Model of Wikipedia growth based on information exchange via reciprocal arcs

Abstract

We show how reciprocal arcs significantly influence the structural\norganization of Wikipedias, online encyclopedias. It is shown that random\naddition of reciprocal arcs in the static network cannot explain the observed\nreciprocity of Wikipedias. A model of Wikipedia growth based on preferential\nattachment and on information exchange via reciprocal arcs is presented. An\nexcellent agreement between in-degree distributions of our model and real\nWikipedia networks is achieved without fitting the distributions, but by merely\nextracting a small number of model parameters from the measurement of real\nnetworks.\n