# “What determines the size of the population of Wikipedians?”

Michael Stone, July 4, 2012, , (src)

Let $n$ be Wikipedia’s age in days. Yesterday, $W(n-1)$ people edited Wikipedia. Today, $W(n)$ people are editing Wikipedia. Tomorrow, $W(n+1)$ shall edit. What determines $W(n)$? How are $W(n+30)$ and $W(n+365)$ related to $W(n)$?

Members of the Wikimedia community have been thinking for nearly a decade about questions like these. For example, a quick search for “wikipedia more editors” yielded these historical references:

Unfortunately, despite the long-standing interest that these questions have engendered, answers that are both convincing and comprehensive remain few and far between.

In the following series of posts, I will suggest several ways that I have been learning to think about systems of questions like these. Some specific perspectives that I hope to touch on include:

• social psychology
• graphic & interaction design
• dynamical systems
• organizational theory

and perhaps others as I discover them. :-)