Wiki Reader To Writer Ratio

Someone said that they believed there was a 100:1 reader-to-writer ratio on this Wiki.

Is this correct? Well, it depends on what you're describing. There are several different ratios that we could use, here:

The number of reads to the number of writes. Compare the TopTen list (the reads) to RecentChanges/RecentEdits (the writes). This number is closer to 10:1, if not lower.
The number of sessions that include page writes vs. the number of sessions that do include writes. Difficult to measure without direct access to web logs that include the cookie.
The number of times a written statement is read. Maybe this one is closer to 100:1.

Any thoughts?

I have quoted the ratio 100 to 1 which was measured years ago by counting reads between writes for random samples of the log. Here is a script that will report current ratios ...

http://c2.com/cgi/wikiReadWrite

I attempt to process the 10,000 most recent log entries give or take a few. -- WardCunningham

Interesting script, though you need to count unique UserNames (including IPs/domain names in the case of no UserName) to answer the question posed. Even this would be inaccurate, but it would likely be close enough.

As of July 2002, this script gives a ratio in the neighborhood of 40 to 1, reduced significantly from its previous value. What does this mean? Is it a good sign, or a bad sign? I've learned here more from reading than from writing, so I'm tempted to say it's a bad sign.

Things come and go, it's natural. Perhaps the reduction, if there is one, is a sign that other wiki's are sprouting up. Plant a seed and watch it grow :)

A ratio grossly in the neighborhood of 100:1 was found in other forums such as Usenet as early as the 1980s, and in the percentage of people who merely visited versus became long term participants in social MUDs and BBSs.

Since to some degree this measures relative proportions of personality traits in the population, there is reason to believe that it generalizes well, on top of the empirical evidence that similar ratios appear in different online media.

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