Zero Geography: Visualising the locality of participation and voice on #Wikipedia
▻http://www.zerogeography.net/2014/12/visualising-locality-of-participation.html
On the vertical axis of the figure we can see a clear division between regions that are largely able to define themselves and regions that are largely defined by others. The world regions separate into two distinct groups of three (with Asia in the middle): Sub-Saharan Africa, Middle East & North Africa, Latin America & Caribbean receive comparatively few edits from within their territories (around 25 percent). Europe, Oceania and North America on the other hand receive primarily edits from within (around 75 percent). Asia is edited from within and from outside to almost equal degrees. In other words, there are significant parts of the world in which a majority of content is not locally generated.
(...)
• Even when editors from Sub-Saharan Africa spend most of their edits within region, their small numbers mean that most content still comes from elsewhere.
• The global cores of North America and Europe self-represent very effectively by focusing on their own regions.
• Content appears to be very sensitive to feedback loops. (...)
Large amounts of geospatial content show no sign of deterring people from further contributions and editing: as more content exists, so too do more articles to amend, augment, update and build upon. (...) A relative lack of content may further reinforce perceptions amongst editors that little content equates to a small audience that is not worth writing for.
