nations with lawsuit |
10,001
|
| 14-May-13 |
National Rugby League Women in League Round celebrates sons |
10,001
|
| 9-May-13 |
Lord Falconer proposes bill to legalise assisted dying for terminal ill in UK |
10,001
|
| 2-May-13 |
First successful womb transplant recipient passes six-week pregnancy mark |
10,001
|
