A Simple Model of Knowledge Scaffolding Applied to Wikipedia Growth

Franco Bagnoli () and Guido de Bonfioli Cavalcabo’
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Franco Bagnoli: Department of Physics and Astronomy and CSDC, University of Florence, Via G. Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy
Guido de Bonfioli Cavalcabo’: Department of Physics and Astronomy and CSDC, University of Florence, Via G. Sansone 1, 50019 Sesto Fiorentino, Italy

Future Internet, 2023, vol. 15, issue 2, 1-14

Abstract: We illustrate a simple model of knowledge scaffolding, based on the process of building a corpus of knowledge, each item of which is linked to “previous” ones. The basic idea is that the relationships among the items of corpus can be essentially drawn as an acyclic network, in which topmost contributions are “derived” from items at lower levels. When a new item is added to the corpus, we impose a limit to the maximum unit increase (i.e., “jumps”) of knowledge. We analyzed the time growth of the corpus (number of items) and the maximum knowledge, both showing a power law. Another result was that the number of “holes” in the knowledge corpus always remains limited. Our model can be used as a rough approximation to the asymptotic growth of Wikipedia, and indeed, actual data show a certain resemblance with our model. Assuming that the user base is growing, at beginning, in an exponential way, one can also recover the early phases of Wikipedia growth.

Keywords: Wikipedia; knowledge organization; scaffolding model; knowledge modelling; knowledge visualization; knowledge graph (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O3 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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