Wiki143:Random pages test

File:Size of English Wikipedia (1000 vol).svg

This visualisation of Wikipedia's coverage is based on a random pages test (User:Smallbones/1000 random results).

Suppose you want to answer some broad question about Wikipedia. Is it any good? What subjects does it cover? In what proportions? Is there much vandalism?

Finding a truly accurate answer would mean reading every article. However, Wikipedia has quite a few articles. Studying a random selection is a more practical approach to get a grasp on these questions – and compiling this sample is as simple as hitting Special:Random a bunch of times to record what comes up.

Random pages tests by various editors can be found in Category:Random pages tests, although the category is not comprehensive. The concept of random sampling is not exactly original to Wikipedia; indeed, various editors seem to have independently conceived the idea in Wikipedia's context several times over. The earliest tests date back to 2003. The number of articles in these tests ranges from as few as ten to as many as one thousand.

Selected examples

Selected examples of random pages tests

Link	Date	Sample	User	Notes
meta:English Wikipedia Quality Survey	Template:Dts	200	Template:Noping	An early example. Possibly the earliest.
User:Matt Crypto/RandomArticles	Template:Dts	100	Template:Noping	Employed a script to weight articles by pageviews. See also User:Stormie/Random.
User:Carnildo/The 100	Template:Dts	100	Template:Noping	A longitudinal study – sample followed up three times in 2006, then again in 2015.
User:Opabinia regalis/Article statistics	Template:Dts	250	Template:Noping	A large sample for the time.
Wikipedia:Counter-Vandalism Unit/Vandalism studies/Study1	Template:Dts	174	Collaboration	Focus on vandalism prevalence.
User:Knulclunk/Random	Template:Dts	200	Template:Noping	Visualised with pie charts.
Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-06-22/Vandalism	Template:Dts	100	Loren Cobb (Template:Noping)	Focus on vandalism prevalence.
User:Smallbones/1000 random results	Template:Dts	1000	Template:Noping	A large sample.
User:North8000/Display	Template:Dts	1000	Template:Noping	Another large sample.