What's on Wikipedia and What's Not

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Whatâ s on Wikipedia, and Whatâ s Notâ ¦?Completeness of Information on the Online Collaborative Encyclopedia

Journal: Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

Manuscript ID: JCMC-07-186

Manuscript Type: Full-length Research Article

Keywords:Wikis, Social Network Analysis, Information Richness, OnlineCommunities

International Communication Association

Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication



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What’s on Wikipedia and What’s Not…?

Completeness of Information on the Online Collaborative Encyclopedia

Abstract

The World Wide Web continues to grow closer to achieving the vision of becoming the

repository of all human knowledge. While improved search engines such as Google facilitate

access of knowledge across the Web, some sites have increased in popularity and have attracted

the attention of more Web users than others. Wikipedia is one such site that is becoming an

important resource for news and information. It is an online information source that is

increasingly used as the first, and sometimes only, stop for online encyclopedic information.

Much discussion has dealt with the accuracy of information on Wikipedia. While

accuracy is important, that is not what this project is measuring. Using a method employed by

Tankard and Royal (2005) to judge completeness of Web content, completeness of information

on Wikipedia is assessed. What we found was that some topics were covered more

comprehensively than others and that predictors of these biases included recency, importance,

population, and financial wealth.

Keywords: Wikipedia, wiki, social network, completeness of information, open source, online

community

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What’s on Wikipedia, and What’s Not…?

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Introduction

The World Wide Web continues to grow closer to achieving the vision of becoming the

repository of all human knowledge (Heylighten, 1995). While improved search engines such as

Google facilitate access of knowledge across the Web, some sites have increased in popularity

and have attracted the attention of more Web users than others. Wikipedia is one such site. It is

an online information source that is increasingly used as the first, and sometimes only, stop for

online encyclopedic information.

Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), deemed “the free encyclopedia,” was launched on the

Web in 2001. (Wikipedia:About, 2007)) It was started by Jimmy Wales, formerly a futures

trader in Chicago, as an open information source, allowing anyone with access to the Internet to

post or edit content on the site. Wikipedia uses the wiki software format, which is a

collaborative development environment. Established as a non-profit organization, Wikipedia

currently receives over 38 million unique visitors per month and is ranked #13 on ComScore

Media Metrix Top 50 Web Properties (Holiday Fever…, 2007). This open source project

operates under the assumption that more writers and editors are better than fewer, and that the

community will develop and monitor content in a manner that is improved over that of

traditional information publishing.

The open source concept has its roots in software development. One of its most notable

projects is the operating system Linux, which operates under the conditions of allowing and

encouraging multiple developers. Raymond (1997) compared this style of development using the

metaphor of bazaar and cathedral. “No quiet, reverent cathedral-building here - rather, the Linux

community seemed to resemble a great babbling bazaar of differing agendas and approaches

(aptly symbolized by the Linux archive sites, who'd take submissions from anyone) out of which

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a coherent and stable system could seemingly emerge only by a succession of miracles.” Open

source is contrasted with propriety development environments in which only those with proper

license and authority can modify and implement source code. Benefits of this approach are the

inclusion of many and varied voices and agendas, the speed to which development can occur,

and policing of the environment by the community itself as opposed to regulatory or governing

bodies.

Wikipedia is now the Web's third most popular news and information source, with more

unique visitors than Yahoo News, MSNBC, AOL News, and CNN (Half of All U.S. Internet

Users…, 2006). Wikipedia's English-language version doubled in size last year and now has over

1 million articles. By this measure, it is almost 12 times larger than the print version of the

Encyclopaedia Britannica. It has over 100,000 contributors writing in 200 languages (The Wiki

Principle, 2006).

Wikipedia has become a popular site frequented by students, scholars, business people,

family members, and government officials for finding information on a variety of topics. But,

due to the open nature of contributions, much attention has been given to the level of accuracy of

information on Wikipedia. Many feel that Wikipedia’s policy of letting anyone create and edit

content causes the information to be inaccurate, misleading, or generally incorrect, both

purposefully and accidentally. Instances have occurred in which rumors and falsities have been

planted on Wikipedia articles. For example, a Wikipedia entry was created that falsely

implicated John Siegenthaler, Sr. in the Robert Kennedy assassination (Giles, 2005; Udell, 2004;

Johnson, 2006). While the error was eventually corrected, it was not done so before being picked

up by other information resources and seen by untold numbers of users. Still, the philosophy of

the site is that with so many people looking at the content, in the long run, accuracy will prevail.

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Biases in editing content have been revealed on Wikipedia. A system was developed by

a Cal Tech graduate student to trace the IP addresses of edits done by self-interested parties

(Borland, 2007). These edits often entailed removal of negative information and addition of

positive or public relations material, thus bringing into question the objectivity and democratic

potential of the Wikipedia model.

Wikipedia has sought to counter some of the criticisms by instituting measures designed

to reduce the number of attacks on the credibility of information on the site. Volunteer

administrators monitor content on the site, and can now block users from editing content on

specific articles. Some articles are temporarily protected from editing, until the climate for the

attack has died down. Others, like the article on George W. Bush, are semi-protected and open

to editing only by people who had been registered on the site for at least four days. (Hafner,

2006). But according to Wales, Wikipedia's founder, this type of protection affects a tiny

fraction of the 1.2 million entries on the English-language site. ''Protection is a tool for quality

control, but it hardly defines Wikipedia,'' Mr. Wales said. ''What does define Wikipedia is the

volunteer community and the open participation.'' (Hafner, 2006)

Some studies have actually refuted Wikipedia’s position as a reliable information source.

In a recent study comparing the accuracy of science entries, Nature reported that Wikipedia’s

level of accuracy is close to that of Encyclopedia Britannica (Giles, 2005). The scientific journal

reported that, within 42 randomly selected general science articles, there were 162 mistakes in

Wikipedia versus 123 for Britannica, with the errors in Britannica being oriented towards

omissions rather than factual errors.

There is an indication that even librarians are finding value in the usage of Wikipedia

(Miller, et al., 2006). Attention to popular culture items and usage of links, objective presentation

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particularly those that have become population information destinations. Wikipedia is a likely

candidate for analysis in that its goal is to provide information created and accessible by all with

an Internet connection, much like the Web itself.

Review of Literature

While there have been many articles questioning Wikipedia’s accuracy, few

communication studies have focused on Wikipedia. Lih (2004) studied news articles citing

Wikipedia and analyzed the trends in using Wikipedia as a source.

Denning, et al. (2005) listed several risks inherent in the Wikipedia model: accuracy,

motives, uncertain expertise, volatility, coverage, and sources. Of coverage, the authors said,

Voluntary contributions largely represent the interests and knowledge of a self-selected

set of contributors. They are not part of a careful plan to organize human knowledge.

Topics that interest the young and Internet-savvy are well covered, while events that happened “before the Web” may be covered inadequately or inaccurately, if at all. More

is written about current news than about historical knowledge.

Other studies have looked at Wikipedia’s strength as a reference source. Bill Katz

developed six fundamental evaluation criteria for reference work: purpose, authority, scope,

audience, cost, and format (Wallace and Van Fleet, 2005). Wikipedia did not perform well on

the brief analysis performed by Wallace and Van Fleet on these criteria. Value, however, was

identified in the democratic and timely circumstances under which articles are created and

revised. According to Bopp and Smith (2001), coverage in an encyclopedia reference source

“should be even across all subjects,” although “it is important to note that some subjects, by their

very nature, demand greater emphasis.” While Wikipedia boasts over 1 million articles, Wallace

and Van Fleet expressed that volume of articles alone is not a useful indicator of scope.

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Like the Tankard and Royal study, this project challenges the notion that the Web may be

the repository of all human knowledge by assessing the coverage on one of its most popular

information destinations, Wikipedia. By making systematic measurements of the amount of

information on Wikipedia using the same dimensions, we attempt to identify factors that predict

Wikipedia’s completeness.

Borrowing methods from the Tankard and Royal study, this project measures the content

of Wikipedia against various indexes or standards of completeness to identify and uncover

potential inherent biases. Communication research provided direction in identifying predictor

variables. Journalism scholars have often included completeness as one of the basic concepts of

journalism. McQuail stated that completeness “is usually thought to be a precondition of proper

understanding of news, and the media generally promise completeness in the sense of a full

range of information about significant events of the day” (McQuail, 1992, p. 211).

In an early study of the completeness of newspaper coverage, Danielson and Adams

(1961) examined coverage of the 1960 presidential election campaign. They developed a list of

1,033 campaign events and then drew a random sample of 42 events to be used as a checklist

against which articles were judged.

Tankard and Showalter (1977), in their study of coverage of the 1972 Surgeon General’s

report on television violence, constructed an index of completeness by checking for presence or

absence of “three elements that were judged necessary for full reader understanding.” While the

present study does not focus on individual news stories, it borrows the technique of using a list of

facts or concepts as an effective means of measuring completeness.

Research on news flow has identified a number of factors that influence the presence or

absence of information. A related research approach—theoretical influences on mass media

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content—has identified five major categories of influence on news content: the individual

journalist, media routines, the journalistic organization, extramedia sources, and ideology

(Shoemaker & Reese, 1995).

Current information is the bedrock of journalistic reporting (Berkowitz, 1990; McMillin,

1996; Curtin & Rhodenbaugh, 1999). With regard to the Web, currency comes into play in

another sense. Shoemaker & Reese (1995) identified the individual as a news influencer. Web

users and content creators tend to be young, with strong ties to current popular culture. The

contributors to Wikipedia are likely to mirror the demographics of the Web at large. This factor

would tend to weight the content of the Web, and ostensibly Wikipedia, toward material that

these individuals would be interested in—material of greater currency or recency.

Galtung & Ruge (1965), identified signal strength, or amplitude as another significant

factor influencing the flow of news. This factor might also be thought of as the importance of

information. When considering the probability of information being on Wikipedia, importance of

the information is likely to be a useful predictor, with the more important items having the most

attention paid to them.

Kariel and Rosenvall (1984) identified country population as an important predictor of

international news flow. Countries with larger populations have more individuals to become the

focus of news coverage, hold greater political influence, and have more people who could

potentially create and contribute to online content.

Shoemaker and Reese (1995, p. 190) suggested that capitalist-owned media content tends

to favor those with economic power. In addition, corporations that are larger have more market

impact, have larger budgets for advertising and public relations, and have influence on more

people.

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Research Questions

Borrowing from the Tankard and Royal study of completeness of information on the

Web, the following research questions were developed as they related to Wikipedia:

1. Are there some systematic gaps or biases in the overall presentation of information

made available on Wikipedia?

2. Is recency (or currency) a predictor of amount of information on Wikipedia?

3. Is importance of information a predictor of amount of information on Wikipedia?

4. Is population a predictor of amount of information about particular countries on

Wikipedia?

5. Is economic power a predictor of amount of information about individual corporations

on Wikipedia?

Method

Using the same predictors as Tankard and Royal, recency, importance, country

population, and economic power, several systematic searches on Wikipedia were conducted.

Lists were developed within each of the dimensions, the contents of which are described in the

results section. Each term on the lists was searched using the Wikipedia search feature. A

determination was made as to the main page of content for that term. In some cases, such as the

countries of the United Nations, the list of countries on the United Nations page was used to find

the main article on a particular country. Each page was visited and the relevant content was

highlighted. Wikipedia navigation and other superfluous links that were not related to the actual

term being searched were not included in the selection. To capture the word count of items

selected on a page, an extension of the Firefox Web browser, Word Count, was downloaded

(http://roachfiend.com/archives/2005/03/03/word-count/). This extension counted the number of

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words in the selection by simply using the Ctrl key on the computer’s keyboard. Word counts

were captured in a spreadsheet for each dimension. Items were plotted on charts, first in

ascending order, then by predictor variable. Items within dimensions were then compared and

correlated with predictor variables. When possible, the same search terms that were used in the

Tankard & Royal study were employed here.

All statistical analyses were conducted with Spearman (rank order) correlation

coefficients because parametric statistics (such as the Pearson correlation coefficient) are

inappropriate for L-shaped distributions (Bradley, 1982), which occurred with most of our data.

The correlations represent relative, as opposed to absolute, relationships.

Results

Several variables were used to test the currency dimension. First, using the same method

as Tankard and Royal, years were assessed. Wikipedia conveniently provided an article

depicting the highlights of each year. Figure 1a depicts the word count of each article in

ascending order, disregarding year. A backward L-shaped curve is evident. Figure 1b depicts

the word count by year in chronological order, starting with 1900 and going through 2010.

There is a clear progression of the length of each article with a dramatic increase occurring

starting in 2001. Years in the future, understandably, were shorter, given that there was not yet

much to write about them. The average word count for the years since 2001 was 90% greater

than the average for the entire preceding 100 years (4566 vs. 8692).

The chart in Figure 8 depicts correlations of dimensions variable with predictor variables.

The Spearman correlation for Years was .79, indicating a very strong relationship of article word

count to the recency of information.

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Figure 1a

Years - Ascending Order

Figure 1b

Years – Chronological Order

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Figure 2a shows the word count for articles on Wikipedia for the Academy Award

winning films in ascending order (Appendix A lists the films by year). This list was not searched

in the Tankard & Royal study, as it was difficult for them to identify only Web sites associated

with films with common names, such as Wings or Rebecca. However, this was made easier on

Wikipedia, with each film having a specific article associated with it. Another backward L-

shaped distribution is displayed. With few exceptions, such as Gone with the Wind (1939) and

Casablanca (1943) the analysis in Figure 2b plotted by year (1928-2005) shows a progression

favoring more current films. This demonstrates that while recency is an important predictor,

some films transcend time and are deemed important for other reasons, and thus have a strong

share of coverage on Wikipedia. The average word count for the films since 2001 was 80%

higher than the average word count for the time prior to 2000 (3190 vs. 1771). These last five

years accounted for 11% of the total word count for the 78 years of the award. The Spearman

correlation for films over years was .49 (see Figure 8), but that increased to .62 simply by

removing the two outliers mentioned above. This indicates a strong relationship between word

count and time for films.

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Figure 2a

Films - Ascending Order

Figure 2b

Films – By Year

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Figures 3a and 3b show another test of recency not performed in the Tankard & Royal

study by looking at Time Magazine’s Person of the Year (Appendix B lists the people by year).

Some years that did not include an individual were discarded (for example, in 2002, “The

Whistleblowers”). Figure 3a shows a backward L-shaped distribution when disregarding time,

although not as steep as some of the others experienced in this analysis. The progression appears

evenly distributed, only slightly skewed to the upper half of the distribution (the median was

93% of the average). But, Figure 3b shows a more random pattern than those experienced with

Year and Film. The Spearman correlation (see Figure 8) for recency was close to 0, thus

indicating no relationship with time. This indicates that while a bias is evidenced in the

consistently upward progression of Figure 3a, the bias is not due to recency in regard to Person

of the Year, but perhaps to some other measure of importance.

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Figure 3a

Time’s Person of the Year - Ascending Order

Figure 3b

Time’s Person of the Year - By Year

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Another search that was added that was not performed in the Tankard & Royal study was

to consider musical artists over time. An artist holding the #1 song on the Billboard Top 100 for

the first week in February of each year since 1940 was selected (Appendix C shows artists by

year). Figure 4a depicts the word count of the main Wikipedia article associated with that artist

in ascending order for each of the selected artists, again depicting the backward L-shaped

distribution. Figure 4b shows each artist by year. While the pattern in the graph appears to

indicate a random distribution, the Spearman correlation with time was .30 (See Figure 8). By

eliminating just two outliers (Bing Crosby – 1945 and the Beatles – 1964), the correlation

increases to .40. The average word count for the artists since 1990 was 32% higher than for the

years from 1940-1989 (3332 vs. 2511). Similar to the trends found in film, it shows that while

the recency relationship is strong, some artists transcend time and receive more coverage on

Wikipedia than would be indicated by their currency.

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Figure 4a

Artists with #1 Songs on Billboard – Ascending Order

Figure 4b

Artists with #1 Songs on Billboard – By Year

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To measure comprehensiveness of information, we used the same random sample

employed in the Tankard & Royal study of 100 topics from the Micropaedia of the

Encyclopaedia Britannica (See Appendix D). Figure 6 shows the word count of each term’s main

page on Wikipedia. Once again, a backward L-shaped distribution emerged. Of the 100 items,

14 did not have a Wikipedia entry (included phrases such as “Russian Association of Proletariat

Writers,” “League for the Independence of Vietnam,” and “urethane”). Fifteen of the terms had

articles with a word count of 2000 or more. The average word count for those 15 terms was 5

times that of the average word count for the other items on the list with Wikipedia articles.

A Spearman correlation was used to compare inches of content in the Micropaedia of the

Encyclopaedia Britannica with word count on Wikipedia. This correlation was calculated at .26,

indicating some relationship with the importance placed on information in the traditional

encyclopedia with that in Wikipedia (See Figure 8). In some cases, the articles on Wikipedia

indicated that the content had been derived from a print encyclopedia source. There was no time

dimension or other predictor variable with which to compare for encyclopedia terms.

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Figure 5

Encyclopedia Terms – Ascending Order

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Figure 6a shows the word count for the main Wikipedia article by country in the United

Nations in ascending order. Articles were analyzed for all 192 countries of the United Nations.

Once again, a backward L-shaped distribution emerged. The distribution is fairly even, with a

sharp increase experienced for the top 22 countries. Figure 6b shows a gradual upward

distribution when charted in order by population (higher number indicates higher population).

Spearman correlation for countries with population was .55, indicating that the larger countries

were more represented on Wikipedia in terms of word count per article (see Figure 8). The top

10% of countries by population accounted for 15% of the total word count for country articles

and the average word count for the top 10% of countries was 63% higher than those on the rest

of the list.

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Figure 6a

Countries in UN – Ascending Order

Figure 6b

Countries of the UN - Ordered By Population

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Figure 7a shows the word count for a random selection of 86 Fortune 1000 companies in

ascending order (Appendix E lists the selection of companies). This chart shows the backward

L-shaped distribution with a sharp increase for 10% of the companies. Another 10% of the

companies did not have Wikipedia entries. Figure 7b shows the companies ranked by revenue

(higher number indicates higher revenue). The chart shows a distribution trending toward

increased word count for companies with the highest revenue. The Spearman correlation for

word count of these articles with company revenue was .49. The top 10% of the companies by

revenue accounted for 30% of the total word count for articles about companies.

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Figure 7a

Fortune 1000 Companies – Ascending Order

Figure 7b

Fortune 1000 Companies - By Revenue

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In terms of country population, biases toward larger countries were found and were

positively correlated with country size. This indicates that the democratic nature of Wikipedia

on its own cannot counteract the effects of the magnitude of people that are available to

participate.

And, in regard to Fortune 1000 companies, those with larger revenue streams and

resources are more likely to have greater coverage on Wikipedia. This points to the strength of

financial power in circumventing any type of democratizing feature of an online space.

Conclusion

In some ways, this was a more straightforward study than the one performed by Tankard

& Royal. In their study, they had difficulty in determining whether certain searches were

capturing all the information on a topic while not including irrelevant information. For example,

search for years in a search engine can provide references to the numbers rather than the years.

They attempted to alleviate this problem by searching for the word “year” before the numerical

year and putting quotation marks around that text string. This did not capture hits regarding

years that were not preceded by the word “year”. Some searches were difficult to perform if the

topics were not presented consistently, as in the encyclopedia terms.

Shariatmadari (2006) identified characteristics of Wikipedia that make this case as well.

Wikipedia is specifically intended as a work of reference while using a search engine is not. A

search engine’s purpose is to identify various sites as opposed to finding immediate context.

Shariatmadari also indicated some coverage issues with Wikipedia, finding content more on

popular culture and science fiction than history.

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In general, the searches on Wikipedia revealed individual articles on each topic, making

it easier to identify the relevancy of it to the search item. And, Wikipedia conveniently provided

an article stub for each year. A stub is an empty article that is ready to receive content. While this

approach does not measure all the content on Wikipedia related to a particular year, it does

provide one indicator of the amount of coverage and attention given to a year. Additional

searches that were not done in the Tankard & Royal study were performed on the recency or

currency dimension to help improve this area, including Time Magazine Person of the Year,

Academy Award Winning Films by Year, and Artists having #1 Songs by Year.

Length of the individual article was all that was included in the Word Count for each

topic. One feature of the Web that is also a feature of Wikipedia is the usage of links. Most

articles included links to other articles that enhanced or augmented the content of a particular

stub. Often these links are tangents, describing other people or events mentioned in the article.

Trying to capture the word count of associated links would have made for an unwieldy study.

Information on Wikipedia is extremely volatile and dynamic. Articles can change

dramatically over time. This study was performed during November 2006 and each search

within a variable was performed on the same day during the same time period, to improve the

comparison of that information. This project merely captures the presence of information in the

timeframe under analysis. Some of the biases uncovered may subside or change over time. So,

while this study uncovered important biases in information being presented on Wikipedia, it will

be important to continue research in the area of measuring both accuracy as well as completeness

of information on online sites that are becoming important information resources, particularly

those taking advantage of the democratic and open source features of the technology.

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Appendix A: Academy Award Winning Films

1928 Wings1929 Broadway Melody

1930 All Quiet on the Western Front

1931 Cimarron1932 Grand Hotel

1933 Cavalcade

1934 It Happened One Night

1935 Mutiny on the Bounty1936 The Great Ziegfeld

1937 The Life of Emile Zola

1938 You Can't Take it With You1939 Gone with the Wind

1940 Rebecca

1941 How Green Was My Valley

1942 Mrs. Miniver 1943 Casablanca

1944 Going My Way

1945 The Lost Weekend1946 The Best Years of Our Lives

1947 Gentleman's Agreement

1948 Hamlet1949 All the King's Men

1950 All about Eve

1951 An American in Paris1952 The Greatest Show on Earth

1953 From Here to Eternity

1954 On the Waterfront1955 Marty

1956 Around the World in 80 Days

1957 The Bridge on the River Kwai

1958 Gigi1959 Ben-Hur

1960 The Apartment

1961 West Side Story1962 Lawrence of Arabia

1963 Tom Jones

1964 My Fair Lady1965 The Sound of Music

1966 A Man for All Seasons

1967 In the Heat of the Night

1968 Oliver!1969 Midnight Cowboy

1970 Patton

1971 The French Connection1972 The Godfather

1973 The Sting

1974 The Godfather Part II

1975 One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest1976 Rocky

1977 Annie Hall

1978 The Deer Hunter 1979 Kramer vs. Kramer

1980 Ordinary People

1981 Chariots of Fire

1982 Gandhi1983 Terms of Endearment

1984 Amadeus

1985 Out of Africa1986 Platoon

1987 The Last Emperor

1988 Rain Man1989 Driving Miss Daisy

1990 Dances With Wolves

1991 The Silence of the Lambs1992 Unforgiven

1993 Schindler's List

1994 Forrest Gump1995 Braveheart

1996 The English Patient

1997 Titanic

1998 Shakespeare in Love1999 American Beauty

2000 Gladiator

2001 A Beautiful Mind2002 Chicago

2003 Lord of the Rings: Return of the

King2004 Million Dollar Baby

2005 Crash

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Appendix B: Time Person of the Year

1927 Charles Augustus Lindbergh1928 Walter P. Chrysler

1929 Owen D. Young

1930 Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi1931 Pierre Laval

1932 Franklin Delano Roosevelt

1933 Hugh Samuel Johnson

1934 Franklin Delano Roosevelt1935 Haile Selassie

1936 Mrs. Wallis Warfield Simpson

1937 Chiang Kai-Shek 1938 Adolf Hitler

1939 Joseph Stalin

1940 Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

1941 Franklin Delano Roosevelt1942 Joseph Stalin

1943 George Catlett Marshall

1944 Dwight David Eisenhower 1945 Harry Truman

1946 James F. Byrnes

1947 George Catlett Marshall1948 Harry Truman

1949 Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill

1951 Mohammed Mossadegh1952 Elizabeth II

1953 Konrad Adenauer

1954 John Foster Dulles1955 Harlow Herbert Curtice

1957 Nikita Krushchev

1958 Charles De Gaulle

1959 Dwight David Eisenhower 1961 John Fitzgerald Kennedy

1962 Pope John XXIII1963 Martin Luther King Jr.

1964 Lyndon B. Johnson

1965 General William ChildsWestmoreland

1967 Lyndon B. Johnson

1970 Willy Brandt

1971 Richard Milhous Nixon1973 John J. Sirica

1974 King Faisal

1976 Jimmy Carter 1977 Anwar Sadat

1978 Teng Hsiao-P'ing

1979 Ayatullah Khomeini

1980 Ronald Reagan1981 Lech Walesa

1984 Peter Ueberroth

1985 Deng Xiaoping1986 Corazon Aquino

1987 Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev

1989 Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev1991 Ted Turner

1992 Bill Clinton

1994 Pope John Paul II1995 Newt Gingrich

1996 Dr. David Ho

1997 Andy Grove1999 Jeff Bezos

2000 George W. Bush

2001 Rudy Giuliani

2004 George W. Bush

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Appendix C: Artist with Billboard #1 Song First Week of February

1940 Tommy Dorsey1941 Artie Shaw

1942 Glenn Miller

1943 Harry James1944 Glen Gray

1945 Bing Crosby

1946 Vaughn Monroe

1947 Sammy Kaye1948 Vaughn Monroe

1949 Evelyn Knight

1950 Andrews Sisters1951 Patti Page

1952 Johnny Ray

1953 Perry Como

1954 Eddie Fisher 1955 Joan Weber

1956 Dean Martin

1957 Guy Mitchell1958 Danny and the Juniors

1959 The Platters

1960 Johnny Preston1961 The Shirelles

1962 Joey Dee & the Starliters

1963 The Rooftop Singers1964 The Beatles

1965 Petula Clark

1966 Simon & Garfunkel1967 The Monkees

1968 John Fred & His Playboy Band

1969 Tommy James & the Shondells

1970 The Jackson 51971 Dawn

1972 Don McLean

1973 Stevie Wonder

1974 Ringo Starr 1975 Neil Sedaka

1976 Ohio Players

1977 Rose Royce1978 Player

1979 Chic

1980 Michael Jackson

1981 Blondie1982 Daryl Hall & John Oates

1983 Men at Work

1984 Yes1985 Madonna

1986 Dionne Warwick

1987 Billy Vera and The Beaters

1988 INXS1989 Phil Collins

1990 Michael Bolton

1991 Surface1992 George Michael

1993 Whitney Houston

1994 Mariah Carey1995 TLC

1996 Boyz II Men

1997 Toni Braxton1998 Janet Jackson

1999 Britney Spears

2000 Savage Garden2001 Destiny's Child

2002 Nickelback

2003 B2K

2004 OutKast2005 Mario

2006 Nelly

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Appendix D: Random Selection of Encyclopedia Terms

actinAin River

Albert Nile

alkaline phosphatoseAn Srath Ban

analytic geometry

Antigonish

Augsburg ConfessionAugust Baron Lambermont

Big Sandy River

Bogdah botanical garden

calamine brass

cecum

Central African Federationcesura

Copernicus

Cote-Saint-LucDarcy's Law

domestication

dragondysmenorrhea

Earl Carroll

electromagnetic inductionequine

Fort Portal

frame designGeorge Edward Stanhope

Molyneux Herbert

Giacomo Meyerbeer

gyroscopeHans Geiger

Haratin

Hei-hoHenry Jackson

Herman Busenbaum

horntailhumour

Ijma

Ismail Gasprinski

Itaipu DamJack Miner

Jacobus van Looy

James H. Doolittle

Jefferson DavisJohn Davis

Kobenhavn

League for theIndependence of Vietnam

Lennart Torstenson

Leroy Randle Grumman

Louis-Armand de Lomd'Arce

Lydd

MabMaes

Maravi Confederacy

Marc A. Mitscher

Marcus Eremitamarlin

Max Weber

Mistinquett Nicomachus

Normandy Invasion

Olympiasostinato

paper

Paris BasinPastoral Epistles

Paul Signac

Philip Schaff Pierre Nicole

Ponca

PTA

Quintus Fabius Pictor rampion

Republican River

Robert Lansingrose moss

Rudolph Jacob Camerarius

Russian Association of Proletarian Writers

Saint George

Saint Irenaeus

SalemSalon

silica

Socialist Realism

Sporting RecordSterling Price

Suceava

sun rosetemenggong

The Spectator

Time magazine

Tirso de MolinaUniversal Declaration of

Human Rights

urethanevideodisc

Wesselenyi Conspiracy

William Pole

William Wrigley, Jr.Zenshin

Ziya Gokalp

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Appendix E: Random Selection of Fortune 1000 companies

Air Products & ChemicalsAlberto-Culver

Allegheny Energy

America West HoldingsAmerican Greetings

Armstrong Holdings

AT&T

Auto-Owners InsuranceAutoZone

Avnet

Avon ProductsBellSouth

Benchmark Electronics

Beverly Enterprises

BoeingBriggs & Stratton

Cablevision Systems

ChubbCitizens Communications

Colgate-Palmolive

ConAgraCountrywide Credit

CUNA Mutual Group

Eastman Kodak Echostar Communications

Ecolab

El PasoEli Lilly

Energy East

Equity Office Properties

Expeditors International of WashingtonGap Inc.

General Motors

Genesis Health VenturesGold Kist

Goodrich

Great Plains EnergyH.B. Fuller

Hershey Foods

Hewlett-Packard

Hilton HotelsHome Depot

Hovnanian Enterprises

Humana

Ikon Office SolutionsITT Industries

J.C. Penney

KB HomeKellogg Company

Kellwood

Knight-Ridder

Legg MasonLehman Brothers

Lennar

Lennox InternationalLockheed Martin

LSI Logic

Mandalay Resort Group

Manor CareManpower Inc.

Marsh & McLennan

McKessonMDC Holdings

Mutual of Omaha

National Fuel Gas Northwest Airlines

Omnicare

Phelps DodgePNC Financial

Primedia

SafecoSchering-Plough

Scientific-Atlanta

Sentry Insurance Group

Snap-OnSonoco Products

SPX

Stanley WorksStarbucks

Sun Microsystems

Swift TransportationTenneco Automotive

Thermo Electron

Viacom

Walt DisneyWestern Digital

ge 33 of 33 Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication

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